Yes. Send them back. But do it right.

It is time. All parents need the option to put their children back in school for more than two days a week.

All it takes to know that is a quick glance at the numbers. Here are a few of the highlights (or lowlights) from the 2020-21 school year in Wayne County:

• The number of students failing classes — up to 30 to 50 percent in the county’s elementary and middle schools — and the plummeting literacy rates in those same schools.

• The appallingly low attendance rates in county schools — especially at the high school level.

• The shockingly few students who are actually doing all of their assignments in virtual learning or even taking the time to log in.

• The sobering statistics about obesity, loneliness, desperation, emotional problems — and even suicide attempts — that are crippling our nation’s youths as they battle with the isolation of virtual learning.

• And, perhaps most disturbing, the astronomical percentage of students at the high school level who have lost AT LEAST one year of educational progress, are failing core classes and who might not have the credits they need to graduate — even after the school board relaxed the requirements.

We can all agree that we cannot hide from COVID-19 indefinitely — and that politics has mixed with public policy creating conflicting messages and legitimate questions about the pandemic response. 

But with vaccination rates climbing and infection levels seeming to stabilize, now might very well be the right time to bring children back to the classroom.

But that is not what worries us about the Wayne County Board of Education’s decision Tuesday or why we think the board needs to reconsider a couple points.

Four members of the board voted to return children in K-12 to classes under Plan A five days a week on March 29.

A bold choice, right? 

A decisive response to the calls that it is time to get back to life. The expected and proper next step after the governor and the Legislature finally agreed that our children need to be back in school and removed the obstacles to making that happen.

And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of a victory lap about being “right” in their push to get the students back to the books.

But there is more to look at here. A lot more.

There is a catch to the new order from Raleigh. A virtual option still has to be offered, and right now, there are 5,500+ WCPS students taking classes from home.

And while we might like to think that every child who has been in virtual school for the last year is ready to run back to the classroom, that is not so. Just talk to teachers who actually had some parents inform them today that their children would be pulled out of face-to-face instruction due to the relaxed social distancing requirements under Plan A.

So that number could — and likely will — increase. And the law requires schools to provide an equal education for those students who choose the virtual option.

Making that happen is not easy. 

Teachers have to prepare not just one set of lessons, but two. And they need time to dedicate to their all-virtual students. Interim Superintendent Dr. David Lewis told the board as much Tuesday — and noted that nearly every teacher in the district has a virtual workload. 

Sounds simple, right? Just make duplicate lessons for the virtual students and let them learn on their own while you teach in the classroom.

Nope. It doesn’t work that way. Again, just ask the teachers who have been charged, for months now, with executing two jobs at once.

The real problem is all of this takes time — to teach the online lesson, to interact with the students and to lead the discussion and answer questions. Then add calling the parents of the many students who are falling behind. To do it right requires a lot of attention.

Teachers have proven that they are willing to devote the extra time to make the dual-education model possible.

So, this is not about being lazy. It is about not having enough hours in a day.

The board asked the principals, Central Office staff and Lewis what they thought about reopening and how it could be done efficiently.

The answer was not, “Keep children in virtual learning.”

Nearly everyone wants students back in the classroom.

But they agreed, nearly unanimously, that the best course was a four-day week for face-to-face students — which would leave Wednesdays for teachers to meet the needs of virtual students.

They also asked to wait to begin Plan A until students returned from Spring Break, which starts in about two weeks. 

Other than the obvious idiocy of sending children back to school in a whole new plan for a four-day week (Good Friday is a holiday) right before they are about to head into vacation, the extra time would allow teachers who have taken the COVID vaccine to reach full immunity.

Because regardless of your personal beliefs on COVID, it seems logical to assume less social distancing under Plan A could increase COVID numbers. And it’s reasonable for teachers and staff to want to feel as safe as possible in their workplace — particularly if that would only require delaying a return to Plan A for four days.

So why, after intense lobbying from Assistant Superintendent Dr. Marcia Manning and Board Chairman Chris West got the teachers who wanted a vaccine priority on the list, would we send students back to school before those who got the vaccine are fully protected?

