School is starting in many communities. It’s a moment that many parents have been dreading. “Just one in five families will have any sort of in-person help, a new survey finds, and parents are feeling stressed and stranded.” NYT Upshot: ‘I’m Only One Human Being’: Parents Brace for a Go-It-Alone School Year. “‘All the choices stink,’ said Kate Averett, a sociologist at the University at Albany who has been interviewing parents nationwide since the spring. ‘There is a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. Parents tell me about not being able to sleep because they’re so anxious, or tell me they’ve been crying a lot. There’s been a lot of actual crying during interviews.'” What makes me cry is that this situation could have been prevented, and has been prevented in plenty of other places.

+ Notre Dame opened to in-person learning. Nine days later, Notre Dame suspended in-person learning. From the school’s president: “The virus is a formidable foe.” So we’ve heard.

+ “The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made it one week into the fall semester before scrapping plans for in-person instruction.”

+ CNN: Here’s what happened when students went to school during the 1918 pandemic.