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The post NYC in-person school instruction delayed, ‘mandatory’ monthly testing for students and staff allowed appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday that America’s largest school system will delay in-class school instruction by 11 days to allow teachers and principals extra time to prepare to meet students amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In a deal struck with New York City’s powerful unions representing teachers, staff, and administrators, in-person instruction that was supposed to begin on Sept. 10 will be delayed until Sept. 16.
All students will begin the school year virtually learning from home, by computer, on Sept. 16 before a hybrid approach, involving some in-person instruction, begins five days later, de Blasio said, making the announcement alongside schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and United Federation of Teachers’ President Michael Mulgrew. Teachers will report as scheduled on Sept. 8.
NEW YORK GOV. ANDREW CUOMO SAYS ‘FINGERS CROSSED’ SCHOOLS ARE READY TO REOPEN
“One of the things that we affirmed in these discussions is that nothing, nothing replaces in-person learning,” de Blasio said. “Our educators have been clear, that as important as it is to supply the very best remote learning that we can — to address the digital divide, to provide free devices and internet services for kids, do everything we can to make remote work, nothing is as powerful as in-person learning.”
De Blasio, a Democrat, explained that “mandatory” monthly COVID-19 testing will be carried out on a sample of students and staff in every school in the city’s five boroughs through a “medical monitoring program” conducted by health experts from both the mayoral administration as well as unions. Testing vans and tents will also be set up outside schools.
“We’re all working together to figure out the details. What I know for sure is that every single school will have testing. It will be done every single month. It will be rigorous. We are going to be looking constantly for any signs of a challenge we have to address,” the mayor said. “Anyone who tests positive will, of course, be isolated and it will trigger the test and trace apparatus.”
MASSACHUSETTS STUDENT FLU SHOT MANDATE DRAWS HUNDREDS OF PROTESTERS TO BOSTON
Mulgrew, who heads the city’s largest teachers union, had for days threatened a strike if de Blasio pressed forward with plans to restart in-classroom learning Sept. 10. Tuesday morning’s deal was struck hours before an afternoon meeting by delegates of the United Federation of Teachers, which was poised to vote on whether to authorize the strike.
The United Federation of Teachers advocated for mandatory testing for adults and students and for the city to delay reopening until all schools were equipped with adequate masks and personal protective equipment, cleaning supplies, and improved ventilation.
CUOMO AUTHORIZES NEW YORK SCHOOLS TO REOPEN AMID CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
The development comes after de Blasio emphasized for months that the city’s 1.1 million public school students need schools to resume in-person instruction this fall after the coronavirus abruptly forced a thorny plunge into remote learning in March. New York City students had their last day of in-class instruction on March 13. All schools statewide were closed by March 18.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state would allow a return to in-person school in regions where fewer than 5% of people tested for COVID-19 came back positive.
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The entire state has been well under that threshold all summer. The Democratic governor this month cleared schools to open around the state while cautioning that they still needed to address parents’ and teachers’ safety concerns.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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]]>The post Gov. Bill Lee: In-person learning is ‘best option,’ calls for Tennessee schools to reopen appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>State officials are encouraging Tennessee’s school districts to reopen with in-person classes — including calling for quarantine periods for those with coronavirus symptoms, health and safety supplies for teachers, and millions in grant money to help fund technology.
“Make no mistake, extended time away from the classroom is harmful for children,” Gov. Bill Lee said at a Tuesday news conference. “We fully support reopening our schools with in-person learning as the best option. Planned delays should be reserved for the most extreme situations.”
Lee and Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn did not mandate when schools resume in-person classes but said it was their expectation that all districts return students to campus.
“When we think about the new school year, the department’s top priority will continue to be ensuring safe and healthy schools for children and staff and providing high-quality education for all children,” Schwinn said at the news conference.
Health protocols that districts are expected to follow
The state education and health departments together created protocols that all districts are expected to follow for how to respond to confirmed COVID-19 cases and when to close schools, though some school districts across the state were already working with local public health officials to establish criteria specific to their own communities.