Given the dates of their second shots, most of those staff members won’t reach the 95% immunity threshold until the tail end of Spring Break.

It boggles the mind because this is the reality. Teachers and staff were offered the vaccine. If they chose to pass, that’s on them.

Now add in that all parents have been given a virtual option.

Board members could scoff at any COVID-related complaints and rightly say they ensured every WCPS educator and staff member had the opportunity to return from Spring Break 95% protected from the virus — and that every family was given the opportunity to choose what is best for their child.

So, neither of those requests — keeping Wednesdays virtual and returning after Spring Break — was about avoiding the ultimate return to face-to-face learning.

Neither was unreasonable or a bid to stay in a hybrid plan longer.

It wasn’t about not wanting to get back to work. It was not some kind of dodge to further delay the reopening.

It was about logic, common sense and what would work best from the people who have to make it happen.

And what those administrators got was “too bad,” “we don’t care what you say,” “suck it up and go back to work.”

Ugh, not another tone-deaf statement from the school board. Not again.

So, let’s boil this down.

Stop pushing your weight around. We get it. You think students need to get back in the classroom as soon as possible.

We believe families should have that option, too. And so do the teachers, administrators and school personnel — save a few of the outliers who are still uneasy about any return to normalcy until there is absolutely a definitive ruling the virus is no longer a danger.

We get that this is a political football — and that you might think that you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

We also get that this has been a long, drawn out process with delay after delay.

But the limits have still not been lifted — and the school district still has to offer a virtual option.

If the four-day week makes that work for the few weeks we have left of school — and yes, we are literally talking about roughly six weeks of actual instruction until the end of the school year by the time students return — do it.

And, please, Jennifer Strickland, stop telling people about ripping off a Band-Aid or one of the other cringe-worthy examples you gave of why you are not willing to listen to any modifications of the return to school order.

You are wrong. This is not a simple, just get back in the classroom enterprise. Gov. Roy Cooper and his inability to make a decision took care of that.

Telling people, “it may be hard, but deal with it” is an insult to every teacher and administrator who has been working within the confines and impossible expectations of a pandemic-altered school year.

Now, the bottom line.

Call a special meeting. Give the administrators the time they need to do this right. Respect the simple, and reasonable, request to start after Spring Break and keep Wednesday as a virtual day to allow teachers to provide the equal educational opportunities they are required to provide under the law.

It is only for a few weeks.

And let’s face it, the damage has already been done this year — and it is not a forgone conclusion that all of the students in Wayne County will come running back to school.

That is the other dirty little secret that no one is talking about.

There are benefits to being an all-virtual student built into the latest stimulus designed for those who are dealing with food insecurity. In short, you get more pandemic EBT benefits if you are all-virtual. A lot more.

And many of this county’s high school students are very happy working instead of coming to school — Lewis and several WCPS principals warned you about that months ago.

Demanding students head back to school immediately is about “the look” not the substance.

It is not about leading.

Well, it was about leading for board Chairman Chris West. As adamant as he has been about returning children to the classroom, he listened to what the Central Office personnel and his principals told him about the realities and made the decision accordingly.

He compromised in the spirit of logic.

But those who voted for the March 29 plan are not ogres, either.

They understand the price students have paid because of the prolonged shutdowns. They are worried about those numbers.

And they are right. We should have given families who felt comfortable the option to put their children back in class months ago.

But they are not taking into account the limits placed on districts by the state that made such a return nearly impossible.

We do not need “to rip off the Band-Aid.”

What we need to do is the best we can to finish out this year and to prepare for questions like:

• How are we going to make up the education the students have lost over the last year and a half?

• What do we do about the children who are on the verge of failing this year?

• Is summer school going to work — and can we get the attendance numbers we need?

• How can we use what we have learned over the pandemic to make next year a great success and get back on track?

• How can we use COVID dollars to improve our schools?

That is the bigger picture. That is the right plan.

So, we are asking that some of the cooler heads on the board, like Dr. Joe Democko and new board member Tommy Sanders, bridge the gap and call for a change in the reopening plan.

It is the right way to get this done.

We can argue about why we had to do it in the first place later.