Editorial: Words matter with covid-19 message

Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

It’s a good rule of thumb for everyone, but it’s especially important for elected officials. Politicians get — and keep — their jobs by what they say. Their words shape laws and policies. They send us to war and broker peace.

In the coronavirus pandemic, people are looking to their leaders daily for the rules. Those words are all the more important.

Take the Bethel Park School District, for example.

On July 28, the board voted 8-1 to reopen school for in-person classes on Aug. 26, with an option to attend the district’s online academy if desired.

Then Gov. Tom Wolf made comments Monday about sports and schools.

“If (a) school is going completely virtual, it seems hard to justify having in-person contact sports being played in the fall,” Wolf said. “If the school is going to be open and feels it’s safe — if teachers, administrators, parents feel it’s safe to reopen — that’s a different proposition for contact sports.” (Later, a spokesperson for the governor clarified that he meant all sports, not just contact sports.)

Now, what’s that mean to Bethel Park? The district was planning to open fully. But if others don’t, it changes the math of those sports, causing a ripple effect through other activities. Ultimately, the board was wiped, plans were changed and a new vote is proposed for Tuesday.

Is that Wolf’s fault? Not necessarily. The governor isn’t wrong. A decision about school safety should come before sports safety, and if a district feels it’s not safe enough for one, it’s probably not safe enough for the other.

But it isn’t the kind of remark that should come off the cuff while districts all over Pennsylvania are making their plans for how school starts in three or four weeks.

Yes, the state has put out “guidelines,” and left more concrete decisions up to the districts themselves. That is probably not comforting to districts that were told the same thing on March 13 — and told later in the day that everything was changed and schools were shut down statewide. Districts learned five months ago that the official state message can change in a heartbeat.

Everything we know about covid-19 is barely eight months old and everything about the response is changing. Policies may have to change because of new science or new challenges. That makes it all the more important to keep the message from being muddled.

The Wolf administration — and other levels of government from federal to local — should stop hedging their bets with guidelines and recommendations that leave people wondering what that really means. If it’s a rule or a law or an order with teeth, make it clear. If it’s not, don’t give the impression that it is.

Just say what you mean. Parsing words wastes time and money, and that’s happened enough already.