Editorial: Poor school covid testing participation subverts parent choice

Pennsylvania has more than 5,000 schools.

They come in all stripes. Public and private. Charter and Catholic and cyber. They nurture and educate and safeguard millions of children across the state.

So why did only 750 of those schools take advantage of the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s offer of free, on-site covid-19 testing?

A Spotlight PA story found only about half of those 750 are actively testing, while others are not up and running yet.

“I would ask you to go ask the schools why they’re not participating, why they’re not doing their part to protect kids and teachers,” acting Secretary of Health Keara Klinepeter said.

That is, no doubt, an oversimplification of what is happening in the 500 public school districts in Pennsylvania. Anyone who has watched or attended a school board meeting can tell that the people on the board and the people in the chairs both believe they have the best interest of the students and the people of the district at heart.

But what it does point to — on both the state’s part and the schools’ — is that there is a problem affecting our schools that is at least as toxic as a potentially deadly virus.

Political intrusion.

As school districts operate on taxpayer dollars and the people on the board campaign for their positions, there is no way to completely excise politics from the process. There is always a place for differing opinions and priorities when it comes to how public entities are operated. Not only is it acceptable, it’s an important and vital part of how they should run.

What there shouldn’t be is paralyzation when it comes to how schools operate — neither because schools cannot accept help nor because the state is too pious in how it pushes it.

If both sides could perhaps not bend, but be just a little less rigid, more kids could have access to testing. More families could have the option to utilize it.

This is not about the top-down force that has created such opposition in school board meetings across the state — and the country. This is not about a mandate to get tested. It is about exactly what so many have asked for amid demands for masks or distance learning. It’s about parental choice, which is subverted when schools don’t participate in the testing program.