Hopscotch is a game for recess and school playgrounds. It is a fun way for kids to test balance and skill and work out some wiggles in the middle of the day. It is not, however, a great way to run public health policy during a pandemic.

Yet as the opening of schools throughout Southwestern Pennsylvania approaches, the area has become a game of hopscotch.

Throw a rock and you may land on a district that has a mask policy. Throw another and you might land on the district next door that doesn’t.

This isn’t a question of how many people in the area are testing positive for covid-19. It’s a matter of how many people on one side of the issue show up for a meeting or call their school board members.

It is essential that people have a say in their government. Every school board meeting should be packed like a church on Christmas. Instead, hot-button issues tend to bring about those Christmas-and-Easter crowds — the kind that only turn up once or twice a year and then vanish.

But there are issues where how people feel about them doesn’t matter. If a sinkhole is devouring the soccer field, addressing the sinkhole is more important than hosting the playoff game. If there is black mold in the cafeteria, it’s not a question of the kids toughing it out.

The coronavirus pandemic is one of those issues.

That is not to say school districts are wrong for how they are approaching them. The school boards are voting on issues that were left up to them and responding to the requests and demands of the people. There have been packed houses in meetings from Fox Chapel Area to Norwin, surveys in districts like Penn-Trafford, all showing how important the question is to the educators, the parents and the residents. People should be as passionate about everything school districts do.

What there has been is a continuation of the lack of leadership Pennsylvania has shown to its school districts since the beginning of the pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has returned the counties of Southwestern Pennsylvania — including Allegheny and Westmoreland — to a “high” level of covid transmission. On Monday, Allegheny County Health Department reported almost 600 cases in three days. Of those, 86 — about 14% — were younger than 18. Another 46% fell in the 25 to 49 age group that makes up most teachers.

This cannot — or should not — be news to the state, but there is still no real guidance.

Maybe this is a kind of silent treatment in response to the pushback the Wolf administration received for emergency plans last year. Maybe it’s sulking because of the public’s referendum vote in November that changed gubernatorial emergency powers.

Regardless, Harrisburg isn’t offering much in the way of a map to navigate the variants that are bringing about what’s called “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Well, those 12 and younger can’t be vaccinated, so let’s be careful about their exposure.

Kids co-mingle at babysitters and day care, Scout meetings and church groups, sports teams and dance classes that happen outside of schools and with a mixture of districts. While many schools are making masks optional, there should be support for the kids who wear them. Without sufficient caution, lockdowns could be just a hop, skip and a jump away again.

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