College closures: university epidemics and parental anxiety

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The coronavirus is already spreading through colleges and universities at a frightening rate – and some of the biggest groups have taken place in sororities, fraternities and off-campus parties.

The Times has linked at least 251 cases of the virus to fraternities and sororities across the country, including Washington, North Carolina, Berkeley, Calif., And Oxford, Miss.

Last weekend at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, bars and sidewalks were packed with sorority members and other students reveling in their back-to-school rituals, sparking fury university officials.

“The basic features of everyday life in sororities and fraternities oversize the risk of the virus spreading,” our colleague Amy Harmon told us.

  • The University of Notre Dame has announced that it will switch to online education for at least the next two weeks to control a growing epidemic, with a number of cases linked to two off-campus parties.

  • The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has moved undergraduate courses entirely online due to four clusters of infections, including one at the Sigma Nu fraternity home. “Frats are frats: they throw their parties,” a sophomore UNC student told The Times.

  • At least 165 of the 290 cases on the University of Washington Seattle campus have been linked to its Greek Row.

  • At Oklahoma State University, an entire sorority is in quarantine after 23 of its members tested positive.

Even before the pandemic, fraternity and sorority houses were often semi-autonomous areas with limited university control. But blaming individual students for partying, rather than creating a public health infrastructure, might not be a winning strategy, two professors wrote in The Atlantic last month.

A large majority of parents have resigned themselves to going it alone during the pandemic school year, according to a new survey for the New York Times.

  • Only one in seven parents said their children will return to school full time this fall.

  • Four in five parents said they would have no in-person help educating and caring for them, whether from parents, neighbors, nannies or guardians, according to the survey.

  • Eighty percent of parents who both work remotely during the pandemic will also take care of child care and education.

“All choices are stinking,” Kate Averett, a sociologist at the University of Albany who has been interviewing parents across the country since the spring, told The Times.

In families where both parents have to work outside the home, there are obvious logistical challenges. Three-quarters of these parents say they will also oversee their children’s education.

“As parents, we all feel it individually, and due to the nature of this pandemic, we can start to feel like we’re alone,” our colleague Claire Cain Miller, who wrote about of the investigation. “But everyone is feeling it, across all demographic lines.”

The survey found very few differences based on demographic characteristics such as the race, location or age of the children. Mothers, however, do most of the planning and spend the most time caring for and educating the children. And parents with more resources had more options, like taking unpaid leave or hiring a private teacher or nanny.

In other distance learning news:

  • Wednesday, educators Detroit will vote on whether to cancel plans to return to in-person learning. Teacher unions in New York City and Chicago are also putting pressure on local officials.

  • There are more than 1,200 vacancies for teachers, bus drivers and Tennessee, a state already facing a chronic shortage of teachers. Many districts have reopened their doors for in-person teaching.

  • In Maine, schools serve meals to learners in person and at home. In New York City, the union which represents, among other things, lunch cooks exerts sustained pressure on Mayor Bill de Blasio to delay the start of the school year.

  • A nursery school in Cleveland, Ohio, is modifying everything – from toothbrushing demos to carpet time – to keep kids safe.

  • Utah told The Times that 200,000 packs of disinfectant wipes ordered for the upcoming school year will not arrive until mid-September, weeks after some districts have started in-person classes.

  • Connecticut The largest teachers’ union has recommended postponing the start of the school year, despite the low number of cases in the state. But in New Haven, some want at least one in-person school to start because not all students have access to the Internet or computers.

Even if the classrooms open, most students in the United States will spend at least part of the week online. As a parent, there are steps you can take to protect the health of your children and keep their lives somewhat normal.

Keep your children’s eyes healthy by enforcing regular breaks and testing when they stare at screens for hours. Regulating screen time can also help your kids sleep better: Bedtime habits have changed around the world since the quarantines began.

Psychologically, it can be difficult to keep the school from bleeding for the rest of the day. Set up a distance learning space at home for your student to keep class thoughts out of recess.

Terri Ball, a 52-year-old elementary school teacher in Prescott, Ariz., Recently quit her job after more than 30 years in education.

“We’re opening up far too early,” said Ms. Ball, who suffers from several health issues. “I love to teach, but not enough to die of it.”

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