Dear Reader,

MLive started the newsletter “Michigan Schools: Education in the COVID Era” in August, as K-12 systems across the state faced the challenges of opening amid a pandemic.

It sheds light on issues facing the schools and teachers, but also families dealing with virtual or in-person learning, child care, digital access and burnout.

MLive reporters, in my view, have earned an “A” – they tackle meaty issues every week, and more than 9,000 of you have signed up for the newsletter to see a collection of that work every Tuesday in your email inbox.

The educational system, however, is struggling. With no centralized, consistent approach to effective learning or public health orders, the state’s nearly 600 public school districts are left on their own to create ad-hoc approaches to a set of unknowns.

Parents are left in the lurch; schools cannot build momentum toward any kind of consistency; and learning is suffering, to say the least.

“A lot of experts that I have talked to are calling it a lost year,” said Zahra Ahmad, a reporter on MLive’s statewide team who has written about education policy and outcomes. “But I think it's super important that … we don't shift the blame on the educators or the students or the parents, because they're trying their absolute hardest to adjust.”

Ahmad wrote a piece last week explaining why K-8 students are allowed to go to school for in-person learning, but high school students cannot. Melissa Frick, who covers education for MLive in Grand Rapids and Muskegon, pointed out that schools are opting in and out of that K-8 option – by district, and by outbreak.

It’s subjective, and “subjective” is another word for “confusing” when there was no emergency plan in place and there’s no consistent approach during a pandemic, but rather a series of reactions to changing public health conditions.

“I was really surprised when that first state order came down,” Frick said. “What I had heard time and time again from not only school leaders but from health experts is, schools are some of the safest places to be right now, much safer than if you're going to a restaurant or a bar,” Frick said.

She noted schools can control their spaces, and the people in them, much better than other public venues: They can mandate social spacing, make students wear masks and wash hands, and sanitize rooms consistently.

The state orders, as well-intentioned as they may be, just add to the confusing whiplash for school administrators and parents and students. It also shows a lack of comprehensive planning, and highlights unaddressed stressors in our education system in Michigan.

“The weight of this last year really needs to fall on to the people that are making the laws, the ones that are supposed to respond in crises and emergencies,” Ahmad said. “I think the state Legislature really has to ask itself: What kind of system are we building and would it be able to sustain another crisis like COVID?”

I hope we never repeat what we’re going through. It’s been every school for itself, all parents for themselves. Frick wrote this week about the loss of 800 students in the Grand Rapids public school system, “solely because of the pandemic,” she said.

“Maybe it's a single-parent household or you've got both parents working and they can't take the time off of work to stay home with their child and help them with learning. Some families left the district to do homeschooling, some left to other public schools in the area or even private schools, and then some just transition to charter schools.”

Everyone for themselves is not public policy, it’s chaos. Decentralized schools, inadequate funding, the digital divide, staff shortages and other issues were existing issues. The pandemic blew the cracks wide open, and it now is a crisis that will outlive the virus itself.

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🎧 To hear my conversation with Ahmad and Frick on this week’s episode of “Behind the Headlines,” click here. We discuss the last shutdown orders, teacher and other staff shortages, the digital divide for poor and rural students, and more. To hear all the stories behind the stories, click here and subscribe to our Behind the Headlines podcast.