Educational leaders working to find the safest way to re-open schools in 2021

DAYTON — Officials for the Montgomery County Educational Service Center and Dayton Public Schools are looking at all options as they prepare to re-open schools, one way or another, after the first of the year.

As they look at all of the latest research, they are finding that schools may be “the safest place to be right now.”

“We thought school were going to be super-spreaders. They aren’t,” Shannon Cox, Superintendent of the Montgomery County Educational Service Center, said. “We thought students were going to be super-spreaders and so far they haven’t been.”

>> Louisville police plan to fire detective who got search warrant for Breonna Taylor’s home

Cox says that it is an advantage for schools to be able to enforce COVID-19 protocols, such as masking and social distancing.

The biggest hurdle schools will have to face in returning to in-person learning is having enough substitute teachers.

As they work through protocols and plans, both health officials and educational leaders agree that to get students and teachers back in school safely may take a little longer than most would hope.

Cox Media Group