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Hundreds of American colleges and universities have opted to begin the fall semester at least partly in person, allowing some or all of their students onto campus to live and study. These schools are going to great lengths to impress upon students that their behavior determines whether campuses can stay open or whether they will have to head back to their parents’ homes by October. In many cases, schools are requiring students to sign “social contracts” in which they promise not to party, have overnight dorm guests, walk across campus without masks or otherwise conduct themselves as college students normally do — and often attaching strict penalties if students violate the rules. In addition to agreeing to conduct themselves according to these rules, students are also being asked to police one another for violating them. (Karen Levy and Lauren Kilgour, 8/12)

A photograph, they say, is worth a thousand words. And the images from inside North Paulding High School said it all: Students packed into a hallway, many of them without masks. That alone would be disturbing. But the story didn’t end there. School officials took the unusual step of suspending two students who posted the pictures, saying the photographs, captured on the students’ cellphones, violated the district’s rules. The punishments drew pointed reactions on social media and from rights advocates. To the district’s credit, it eventually remembered that everyone – yes, even students – have a right to free speech, and it lifted the punishments. By then, the damage had been done. (8/11)

Call it karma or science (it’s science), but over the weekend news broke that nine people, both students and staff, had tested positive for the coronavirus at North Paulding High School. This is the Georgia school made notorious last week by a photo of a hallway swarming with shoulder-to-shoulder unmasked students. It’s where the girl who posted that photo online was initially suspended for her whistleblowing, and where the superintendent claimed, “wearing a mask is a personal choice and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them.” It is also the place where irony died, because the school had proved it did have at least one tool — suspension — for dealing with students it believed were in the wrong. North Paulding has temporarily closed. But for when they return to the classroom, here are some additional notes for school systems and other ruling bodies on how to enforce mandates: (Monica Hesse, 8/11)

Can people please stop saying that children don’t get sick from the coronavirus and don’t spread it? These statements are being used to justify school reopening, and they’re just not true. We heard this again from the president on Monday, but he’s not the only guilty party. If the goal is to safely return our children to schools for all the reasons that are important, we’ll need to build on what we know — so let’s start with that: First, children do get infected. In fact, a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association found that 338,000 kids have been diagnosed with covid-19 in the United States. (Leana S. Wen, 8/11)

As a pediatrician, I love treating children, but I am well aware that the urgent care clinic where I work is not germ-free. Inevitably, I catch the occasional bug from a kid with a runny nose and a cough. When the coronavirus pandemic began, I worried that I would treat children who were asymptomatic or mildly ill (“just a cold”), then get the virus myself and spread it to my parents or friends. Many teachers who are about to return to school have the same worries. ...As we consider reopening schools, and elementary schools in particular, we need to reframe this mental model. The real risk of transmission in elementary schools is not the kids; it’s the adults. (Naomi Bardach, 8/12)

Don’t let the baying noisemakers and the desperate politickers for college football distract you from a central fact about the novel coronavirus epidemic. Caution works. So far, nothing else has. In the next couple of weeks, millions of undergraduates will start streaming back to campuses amid outbreaks. How about we see the consequences of that before we send players on to the field to make each other’s snot and spit fly? College presidents in the Power Five conferences should hit the pause button on the season. The only responsible choice, amid so many unknowns, is to take a collective knee and defer while campuses gauge the impact of reopening. (Sally Jenkins, 8/11)

It was like lining up for a kickoff, then waiting for months, then charging madly to the ball … and watching it flop off the tee. After a spring of wishful thinking, a summer of flimflamming, and 48 hours of confusing, closed-door debates, the Big Ten has finally canceled its fall sports season, which to most fans means: football. That’s right. No Saturday afternoon showdowns this fall. No breaking out the favorite U-M or MSU sweatshirt. No flying the flag out your car window. No season. And no surprise. (Mitch Albom, 8/12)

College football is a mindbogglingly commercial enterprise. For everyone, that is, but the people who actually play it. That's why many players and now the Big 10 university presidents are throwing flags on a fall season. The financial incentives are to do just the opposite. Propelled by a deluge of ads, an average game now runs to a stupefying 3 hours 24 minutes — 16 minutes longer than NFL games and 23 minutes longer than what college games lasted in the mid-1990s. Ads, moreover, are omnipresent in stadiums and in the names of bowl games. And the people who profit from this largess can't get enough of them. (8/10)

If major college football conferences, with all of their financial clout and medical expertise, could not figure out a way to safely play fall sports like football, how can high schools? Simple answer: They can’t. And they shouldn’t. (EJ Montini, 8/11)