Rush to reopen schools worries a majority of voters

A majority of American voters now say they’re concerned about sending kids back to elementary and high schools this fall, according to the latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that assessed the nation’s mood about students returning to day cares and schools shut down by the pandemic.

Governors and President Donald Trump want classes to resume, but educators and public health leaders are trying to figure out how — and if — that can be done. Top government health officials continue to warn of the need for increased Covid-19 testing, and the risks of young people congregating in crowds or overestimating their ability to resist the disease.

Voters in the poll also expressed notable skepticism about a return to some traditions of daily life: Roughly a third believe it will be more than six months before Americans can stop social distancing and return to public spaces.

Overall, a combined 54 percent of American voters said they are somewhat uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with reopening K-12 schools for the beginning of the coming school year. Fifty-eight percent of voters said they’re uncomfortable with reopening day care centers, according to the online survey of close to 2,000 registered voters.

Forty-eight percent of voters said they were very or somewhat uncomfortable with reopening colleges and universities, while 43 percent said they were comfortable with the idea.

The survey also suggests Black voters hold some of the biggest worries about schools reopening.

The results reflect a shift since mid-May, when the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll asked voters a slightly different question — if it was a bad idea or good idea to reopen schools. Forty-one percent of Americans said then it was a bad idea for K-12 schools, while 44 percent felt it was a bad idea to open day care centers. Thirty-eight percent said it was a bad idea for college students to return to campus.

CDC chief Robert Redfield said Tuesday that he expects many jurisdictions to open schools in the fall and suggested the CDC would soon offer additional guidance to local officials on how to get that done.

And the country’s infectious disease chief, Anthony Fauci, said at the same hearing that it will be a step-by-step process.

“What you can't forget is that if you get infected and spread the infection, even though you do not get sick, you are part of the process of the dynamics of an outbreak,” Fauci said. “And what you might be propagating — inadvertently, perhaps innocently — is infecting someone, who then infects someone, who then is someone who's vulnerable.”

A combined 73 percent of surveyed Black voters said they were somewhat or very uncomfortable with reopening day care centers. Forty percent of surveyed Black voters said they were very uncomfortable with reopening K-12 schools, while 27 percent said they were somewhat uncomfortable with the idea. Thirty-five percent of surveyed Black voters said they were very uncomfortable with reopening colleges and universities this fall.

Overall, the latest survey underscores continued public uncertainty about how to reemerge from spring’s lockdowns and restart regular economic activity. Signs of revival can be found in spiking consumer demand for gasoline and increasing numbers of airport passengers — though each of those metrics remain well below normal levels.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said students will return to public schools in person this fall, and Illinois is out with new plans for schools to reopen though Fauci and Redfield said the country’s individual communities will need different plans depending on how the virus is behaving in each area.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan pair of House members, Republican Van Taylor of Texas and Democrat Josh Harder of California, urged Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to issue “guidance and training” to educators to reopen schools.

School officials are stuck navigating the messy details of how to keep campuses safe and win over parents, while dealing with a budget crisis that is forcing layoffs and other cuts.

New Mexico’s newly issued reopening plan for K-12 schools eschews large group gatherings, requires face coverings with limited exceptions and orders staff to participate in Covid-19 surveillance testing while submitting to daily temperature and symptom checks. Wisconsin’s guidelines offer schools a variety of alternative scheduling options, including four-day workweeks that close campuses for a day of deep cleaning and two-day weeks of in-person instruction combined with virtual learning.

The University of Michigan says it is “finalizing plans and protocols” to test students, faculty and staff for infections — and build its capacity for contact tracing — as it moves to reopen its campus on time in the fall before ending in-person classes on Nov. 20.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has been substantially contained in many parts of the country including Michigan,” university President Mark Schlissel said in a letter to campus this week. “Nonetheless, the potential for new infections, whether students are at home or in residence, will continue throughout the coming academic year, and perhaps beyond, until a safe and effective vaccine is developed and administered widely, or a successful drug regimen is discovered.”

The poll was conducted from June 19-21, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a global data intelligence company, delivering insights on what people think in real time by surveying tens of thousands across the globe every single day.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents: Toplines | Crosstabs