This is what we should do in schools when Covid-19 cases rise again this spring and summer.

No, the mask mandates and remote options should not return.

With Covid cases rising again in the United Kingdom and European Union — and some officials even floating a potential return to mandatory masking — it’s inevitable that we will see yet another wave in the United States as well. When this happens, we need to be careful not to overreact and defend normalcy for long-suffering children.

Here’s what I propose for our schools:

1. Ventilate, ventilate, ventilate! While Dutch schools have never required students to mask in classrooms — they briefly required students to mask in hallways — they have consistently made a heroic effort to ventilate their school buildings. And, after dropping most other mitigation measures, they nonetheless expanded government action on ventilation. Their school ventilation program is a potential model:

Students need healthy air to learn well and teachers must be able to stand safely in front of the class, especially in times of corona. Because better ventilation in the classrooms is now really needed, there will be a helpline for schools, an emergency service of experts who help to get the ventilation in order and every classroom will be given a CO2 meter.