Unlike other countries, the US leaves control of the school at the local level, and the challenges of providing face-to-face education are not the same everywhere, making it almost impossible to create effective federal and even state guidelines as the pandemic progresses. .
Some buildings do not have enough space to spread the students, while others do not have adequate ventilation systems. In some places, school officials face strong opposition from powerful teacher unions.
The result was a patchwork of classroom teaching, hybrid and totally virtual. Elementary school students in New York City, for example, returned to school a few days a week in the fall, and the city brought high school students back this week. After a violent fight with the teachers’ union, Chicago brought pre-K and special education students back into the classroom in mid-February, and elementary and high school students will begin returning in March. In San Francisco, no public school student has taken face-to-face classes since March, prompting the city to sue its own school district.
The districts that returned the children to the buildings showed that it is possible to bring students back without devastating outbreaks. In fact, there is growing evidence that Covid transmission in schools is low, even when there is a high rate of infection in the community.
Here are some of the pain points that slow the process down.
The specifications in the new CDC guidelines create new headaches
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released long-awaited guidelines for reopening schools earlier this month, reviewing recommendations made last summer under the Trump administration. The agency cannot force schools to reopen, but offers guidance to help them do so safely.
But there has been little movement from fully virtual districts since then.
Instead, the School District of Philadelphia did not bring back preschoolers until the second grade last week as planned. California Governor Gavin Newsom has not yet reached an agreement with lawmakers and school groups after suggesting that a deal was imminent earlier this month.
“Guidelines based on well-documented studies would have led to some significant school openings,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious physician at the University of California, San Francisco.
The CDC advises districts to implement five main mitigation strategies – masking, physical distance, hand washing, cleaning and improving ventilation and contact and quarantine tracking – and to assess the level of Covid spread in the community, implementing ways of agreement learning. He also says that testing and vaccination teachers can provide an additional layer of protection.
Experts say the revised guidance is clearer than what was released last summer, but warn that giving more specificity can, paradoxically, create barriers to reopening.
Gandhi said he is particularly disappointed that the guidance emphasizes a link to community outreach and specifies maintaining a six-foot distance – which many districts have no room to do.
“In a way, being clearer can create specifics that may not fit everyone’s parameters and justify closings,” she said.
Dr. Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, agreed that there is some confusion about whether the tables need to be six feet away and about connecting with the broadcast to the community.
But she noted that the guidance also states that all schools have the option of offering face-to-face learning “at any level of community transmission”.
“The new guidance reinforces our recommendation that, with appropriate mitigation measures, schools can reopen safely, even in areas of high transmission,” said Beers.
The guidelines are not completely preventing reopening. The West Virginia Board of Education passed a motion this week that requires schools to provide five days of face-to-face instruction for pre-kindergarten grades 8 through March 3 – regardless of the rate of transmission in the community. Secondary schools can continue to offer a hybrid model of instruction if the infection rate is high, as older students may be more likely to transmit the virus.
Space is limited
Keeping desks two meters away can be the biggest obstacle to bringing students back full time. Many schools simply do not 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. This is 100% about remoteness. Community expansion should be low by then, but the remoteness problem will still be there,” said Karen Vaites, New York mother and literacy advocate who is helping to organize the parent-led movement, Open Schools, across the country.
Epidemiologist Tracy Hoeg was also surprised to see the CDC recommend a two-meter spacing and link the reopening to community outreach. She is the senior author of a widely cited study of 17 Wisconsin schools that reopened for face-to-face learning in the fall.
The study found few cases of transmission within the school between students and staff – even when the percentage of people who tested positive in the community reached 40%. Although masking was necessary, K-8 students were mostly between three to six feet apart.
Only seven of Covid’s 191 reported cases were transmitted at school. There were no cases transmitted between student and teacher.
“I would say that a three to six foot gap is sufficient for K-8 students, according to our data,” said Hoeg.
“I don’t think it’s smart to say that the reopening should be based on community transmission rates. It is as if we are going backwards, ”she added.
The Wisconsin study is not the only one that found that schools were safe when K-8 students were kept three feet away. A North Carolina study had similar results. The World Health Organization recommends a distance of one meter, or just over three feet.
In Ohio, where there have also been success stories of reopening schools, the state also recommends keeping at least one meter between desks, although ideally six feet.
Clashes with teachers’ unions
Some state and municipal leaders are at odds with union leaders, who argue that teachers want to go back to school, as long as it is safe. They are asking for improvements to ventilation systems, increased Covid testing, accommodation for high-risk teachers, and prioritizing vaccines before returning to the classroom – and the funding needed to make these adjustments. A bill that went through Congress and supported by Biden would provide $ 130 billion for K-12 schools.
In New Jersey, the Montclair district canceled the restart of face-to-face learning in January, when the teachers’ union cited security issues. The district is suing the union. The city of San Francisco also sued the school district there for not presenting a reopening plan.
In Chicago, negotiations on a reopening plan were particularly tense, as teachers argued that schools did not have enough funds to start. After weeks of negotiations, the teachers’ union accepted a deal to reopen earlier this month, bringing pre-ke special-school students back to classrooms last week. Elementary and high school students will begin to return in March.
Teachers are not always prioritized for the vaccine
In some places, including Los Angeles, union leaders say they don’t want schools to reopen before their team is fully vaccinated.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky said that vaccines need not be a requirement, but that teachers should be prioritized.
Some or all of the teachers in 28 states and Washington, DC, are eligible for vaccines. There are 22 states where teachers are not yet eligible to receive the vaccine as a specific group, although some educators may fall within the current age group that the state is vaccinating.
About 82% of educators had not been vaccinated in early February, according to a survey conducted by the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country.
Confused messages from Biden
Biden took office promising to open most schools during his first 100 days, an ambitious goal from the beginning. The federal government cannot force schools to reopen and it is unclear exactly how the government will measure success.
Earlier this month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden was committed “to ensuring that schools operate five days a week” – as soon as appropriate security measures are in place. Two days earlier, she suggested that “teaching at least one day a week in most schools by the 100th day” may be enough to achieve the goal.
About 26% of elementary and high school students are attending schools with hybrid hours, according to the private data tracking company Burbio. In these situations, students can attend a few days in person, but classes are alternated so that students are socially distant in the classroom. A district in the South Bay area of California, for example, is considering bringing students back into the classroom for just an hour a week to get started.
Districts generally switch to fully virtual education when there are many cases reported, although the number of cases requiring closure varies widely by district. When cases increased during the holidays, about 55% of students’ schools were virtual only, according to Burbio.
On February 21, about 31% of elementary and high school students were attending fully virtual schools. Almost 43% were enrolled in schools that open every day for face-to-face classes.
Elizabeth Stuart, Kristina Sgueglia and CNN’s Meridith Edwards contributed to the report.
