The Low-Income Case Against A Later Return
By The Association of Low-Income Exonians
We write to you as ALIE, the Association of Low-Income Exonians. In an email sent to the parents—but notably not the students—the school disclosed that it is considering extending the winter break into February and subsequently shortening the spring break to a week on campus. This solution may suffice for typical Exonians, but it is a disastrous and worrisome possibility for our low-income population. It presumes that all families have the ability to provide an adequate space for work. It presumes that families have on hand the resources to manage an extra child in the household–the extra food, more expensive electricity bill. It mocks as a vacation what will inevitably require students to go to work.
Beyond those usual financial insecurities that low-income students face any year, taking Exeter away from us during a pandemic has significant health and safety consequences. Creating longer and longer stays away from the Academy creates bigger and bigger COVID risks, as low-income students are forced to work, have parents that cannot work from home, have to share rooms with plenty of other people and live lives that simply cannot be quarantined. In effect, the school’s current COVID tactics make many presumptions on the home lives of Academy students and, in doing so, ignore the ones that desperately need this campus.
Simply put, having a supportive and functional working environment is a luxury not always afforded to low-income students. Low-income students may not be physically able to find a space where they can work alone, given siblings and living situations. To this end, multiple members of ALIE have expressed that they struggle with permanent housing. Some are moving between hotels and family member’s houses—one member splits time between three homes, and in one of these places they, their three siblings and a parent all sleep in one small room. There is no privacy in motel rooms or tiny, city apartments. In the spring, this problem could be mitigated by working outside, but are we really going to force our low-income students to work outside in the middle of winter?
Functioning internet is not a guarantee either, nor are many other amenities that one needs not even to work, but to survive. Thus, students are compelled to return to work in order to help their families get by in these troubling times. Suddenly, one’s studies have to take a back burner; this is simply unsustainable at a school like Exeter.
Low-income students are far more likely to be going home to a higher COVID-19 risk than their peers. In ALIE meetings, we have discussed the factors that will increase students’ risks of contracting COVID-19. Several members expressed that if they were made to stay home longer than the initial Jan. 3 date, they would likely need to go back to work at home, mostly in retail or food-service jobs. This would, in turn, increase their contact with other people who are often not taking safety measures.
Having to work is also an added stress factor that disadvantages students who cannot spend all of their time and effort focusing on schooling from home. Some others noted that there would be students returning to homes with siblings at public schools without the resources to be safe and to parents whose jobs require them to be in-person. Should they or their family members get sick, low-income Exonians often have limited access to health care and do not have the time, space or job security required to quarantine. It is impossible for many low-income students to control these risk factors for COVID-19, which may only make it harder for them to return to campus safely once the school permits.
The Academy has proven over the past weeks that it can provide a safe campus relatively COVID-free to students during a global pandemic. And, even amid a second wave of the virus, Exeter has more or less pulled it off thus far. Cases have been steadily climbing nationwide since August, and the school has shown that, even so, it can operate with minimal cases and keep students safe.
A returning Andover student let us know that Andover’s reopening plans for the fall kept vulnerable populations of their student body in mind. Along with the initial ninth and twelfth grade boarders invited to campus in early September, students who identified as low-income or special needs were able to write a petition to be invited onto campus early. A handful of lowers and uppers at Andover were invited to campus through this process. Exeter did not provide any accommodation to students like these.
While canceling the December return to classes was undoubtedly a practical choice, pushing that break back until February is not. The Academy should keep these vulnerable students in mind while planning winter term and commit to providing an option for students in need to return on the original Jan. 3 return date.
Some people may say that the Academy had already succeeded in providing a term of remote instruction last spring. We need to be wary of how we talk about and evaluate the previous spring term and the ways we look back on the start of COVID-19. It is tempting to say that, since we did it before, we can do it again.
ALIE needs to say that spring term was not ok. It was incredibly taxing, and it is unacceptable to ask students—especially disadvantaged ones—to do it again.
Learning from home was catastrophic to the mental health of low-income students and their families. The Academy did what was right in keeping us at home when we had so little information. The entire world needed to halt. This time is different. It is unsustainable to continue to ask students to spend long periods of time schooling (especially graded schooling) at home, where everyone begins with such unequal footing. The plan to return to campus needs to be supportive of youth from every quarter—and must not expect those with less means to “push through it.” ALIE urges the school to at the very least provide an option for students to come back to campus in early January or, better yet, stay over the break.