American Parents Are Coming Apart at the Seams

Photo: Will Leitch

There’s a school here in Georgia, not far from where I live in Athens, that has developed a unique strategy to deal with the unprecedented nightmare that is trying to run a public education system in the year 2020. In a document called NEW VIRUS PROTOCOLS released back in July, the school, which I’ll do the favor of leaving unnamed here, has a few recommendations that you’d expect from a school attempting to open to in-person learning during a pandemic: Staggered cafeteria lines, more spaced out car pool lanes, a spray bottle for every classroom, if not every desk. But the primary protocol was something called “the bracelet system.”

Here is the bracelet system:

I know we are inexplicably living in a world in which the CDC is changing its mind about fundamental facts of this virus on a daily basis. But I suspect even the most lick-spittling Trump toady would recommend more protections be taken in indoor spaces than “a bracelet that lets people know whether or not you think the coronavirus is real.” It is lunacy in every possible way.

But then again: What choice did this school district have? Schools in Georgia, and in many states across the…