If all goes according to plan, the remaining few weeks of school before winter break will be the final weeks of distance learning. Of course the next six or so weeks may not go according to plan, and we should be ready to adjust to new realities as they continue to unfurl.

But assuming there is no surge of new cases from now until January, the phasing out of distance learning is a good thing.

The stressors, challenges and distractions that come with distance learning impact all aspects of student life: academics, social and emotional development, psychological well-being. And students aren’t the only ones affected. Families are strained, teachers are exhausted.

These are easily justifiable sacrifices in a pandemic – stress and developmental delays can be addressed much more effectively than death – but they are sacrifices nonetheless. Distance learning is not a serious long-term proposal except in the direst possible futures.

At some point we have to start moving toward the next step: blended learning, where students take turns coming to school and staying at home. It’s not unreasonable to argue that we are not yet at that point, and that large groups of students should not be returning to school in-person until we reach safer benchmarks of COVID-19 management.

A lot of teachers are either themselves immunocompromised or live with someone who is. Their anxieties and concerns are real. I feel for them, just as I feel for the kids stuck in unstable home environments without any friends or activities to help them cope. There is simply no way to do right by all parties, so we have to find the best imperfect solution.

That’s why blended learning is a defensible compromise, especially since having small groups of students at school these past few months has proven to be a broadly successful intervention.

Blended learning is riskier than distance learning but less risky than a full-blown student return, while its academic and social benefits are similarly positioned – better than distance learning, not as good as the pre-pandemic normal.

Hawaii averaged about 96 new COVID-19 cases per day in November, a manageable amount for a state of roughly 1.4 million residents. Even as tourism returned last month, the number of new cases never exceeded 163 in a single day. Even if you think it is too soon for students to start coming back, you have to admit we’re getting close.

Communication Challenges

There is one crucial, yet easily avoidable flaw in the plan, though. As it stands, blended learning will begin the first week back from winter break, the week following New Year’s Day. This puts schools and families in a position where unforced errors will almost certainly occur.

Communication between schools and families has been hit and miss. Some parents are much more responsive and communicative than others, and the same could be said of teachers and school staff. Everyone is busy and stressed, forcing a lot of students to become the primary means of communication between the adults in their lives.

In the closing weeks of this academic quarter, the focus is on finishing final projects and getting students caught up. Even if we spent a portion of class time going over schedules for January – which we can’t, since they aren’t official yet and could still change – that information would most likely be forgotten over the two weeks of holiday vacation.

If we start the first week of the third quarter in a blended learning model, it will absolutely stir confusion among students and families, confusion that could have been obviated by simply having students start coming back to campus during the third week of the quarter instead. That would provide ample time for teachers to remind students and administrators to remind families when blended learning will begin.

That two-week buffer also has the added benefit of being a de facto quarantine period, which could be necessary as students travel around for the holidays. Schools aren’t able — and they shouldn’t be expected — to independently verify who among the student population traveled during break.

But even if we knew exactly who traveled and for how long, we can’t know for sure if they tested positive for COVID-19 or not, or whether they should be in quarantine. And if there is any kind of delay in receiving test results, a student could conceivably attend school in-person while unknowingly infected with the virus.

A school cluster could be potentially disastrous, and it doesn’t make any difference if it’s caused by a calculated gamble or honest ignorance.

Everyone has pandemic fatigue. It’s been nearly the entire year dealing with it, going from one lockdown to the next, having rules and information changed on us seemingly every other day.

We’d all love to rush back to some sense of normalcy, but that’s exactly why we have to resist the temptation to do so. As any teacher can attest, doing things right is much more important than doing them quickly.

We’ve come this far already. We can wait a few more weeks to make sure we do it right.