Signs of normalcy

A couple of blocks from my home, workers have erected a fence around an empty commercial building, and an excavator is parked on the site, awaiting the go-ahead to begin tearing the building down.

The scene represents the first step in clearing the land for construction of an elementary school, one that will replace an outdated facility down the street. Eventually they will raze the school building where my children spent their formative years from kindergarten to sixth grade acquiring basic skills like reading and arithmetic.

Some may wax sentimental about the demise of the aging campus, raise questions about whether a new school is needed, or whether the site chosen is the best one available. Will the new school provide the same sense of community that the existing building has nurtured the last 50 years? That remains to be seen.

But to me, the makeshift fence and bright orange barriers that suddenly appeared on the construction site in the last few days symbolize something else. They are tangible reminders that even as so many school activities in the last year have been disrupted and or wiped out altogether by the Covid-19 pandemic, education institutions still are carrying out “normal” operations, like planning and building new schools.

My neighborhood is not the only one where construction workers are ready to put shovels (and excavators) into the ground and build a new school. In recent months, even as the pandemic kept many classrooms empty, voters in districts from coast to coast showed their support for school systems by approving billions of dollars in bond requests for capital improvements; billions more in funding requests are on the ballot in the coming months.

The signs are hopeful that schools and universities can focus more on building projects and other long-term facility needs in the coming months. The heated conflicts about when and how to reopen classrooms and bring students back to campuses have eased as health officials learn more about Covid-19 and how to combat it.

Schools are getting plenty of financial help to safely reopen. A federal aid package enacted in December earmarked $54 billion for K-12 schools and $23 billion for higher education. Follow-up legislation approved in March provided $130 billion for K-12 schools and $40 billion for higher education.

Just as important for many of those who work in classrooms, an aggressive national push by the Biden administration to distribute vaccine made the shots widely available, and getting them into teachers’ arms—considered an essential step for reopening classrooms—was made a top a priority.

Even with the latest run of positive news, Covid-19 continues to threaten the health and safety of students and staff, and schools must keep measures in place to combat spread of the disease.

But, maybe, by the time that new school is ready to open in my neighborhood in a couple of years, Covid-19 will be an unpleasant memory and not an all-consuming menace dominating our lives.