EDITORIAL: No more teachers, no more books? Think again

There’s plenty to nitpick in the details, but let’s leave that for another day. Instead, the Clark County School District’s announcement on Wednesday that all students will be returning to the classroom in coming weeks is welcome and long overdue.

“It is exciting, but in many ways, it is like we are starting over,” said Robert Hinchliffe, principal of Tyrone Thompson Elementary School. “But we just have to stay positive and look at the end result, which is that many kids are returning to school.”

The district’s plan expands on the earlier decision to have younger children — pre-K through third grade — begin a hybrid schedule on Monday of two days in the classroom and three days of virtual learning. The next step will occur, March 22 when kids in grades six, nine and 12 will return to school on a similar program. Two weeks later on April 6, the district plans to open elementary schools for full-time in-person learning while also allowing kids in seventh, eighth, 10th and 11th grades back on campus two days a week.

In addition, the district will sanction competition for spring sports beginning April 16 while creating an intramural schedule for some fall sports that had been canceled.

It’s true that, with the school year set to end May 26, many students will be in the classroom under this model for only a handful of days before the break. But any step forward is a positive one, and the experience in the coming few months will better prepare the district to fully reopen in August for the next academic year. State and district officials should also consider expanding the current year into the summer or at least funding academic programs in June and July that could help struggling students catch up.

Safety protocols remain necessary, of course, to soothe both parents and educators. But other jurisdictions have successfully opened classrooms for months without major incident. Local private schools have done the same.

The “science” vastly favors reopening campuses, and the dramatic decrease in the state’s COVID numbers over the past seven weeks further undercuts the arguments from those who essentially posit that even the most minimal risk is too great. It’s also important that school virus restrictions not be so draconian as to create a de facto ban on reopening, and Gov. Steve Sisolak’s decision to increase campus capacity limits to 75 percent wisely recognized such.

We won’t know for years the depth of the destruction wrought by shuttering schools for more than a year to combat the coronavirus. But Superintendent Jesus Jara’s decision is the first step toward mitigating the damage for Southern Nevada families.