Some districts have already started classes, while others are set to start back next week — including Metro Nashville Public Schools. Nashville students will start the year remotely.
Tennessee Public Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said it should be rare for an entire district to close down again.
“I think we’ve all clearly stated today that in-classroom learning is the best and should be a starting point and then you should work your way backwards from that,” Piercey said. “We’ve assisted the Department of Education with a very detailed plan of how to address cases when they happen. … We don’t want to put anyone at risk. But we also know that if an outbreak is contained to a classroom, it’s probably not needed to close the whole building.”
Under the plan unveiled Tuesday:
- There will be a 10-day sick window for anyone testing positive for COVID-19. They must isolate at home for 10 days from the onset of their symptoms or 10 days from the date of a test.
- There will be a 14-day quarantine period. Anyone who has been within 6 feet for 10 minutes or more of someone who has COVID-19 must quarantine themselves at home from the last time they were with that person.
- The state is providing personal protective equipment, including masks, for any “school stakeholder” who wants or needs one, thermometers for every school and face shields for every staff member.
- The state says it will spend $77 million to provide a classroom kit for up to 80,000 teachers of personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies.
- There will be an $11 million grant program to bolster remote learning programming.
- The state says a $50 million grant initiative to support school districts with technology purchases is now available.
- In addition to outlining the school reopening procedures, the governor announced a plan to allow school sports to return.
Push to reopen as concerns mount among teachers
Lee and Schwinn have continued to push for schools to reopen in-person this fall despite ongoing spikes of coronavirus cases across the state and pleas from some educators for instruction to remain online until the spread of the virus has been halted.
Just this week, educators in Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis gathered for mock funeral processions, “die-ins” and other protests calling for Lee to issue a statewide mask mandate as well as allocate more funding for health and safety measures and technology access in the state’s schools.
On Monday, after meeting with White House adviser Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the top coronavirus officials in the nation, Lee said he believes reopening schools in-person is best for children.
Lee and Schwinn have argued that closing schools poses risks to vulnerable children who are trapped in homes where there is the possibility for abuse or neglect, children who don’t have access to nutritious meals, and even to the mental and emotional health of children.
Schwinn has argued many families depend on schools for not only academics but also support services and even just a safe place for their children to go during the day while parents have to go to work.
Schwinn and Piercey emphasized the decrease in reported child abuse cases and the rise in student hunger as some of the consequences the state has seen from students being out of school for extended periods of time.
Though there isn’t a clear consensus among public health or medical experts on how significant of a role children play in the spread of COVID-19, recent evidence shows that older children and teens are just as likely to spread the virus as adults.
Most children under the age of 18 who contract COVID-19 experience mild symptoms and fully recover within one to two weeks, according to medical experts, but at least four children under 18 have died in Tennessee after contracting the virus.
People under the age of 20 make up 16%, or 15,351, of Tennessee’s cases, according to Tennessee Department of Health data as of Monday.
The rise in cases has led multiple school districts to push back the start of their school years, including Shelby, Wilson and Knox counties.
But on Tuesday, Lee urged school districts to open on time, saying any planned delays should be reserved for more “extreme situations.”
Coronavirus cases already showing up in schools
But the worry is that as children return to school and spread the virus among their peers, teachers and to their families, the children might fare OK, but the adults who surround them and care for them might not.
In East Tennessee, just days after Alcoa City Schools began welcoming students back to class last week, an individual at Alcoa Middle School tested positive for the virus.
Families were notified Friday, and though it’s unclear how many students or staff were exposed to the individual, students who did have contact will have to quarantine at home.
If notified, the student will need to quarantine for 14 days unless a doctor’s note or negative test shows it’s possible to return sooner. Students are expected to continue working digitally but are not permitted to attend school or any school activities.
And on Tuesday, Oak Ridge schools said a staff member at a middle school tested positive for COVID-19. Oak Ridge schools start back Wednesday.
