Member-only story
As Americans battle over reopening schools, European schools never closed…or are reopening from temporary closures.
Today, almost a million Italian high schoolers returned to classrooms, which might surprise American readers of this weekend’s Washington Post story that claimed “As President Biden pushes to reopen U.S. schools, much of Europe is moving in the opposite direction.”
And alongside those Italian high schoolers — Italy never closed most of its primary and middle schools after they reopened last fall — millions of children in French, Spanish, and Swiss schools returned to classrooms on Monday, as they’ve been doing regularly since reopening last fall, because school systems in those countries haven’t closed at all this school year.
Other European countries, which imposed temporary reactive closures in response to surging cases last December, are already planning to reopen some of their schools.
Today, Austria announced its shuttered schools will reopen in mid-February following the semester break. This decision has the support of politicians from across the country, with support from Vienna and Tyrol being particularly strong.
The Dutch government confirmed yesterday that it will reopen primary schools on February 8th — with government scientists making clear that they do not…
