Unsafe practices.

Wednesday, August 5th, 2020

A picture of a crowded locker-lined hallway “went viral” today, in these pandemic times.

It was, Atlanta’s wsbtv.com reported, taken on the first day of school around dismissal time at North Paulding High School by a 10th grade student named Hannah.

Paulding County is west and north of Atlanta about 40 miles.

The superintendent, Dr. Brian Otott, issued a “Message from Dr. Otott” (reported by WSB) to parents, which said the images had been (say it along with me) taken out of context. When you have a high school of more than 2000 students and they change classes (I’m paraphrasing), you get some of this..uh, congregating and it’s an area that they’re working on. Adjustments may need to be made. Apparently they did in-person teaching Monday through Wednesday this week and then Thursday and Friday kids will be learning remotely so that “all of our schools can step back and assess how things are going so far.”

Adjustments, needed adjustments. That phrase was sprinkled multiple times in his “message”. So his “missing context” mostly was: “we’re adjusting.”

School should not be an “adjustable” community science experiment.