The more media I do on school re-openings, the more frustrated and incredulous I get at the lack of political prioritization of education. It's like watching a slow motion disaster unfolding. We can all see it. And maybe I'm naive, but I didn't think it'd come to this

I feel angry parents have given governments months to properly plan scenarios for school re-openings. And they've pissed it away. Now we're left with a tiny runway to September, and the options are limited

There is a gulf between how governments think kids and parents (jk mothers) have handled the last 17 weeks, and how it's actually gone. This is a crisis for families, especially for the most marginalized and low income. Yet there is no political urgency around it at all

The case for investing heavily in the safe return of schools/daycares is a no-brainer - socially, economically, practically. The repercussions if we don't will be profound. Naively, I thought this would be enough. Once govts realized, they'd immediately prioritize it. Nope.

People keep asking me what the solutions to safely re-opening schools are. Which is part of the problem! Why am I, a non-expert in education or infectious disease, left proposing solutions? Because there's a vacuum of leadership from the people who should

I genuinely think the provincial govt doesn't understand the fury brewing, and the risk they're facing. School closures will have profound impacts on household incomes and children's wellbeing. These are vote-determining issues, from core demographics with voices

Come election time, no amount of boutique tax credits or road widenings will matter to a family that lost 40% of their income, and are distressed that their child can't write properly yet

Advocacy usually has two components - the what (the policy/ask), and the how (the theory of change). I don't know much about schools, but I know a heck of a lot about how to get governments to make smart decisions

So take 'the what', the policy. In April, govts should have struck a multi-stakeholder expert panel to deliver a jurisdiction-wide framework for safe school re-openings. Epidemiologists, paediatricians, education experts etc, to review evidence and best practice

An expert panel would within a month, produce a framework for school boards to safely maximize school re-openings, based on the Harvard study, Sick Kids, Mass state plan, and evidence from France, Germany, Taiwan, Singapore, China.

The challenge with safely re-opening schools is essentially reducing class sizes. This requires increasing physical space, and increasing the number of educators. This is a jurisdiction-wide problem that could be coordinated centrally

Instead of individual schools trying to rent portacabins (which they won't do), you'd have a central govt taskforce of civil servants who do procurement, to work with school authorities to secure extra spaces and extra educators

Once school boards/authorities know how much extra space they have and where, and how many extra educators they have and their skillsets, they are then tasked with drafting and costing a plan for their schools, to maximize in person class time

Look, I'm not sure if this would work entirely - I'm not an education policy expert. But this is the type of ambitious solution we should be examining, because we understand the looming disaster if we don't safely bring back schools and daycares