On the bitterly divisive issue of returning to school, there’s one thing every parent can agree on: There are no good options. Every choice comes at a cost.

That’s where the agreement ends.

As schools announce their plans for how they will educate students during the COVID-19 pandemic, the reactions are as varied as families’ unique circumstances. Some are committed to having their children return to in-person instruction in school buildings, while others can’t imagine that happening safely.

In the Rockwood School District in suburban St. Louis, some parents are petitioning and protesting for more in-person instruction options, while others across the region are forming small pods to hire private tutors and teachers. Some families are opting out, choosing their own homeschool plans over a virtual school option.

But the voices of educators, who will be on the front lines of possible virus exposure in school buildings, are just as important to this debate as those of parents.

Mindy Grossman, a middle school guidance counselor in the St. Louis area, recently posted her frustrations online, and she agreed to share her post as it was written:

“The past two days since the school announcement was made have been a roller coaster of emotions. It has only been made worse by the comments on social media.

“I have been an educator for 30 years. During that time I have endured comments from friends, such as ‘But you get the whole summer off’ or ‘Don’t you just sit in your office and drink coffee?’

“I have bitten my tongue when the principal says the parent is right. I have spent thousands of dollars to buy your kid’s shoes, pay for his field trip, treat him to the snack bar because he is crying that he forgot his money and bought birthday treats for him to share with the class because you were too busy and forgot. ...

“I have held your crying kid while my own is waiting in the nurse’s office for me at their school. I have talked you off the ledge when you wanted to cuss out the teacher for treating your kid unfairly.

“I have listened while you tell me how to do my job even though I have never told you how to do yours! Ask my family -- I have calls and emails at night, on weekends and all summer long. I have missed my kids’ school events so that I could be there for your kids.

“And the list goes on.

“I am not saying this for thanks or for recognition. If you know me, you know I am not looking for that. I do these things because I believe in the work I have done each and every day for the past 30 years. But the response to the whole school fiasco has made me angry. Does this suck for everyone? Yes! Is there an easy answer to this? Absolutely not! But what hurts and angers me the most is that, after all I have given to you and your family through these years, during a crisis, you feel like your needs are more important than mine.

“And that, to me, shows the ultimate disrespect.”

Emotions are running high for parents who feel backed into making terrible decisions about their children’s education. But Grossman’s words ought to remind us of the risks we are asking educators to take by returning to their classrooms. A recent study found that 1 in 4 teachers, or about 1.47 million people nationwide, have a condition that puts them at higher risk of serious illness from coronavirus.

Teachers chose their profession knowing that it demands sacrifices. But those sacrifices should not include risking their lives and health during a pandemic.

Neither the pandemic nor the government’s bungled response is the fault of educators.

They shouldn’t be expected to pay the price.

A sinking sense of deja vu struck this week.

Remember when it became official that our kids were not going back to school after spring break in March? Anyone who was paying attention to COVID-19 data knew that it was unlikely that schools would risk reopening -- cases were rising, and cities and counties issued stay-at-home orders.

But the realization that the school year had been cut nearly three months short with a slapdash effort to educate kids remotely hit like a ton of bricks, especially for those with graduating seniors.

Now it’s decision time for how to go back to school, so multiply that previous anxiety and sadness with unbridled anger.

Schools in the metro St. Louis region unveiled their plans for the return to schooling for the fall. Depending on the district, options might include in-person instruction, all online or a hybrid. Even if your child goes to school five days a week, we know a localized COVID outbreak could change everything.

In-school scenarios -- let alone distance learning -- will not be the same educational experience our children need and deserve. Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus infections continues to surge.

Beginning in March, students are facing at least a nine-month educational disruption. The loss of teacher-led instructional time, peer interactions and extracurricular activities is going to take a significant toll on our children’s academic, social and emotional lives. It’s not as simple as making up a semester’s worth of learning later. For some students, this pandemic will irreparably damage their life trajectories.

Here’s the blood-boiling, infuriating part: It didn’t have to be this way.

Look at what’s happened in other countries. We’ve had far more deaths, over 140,000, than anywhere else. The U.S. death toll from coronavirus is more than twice as high as the next-most-affected country, Brazil. We have the third-highest number of deaths per 100,000, according to Johns Hopkins data. There’s a reason Americans are barred from traveling into much of the rest of the world. They see us as disease vectors.

“The reality is this: Trump’s response to the pandemic, measured against the efforts of other developed countries, has been an unmitigated disaster,” professor Brian Klaas recently wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. Compared with those peer countries with a similar combined population, the new caseload in the United States is roughly 50 times worse, he notes.

Much of the COVID-related death and destruction could have been prevented if our government had taken the decisive actions other nations did to contain the spread and if people had followed social distancing and mask-wearing protocol. Only in America did the simple act of wearing a mask to save people’s lives become a politicized debate.

Back when the pandemic began raging through the Western world, I thought that American children would end up in roughly the same place as other children in the developed world. But while everyone else listened to their scientists and medical experts, took aggressive steps to contain the spread and reopened schools, our leaders downplayed the risks, attacked experts and let the virus spread like wildfire.

