Our school board is scheduled to meet this evening and one of the items on the agenda is a discussion of our district's Return to Learn plan. For the past month, approximately 99.99% of my conversations have revolved around this topic in some form or fashion, as my colleagues and I have watched our state and county numbers grow.
But last night, as I visited with a colleague, I made this comment:
And I realized that's exactly where we are.
In Statistics, one of our topics is about Decision Making and Errors. Let's look at an example:
When I'm teaching this topic, I talk about getting ready in the mornings and listening to the weather forecast. Thankfully, this lesson is in the spring, so we are pretty certain that at least one day in the 7-day planner will have a chance of rain! :)
Our Null Hypothesis is the idea that nothing is going to happen - the status quo, if you will. Our Alternative Hypothesis is that something is going to happen. Then you see a decision matrix. At the time we make a decision of whether or not to grab our umbrella, we don't know which "truth" is going to happen. I have to make a decision based on the data at hand and hopefully I make a good decision.
In an ideal world, we would always make a good decision. And there are things we can do to help us make good decisions, such as gathering more (good quality) data. Some things are out of our control, though. For example, it is easier to make a good decision to take my umbrella if I look outside and see the thunderclouds rolling in because larger differences are easier to detect.
Bad decisions happen too and that's okay. In our umbrella situation, those bad decisions don't really amount to much. Maybe I'm carrying around an umbrella I didn't need or maybe I get caught in the rain without an umbrella. In general, both of those are bummers, but not life altering.
So how does this apply to our school situation right now? Well, let's look at that same decision matrix...
In this situation, our Null Hypothesis again is that nothing is going to happen, in this case that we'll be okay and there will be no major issues with COVID. Our Alternative hypothesis is that something is going to happen with regard to COVID.
Our decision here is a bit more difficult, and again, we won't know if we've made a good decision until much, much later. Just like before, we have to make a decision based on the data we have.
BUT... when making a decision, it's also wise to look at the "What if's..."
What if we are wrong? Which decision has consequences we can live with if that's the part of the decision matrix we end up with?
Let's look at a Type I Error. This happens when we Reject the Null Hypothesis and we were wrong. In this case, it means that a district decides to do some sort of alternate schedule (like remote learning), but they were wrong and it wasn't necessary because the COVID issue wouldn't have really been that big of an issue.
On the flip side is a Type II Error. This happens when we Fail to Reject the Null Hypothesis and we were wrong. In this case, a district would decide to proceed with life as normal and open schools to in-person learning, but they were wrong and the COVID issue creates spread (and potential severe illness).
Both of these errors have consequences, some minor, some major. But when making this kind of decision, you have to decide which error is the one that has the consequences that you can live with?
We see this same decision making when schools decide to have a snow day. Do we have school and risk the chance of a student or staff member having an accident? Do we call off school and risk the chance of the snow having minimal impact or melting off quickly?
One thing to note is that the decision about how to start school this Fall has a lot more complexity than just about the spread of COVID. There are issues with food insecurity, issues with child neglect and abuse, issues with social-emotional learning, issues with equity, issues with childcare, and so many more. This is not a an easy decision to make. I truly feel for our leadership teams as they try to navigate these waters. There are so many facets to this decision and honestly, unlike the umbrella example, there's not a single good decision that will fix it all. We just have to make the best decision we can with the data available and try our best to address the other issues that arise.
I don't envy the people making the decisions at all. I'm quite glad that I'm not responsible for making a decision like the one facing our superintendents right now. But I pray daily for wisdom in making that decision and peace for whatever decision is made.
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