WE'VE just passed the halfway point of the two-week school holidays but, chances are, your children have been home for much longer than a single week already.
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The confused - and conflicting - messages about school attendances coming out of the federal and state governments in the early days of our coronavirus shutdowns did a great disservice to students, parents and teachers, creating far more anxiety than should have been the case.
The prime minister told us that schools were open and were the safest place to be for students while the premier said only the children of "essential workers" should continue attending classes.
The lack of clear guidance from our leaders - who were privy to the latest and best health information on the crisis - meant that parents, bombarded with conflicting information, were left with an impossible choice: send their children to school and possibly risk their health, or keep them at home and possibly risk their education.
Presented such a choice, it's understandable that so many parents erred on the side of caution by keeping their children at home, but that means some have already spent five or six weeks out of the classroom.
Political leaders blithely assured parents that children could continue remote learning, conveniently ignoring the undue burden that might place on teachers who were now expected to teach the same class twice - and the reality that remote learning is very poor substitute for face-to-face classes.
And with NSW just a week away from the scheduled start of term two, the clarity parents are seeking remains a forlorn hope.
The first advice from the premier was that students should start returning to classes in week three and then came the confounding news that schools might introduce a roster system to limit the number of people in attendance each day.
But even as she announced the plan, the premier conceded it had not yet been worked out how the rostering would work, creating only more uncertainty.
All the while, the prime minister has consistently maintained that schools are safe.
While both the premier and prime minister deserve considerable praise for their leadership through this crisis, their inability to provide a clear message surrounding schools remains their greatest failing.
Parents deserve better, teachers deserve better and, most importantly, our kids deserve better.