Schools in countries that handled this far better than us have been open. American schoolchildren will be falling behind their global peers.

American children in areas throughout the country will miss first days of kindergarten and senior year and major transitions in between. Our children will miss time with teachers and peers and the countless moments that are crucial to their development and growth.

We know who robbed our children of once-in-a-lifetime milestones and nearly a year of education. The political leadership that allowed this virus to spread unchecked, ignored the scientists and doctors, spread misinformation, and delayed critical testing and contact tracing that could have slowed the virus earlier.

We will remember the elected officials who failed to protect us and wrecked a significant part of our children’s education. Elected officials have underestimated our rage over what our children have needlessly lost.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson said on a conservative radio show recently, “These kids have got to get back to school. ... And if they do get COVID-19, which they will -- and they will when they go to school -- they’re not going to the hospitals. ... They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

He later said he “didn’t do a good job explaining his thoughts on schools reopening.”

Oh, we understood exactly what you meant.

And you know who won't forget this attitude?

Moms won’t forget. We can remember where every gadget in the house ends up, where the pants you haven’t seen in two months are put away and who made a passive-aggressive comment about a child at a family gathering 10 years ago.

Come November, we won’t forget who got us here.

I was not invited to join my husband, his buddies and all their children on their inaugural camping trip. So, I was forced to invite myself.

Those who know me well know my idea of “roughing it” on a vacation means skipping a visit to the day spa. But after months of being cooped up inside the house, I was desperate for a change of scenery and a bit of adventure.

I’d never slept outdoors in a tent before. When I called a friend to borrow some gear, she laughed and repeated my response to her when she had told me about her own camping plans a few weeks prior: “My parents didn’t come to this country for me to sleep in the dirt.”

Rub my nose in it, why don’t you.

Camping in the time of COVID would surely be the distraction I needed. I convinced another uninvited wife to crash the party with me. It was only scheduled to be a 24-hour trip. How bad could it possibly be? Well, buckle up, baby. Things are about to get -- literally -- pretty wild.

While packing, I noticed that our pile of bedding started to resemble a display at Bed Bath and Beyond. Four large pillows, sleeping bags, two flat sheets, a fleece blanket, a comforter, towels and washcloths. I texted a picture to the other wife, who advised me to ditch the fluffy pillows and streamline the rest.

I would come to regret taking this advice.

When we drove up to our campsite in the heart of Mark Twain State Park, I immediately missed our 14-pound ball of white fluff, Frankie, who opted to stay in civilization with some friends.

“Frankie’s not about this life,” my daughter said, reminding me that our dog likes air conditioning and his cushy bed. He’s not the only one, I thought.

It only took the men and children in our crew a few tries to set up our tents. I helpfully made videos of them struggling to sort out the pieces. A camper on the site next to us had his tent up, firewood collected and a fire going by the time we decided to take a chai break.

There were relatively few visitors at the nearby lake, which allowed for social distancing in the warm water. The rest of the day revealed all the reasons I love being out in nature: beautiful, isolated trails for hiking; endless bright stars in the sky; and hot dogs, s’mores and a blueberry cobbler cooked over the fire. Plus, our campsite offered electrical outlets, clean bathrooms and showers.

The big test lay ahead: getting through the night. I fell asleep after midnight after tossing and turning on the thin sleeping bag. An hour and a half later, I heard a rustling and scampering sound near my head. Like any reasonable city person, I screamed. (Not loud enough to wake our teenagers sleeping in the next tent, but loudly enough to awaken the adults.)

“What’s that sound?” I asked my husband.

“It’s probably just some critters,” he said and turned over.

“Shouldn’t you get up and protect us?” I asked. We both peeked outside. Sure enough, a large family of raccoons had discovered the bag of chips someone left on a picnic table, the bags of trash hanging from a tree and a can of milk used for the chai.

One of our friends yelled and shined a light to try to scatter the scavengers, but they seemed to laugh at him. The largest one sat at the table eating wasabi-flavored wavy potato chips and drinking the chai milk.

The nylon barrier between me and these campground bandits felt exceptionally flimsy. I started Googling “how to get rid of raccoons while camping.”

This was a bad idea.

It sounded like the raccoons had now invited their friends to the party they were hosting outside. Meanwhile, I was reading horror stories about how some especially bold ones could unzip tents and enter looking for food. An enormous black ant crawled across the screen of my phone while I tried to research if a raccoon attack was imminent.

Our friend chased off the smaller ones, but there was no way I was going back to sleep. An hour later, I heard a loud growl and snarling.

This time, I screamed silently in my heart.

They were back, and it sounded like they were drunkenly fighting over the remaining scraps.

“How can you sleep through this?” I asked my friend. “It feels like we are hostages.”

Everyone else fell asleep, but I stayed awake to keep guard in case I heard tents unzipping.

The raccoons eventually abandoned our site, leaving a huge mess.

After we cleaned and packed up our stuff, my friend asked us about our favorite part of the trip. I thought for a moment and admitted it had been the run-in with the raccoons.

In a moment when a virus is terrorizing the world, facing down furry scavengers felt like the kind of adventure that scared me in the Before Times.

Next year, we’ll lock up the trash at night.