Going back to school

is being debated by medical staff, teachers, parents and of course the pupils.
Ms W is supposed to be back at school on Monday. She is going but not everyone will. 
Class sizes in her school are small enough that "social distancing" can be handled relatively easily. The school has informed parents that they expect to see students there. Measures have been taken for checking on everyone and additional measures are in place to help the teachers. There will be no competitive sport for now and other measures have been taken to ensure everyone's safety. 
It all sounds very much like "commonsense" but I know a lot of work has gone into planning it. 
Perhaps it is the sort of thing that parents expect when paying fees to have their children educated.
Certainly it has been no holiday for the teachers. Ms W has been able to talk to all her teachers at set times. One of them told me that it has been "very hard work". She also informed that it has been an excellent way of finding out who can really work alone. It seems likely some of Ms W's peers are going to find themselves talked to about being more organised and disciplined.  Others have shown they can do what needs to be done with a minimum of supervision and a few, like Ms W, have simply gone ahead and done what needed to be done and even a bit more than that. 
Ms W has mixed feelings about returning to school. She misses her friends but she thinks, rightly, that she has achieved a great deal at home. She does not want to return to the boarding house - but only because she does not like her father being at home alone. He will not being going in to work. Will he feed himself properly?  The freezer is apparently now packed with "meals for one". All he has to do is heat them up.
But not everyone is happy about students going back to school. Ignoring the medical advice the teachers' union is saying that it isn't safe. Now I admit that "social distance" measures would be a real problem in school, especially given the way some classrooms are set up, but I can think of ways it could be done -and ways in which the adults can maintain "social distance" as well. 
Six weeks ago things were very different here. We were expecting thousands of cases in this state alone.  The "stay at home" strategy has seemed to work. We aren't over the danger period by any means but we do seem to have things at a manageable level - and it may stay like that if people are sensible and listen to advice. 
The teachers' union seems to think it knows more than the medical experts about this. I find that rather strange when they were so busy encouraging students to skip school and join in the protests of a certain young Swedish activist last year. Then they seemed all too happy to say that they were following the "settled science" with respect to another major issue.
The Leader of the Opposition was also saying that the situation must not be used to reopen debate about work practices and conditions - unless favourable to employees and unions of course. 
Perhaps though this is the very thing that does need to happen. We do need to challenge some of our thinking on what seems to be settled. We need to do it so we can make positive changes to the economy and the way we live. 
I know that people like certainty. It's hard to be flexible...but perhaps we will need to learn how to be just that.