Parents agonize over back-to-school decisions amid pandemic

Joshua Claybourn is leaning toward sending his kindergarten daughter to in-person classes at a private school next month. Holly Davis’ sixth-grade daughter will learn online, though the family has not yet decided what to do for school for a teenage daughter who requires special accommodations for hearing problems and dyslexia and another who’s starting college.

As they decide how their children will learn this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, these parents are anxiously weighing the benefits of in-person instruction against the risks that schools could shut their doors again or that their children could contract the virus and pass it on.

“To say we are stressed might be an understatement,” said Davis, of Noblesville, Indiana, whose family is self-isolating after one of their daughters was exposed to COVID-19 at a cross country meet. “We’re being forced to make impossible decisions.”

Across the country, chaos and disarray have marked the start of the 2020 school year as families await decisions from district officials and, where they have a choice, make agonizing decisions over whether to enroll their children online or in person — often with incomplete or very little guidance from school leaders.

Parents who can work from home wonder if they’ll have enough time to help their children learn online. Some would need to line up child care. They have no idea if it will be safe to send their children to school — or whether the school doors will open at all or stay open if someone is diagnosed with the virus.

And many dread a return to the scenario that millions faced in the spring, when parents tried to work while their kids attended school — all while everyone was cooped up at home.

Claybourn said it’s not clear yet whether his local public school system in Newburgh, Indiana, would close if a...