Reopening schools without consulting schoolchildren

Throughout the discussion of reopening Swiss kindergartens, primary schools, and middle schools on Monday, one voice has been absent: schoolchildren themselves. Perhaps it's too much to ask kids in primary school to participate in such a discussion, but children attending middle school in Basel are 12 to 15 years old, and it wouldn't be hard to find a small but significant number of teens who have read and absorbed more about the coronavirus than most adults, including the politicians, educators, and parents now making decisions for them. At the very least, the schoolchildren's concerns should've been heard before re-opening educational institutions to give them somewhere to go while their parents work. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 7 May)