Opening Yeshivas

In the out of town community where I live, our schools have been open this entire school year, albeit with sporadic closings of specific classes.
We have implemented a containment protocol which includes all staff and students wearing masks except when eating or during recess. Each class has maintained its own bubble, with no mixing of classes allowed during lunch, recess, or any other time.
School does not seem to be a major source of spread, judging by who did and didn’t get the virus within each class.
Our Shuls (with varying degrees of strictness) still maintain social distancing and mask wearing policies, and some even still require registration for Minyanim. Our stores (both the Jewish-owned ones and the non-Jewish-owned ones) still require mask wearing and social distancing.

I was in the NY/NJ area several times recently, and in most places it’s as if there is no virus. This has to be the bigger issue than opening the schools. Indeed, it would seem to make the question of opening schools a joke. Why not open the schools if everything else (restaurants, shuls, weddings, shopping, etc) is business as usual?

The Gedolei Eretz Yisrael that you referenced were discussing whether to open school in context of a strict lockdown in the rest of society.

I’m going to go with what @catch-yourself said. The schools aren’t the issue, the issue is where people pretend that COVID is over. Also in my community (which may be the same one) schools are open, but very carefully with mask wearing and minimizing class mixing. The virus is spreading a little bit through the schools, but not in a worse way than anywhere else. The major upticks still seem to be from the people who have no problem dancing indoors at chasunas with 800 other people, none of them with masks or social distancing.

There are no absolutes at this point, we need to think how to improve things incrementally:

ujm: children are *NOT* a major spreader
indeed, probability of passing the virus is lower with age. Teenagers are same as adults. Having more close contacts increases that. So, if you are in a community where nobody is careful, then (elementary/middle) school are not a priority. But, where there are some adults who are more careful, children in schools are a relative high risk.

Ari256: probably need to focus more on providing families tools to teach their children at home, whether it is one day a week or anything else. The less children are at school at the same time, the better.

Ari- i think both sides of the issue have enough facts to back them up so even if i disagree with your take, i think you have every right to be upset.

Schools by me have been doing things that catch yourself describes and despite revolving quarentines it has been pretty evident that school is not the problem.and having school in session has rescued them from several other problems.

Why is it about having kids? It’s either science based or it isn’t

today’s WSJ: Europe is closing schools as evidence shows levels of infection, changing their previous November position, quoting multiple studies from UK, Germany, Austria, Swiss..

Still, I think it is clear now that humanity, Jews included, fears children at home more than a pandemic.
So, maybe you can think pragmatically – what can you do: could you strengthen yourself and fulfill “the shinantem levaneha” on your own for one day with one kid? do that. then, see if you can do it for 2 days with 2 kids. Find a subject that you will enjoy teaching, or the one that you would love to learn. Kids will really respect you more when they see you struggling with rishonim or algebra. Maybe we should have a thread for parent self-help … Exchanging 2 algebra quizzes for one English essay.