Unlike other countries, the United States leaves control of the school at the local level, and the challenges of face-to-face teaching are not the same everywhere, making it nearly impossible to create federal guidelines. and even effective states as the pandemic continues.
Some buildings do not have enough space to disperse students, while others do not have adequate ventilation systems. In some places, school authorities face strong opposition from powerful teachers’ unions.
The result was a patchwork of in-person, hybrid and all-virtual instructions. Elementary school students in New York City, for example, went back to school a few days a week in the fall, and the city brought back high school kids this week. After a bitter fight with the teachers’ union, Chicago brought kindergarten and special education students back in mid-February, and elementary and middle school students will start returning in March. In San Francisco, no public school students have received in-person instruction since March, prompting the city to sue its own school district.
Districts that have returned children to buildings have shown that it is possible to bring back students without devastating outbreaks. In fact, there is growing evidence that transmission of Covid in schools is low, even when the infection rate is high in the community.
Here are some of the issues that are slowing down the process.
Specifics of new CDC guidelines create new headaches
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released long-awaited guidelines for reopening schools earlier this month, revising recommendations made last summer under the Trump administration. The agency can’t force schools to reopen but instead offers benchmarks to help them do so safely.
But there has been little movement of fully virtual neighborhoods since then.
Instead, the Philadelphia School District failed to bring Kindergarten to Grade 2 students back last week as planned. California Governor Gavin Newsom has yet to strike a deal with lawmakers and school groups after suggesting a deal was imminent earlier this month.
“Guidelines based on well-documented studies would hopefully have led to significant school openings,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco.
CDC advises districts to implement five key mitigation strategies – masking, physical distancing, handwashing, cleaning and improving ventilation, and contact tracing and quarantine – and assess the level of spread of Covid in the community, gradually introducing learning modes accordingly. It also says testing and vaccinating teachers can provide an extra layer of protection.
Experts say the revised guidelines are clearer than what was released last summer, but warn that giving more specificity may paradoxically create obstacles to reopening.
Gandhi said she was particularly disappointed that the guidelines emphasized a link to community impact and that they specified keeping a distance of six feet – which many districts do not have. space to do.
“In a way, being more clear can create specifics that may not fit everyone’s parameters and justify closures,” she said.
Dr. Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, agreed that there is some confusion over whether desks should be six feet apart and over the link to community transmission.
But she noted that the guidelines also add that all schools have the option of providing in-person learning “at any level of community transmission.”
“The new guidelines reinforce our recommendation that, with appropriate mitigation measures, schools can reopen safely even in areas of high transmission,” Beers said.
The directives do not completely prevent reopening. The West Virginia Board of Education passed a motion this week that requires schools to provide five days of in-person instruction to pre-K through 8 classes by March 3 – regardless of the rate of transmission in the community. High schools may continue to offer a hybrid education model if the infection rate is high, as older students may be more likely to transmit the virus.
Space is limited
Keeping desks six feet apart could be the biggest hurdle in getting full-time students back. Many schools simply don’t have space. Some schools in Colorado, Maine and Texas have experimented with mobile outdoor classes.
“I don’t think the schools that were closed last fall are going to reopen next fall. It’s 100% about outreach. Community breakdown should be reduced by then, but the distancing issue will be always there, ”said Karen Vaites, a New York mom and literacy advocate who helps organize the parent-led open schools movement across the country.
Epidemiologist Tracy Hoeg was also surprised to see the CDC recommend six feet apart and link the reopening to the spread of the community. She is the lead author of a widely cited study of 17 Wisconsin schools that reopened for in-person learning in the fall.
The study found few cases of transmission at school among students and staff – even when the percentage of people who tested positive in the community reached 40%. Although masking was necessary, the K-8 students were mostly three to six feet apart.
Only seven of the 191 reported cases of Covid have been transmitted to the school. There were no cases transmitted between a student and a teacher.
“I would have said that three to six feet apart is enough for K-8 students, according to our data,” Hoeg said.
“I don’t think it makes sense to say that reopening should be based on community transmission rates. It’s like we’re downgrading,” she added.
The Wisconsin study wasn’t the only one that found schools were safe when Kindergarten to Grade 8 students were three feet apart. A study from North Carolina yielded similar results. The World Health Organization recommends a distance of one meter, or just over three feet.
In Ohio, where there have also been successful reopening of schools, the state also recommends keeping at least three feet between desks, although six feet is ideal.
Clashes with teachers’ unions
Some heads of state and city clash with union leaders, who argue that teachers want to go back to school as long as it is safe. They are calling for improvements to ventilation systems, more Covid testing, accommodations for high-risk teachers, and prioritization of vaccines before returning to class – and the funding needed to make those adjustments. A bill submitted to Congress and backed by Biden would provide K-12 schools with $ 130 billion.
In New Jersey, the Montclair District canceled the restart of in-person learning in January when the teachers’ union raised concerns about safety. The district is now suing the union. The city of San Francisco also sued the school district for failing to develop a plan to reopen.
In Chicago, negotiations over a plan to reopen were particularly tense as teachers argued that schools were initially underfunded. After weeks of discussions, the teachers’ union agreed to a reopening deal earlier this month, bringing kindergarten and special education students back into the classroom last week. Elementary and middle school students will start entering in March.
Teachers are not always a priority for the vaccine
In some places, including Los Angeles, union leaders say they don’t want schools to reopen until their staff are fully vaccinated.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky said vaccines were not needed, but teachers should be a priority.
Some or all teachers in 28 states and Washington, DC, are eligible for vaccines. There are 22 states where teachers are still not eligible to receive the vaccine as a specific group, although some educators may fall into the current age group in which the state is vaccinating.
About 82% of educators had not been vaccinated by early February, according to a survey conducted by the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union.
Confused message from Biden
Biden took office with a pledge to open most schools in his first 100 days, an ambitious goal from the start. The federal government cannot force schools to reopen and it is not clear how the administration will assess success.
Earlier this month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden had pledged “to ensure that schools are open five days a week” – once the measures are taken. appropriate security will be in place. Two days earlier, she suggested that “teaching at least one day a week in the majority of schools on day 100” might be enough to achieve the goal.
About 26% of K-12 students attend schools on a hybrid schedule, according to private data tracking company Burbio. In these situations, students may attend certain days in person, but classes rotate so students can remain socially distant in the classroom. A district in the South Bay area of California, for example, plans to bring students back to the classroom for just one hour a week to begin with.
Districts often switch to fully virtual education when there are too many reported cases, although the number of cases requiring discontinuation varies widely from district to district. When cases increased over the holidays, around 55% of student schools were virtual-only, according to Burbio.
As of February 21, about 31% of students in Kindergarten to Grade 12 attended fully virtual schools. Almost 43% were enrolled in schools that are open daily for in-person instruction.
CNN’s Elizabeth Stuart, Kristina Sgueglia and Meridith Edwards contributed reporting.