Unlike the state’s approach to publicly release the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths that occur in long-term care facilities, Piercey said similar information would not be published for Tennessee schools.
She said such information would more likely come from local school districts.
Asked whether thousands of students and teachers contracting COVID-19 could force the state to alter course, Lee said Tennessee would maintain its current approach with decisions made based on data.
“There’s going to be a nationwide experiment in this,” he said. “But it’s a nationwide commitment to kids.”
Criticism of plan quick to emerge
Tennessee Democrats slammed Lee, arguing his plan does not follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Democrats highlighted portions of the CDC guidelines that say schools should reopen only if transmission rates in a community are under control, according to the party’s statement.
“The lives of children, parents, teachers, support staff, and administrators are nothing to experiment with,” the party said in a statement.
Hundreds of Tennessee doctors who have been calling for schools not to reopen in-person also spoke out against the plan Tuesday.
“We have clear guidelines that determine Tennessee is experiencing an extreme outbreak and we have not got this under control to the point where we can safely open schools,” said Dr. Stephen Heyman, a Tennessee critical care physician, speaking on behalf of ProtectMyCare, a coalition of doctors who have been outspoken throughout the coronavirus pandemic. “We cannot open schools until we have this pandemic controlled.”
Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.
Meghan Mangrum covers education in Nashville for the USA TODAY Network – Tennessee. Contact her at mmangrum@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.
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]]>The post CDC urges in-person learning, but offers little guidance for sick students or teachers appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday released a long-awaited update to guidelines for getting children back into the classroom this fall, but it left many details of how to do so safely up to officials at the local level.
“Let the individual jurisdictions see how the different strategies that we’ve put out can be best employed,” Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, said during a call with reporters Friday.
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There’s no question that in-person learning is important to the growth and development of children. The question is how to do so safely.
“Children get much more than academics at school,” members of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and The School Superintendents Association wrote this month in a joint statement. “They also learn social and emotional skills at school, get healthy meals and exercise, mental health support and other services that cannot be easily replicated online.”
The updated CDC guidance suggests schools can encourage physical distancing by expanding classrooms into unused buildings or moving instruction time outside, as well as keeping students in “pods” where the same groups stay together throughout the school day. The guidelines also encourage thorough hand-washing and regular disinfection of surfaces to cut the risk of COVID-19 spread.
The CDC also encourages schools to develop a plan of action if and when a student or teacher becomes ill, though the agency stopped short of offering suggestions on what such a plan might entail.
“We owe it to our nation’s children to take personal responsibility to do everything we can to lower the level of COVID-19 so they can go back to school,” Redfield said.
The nation’s top infectious disease doctor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said the CDC guidance is a “sound set of guidelines” and there is no “simple answer” when it comes to reopening schools.
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“It depends on where you are,” Fauci said Friday during an interview with The Washington Post that was streamed online. “We live in a very large country that is geographically and demographically diverse.”
“If you live in a county or place where there’s not much activity, send them back to school,” he said.
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Also Friday, the journal Pediatrics published a survey of more than 1,000 parents that found the impact of keeping kids out of school has hit children and parents hard.
More than a quarter of parents reported a decline in mental well-being, and 14 percent said their children had exhibited behavioral problems.
“Parents across the country and kids across the country are in distress,” said Dr. Stephen Patrick, the study’s author and director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy in Nashville, Tennessee.
The survey cited a variety of issues for families that extend beyond classroom instruction. A significant number of children rely on public schools for meals, internet access and health care.
Back-to-school risks?
It still remains unclear how easily kids are able to spread COVID-19.
One study from South Korean researchers found children over age 10 can transmit the virus just as well as adults. But, it appeared children under 10 might not spread it as easily.
“If you think about how the virus is spread through droplets, it makes sense given the fact that younger kids have smaller lung volumes and are less likely to expel as much air as quickly,” said Dr. Nathaniel Beers, a pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington. Beers was not involved with the South Korean study.
Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, said the issue of how well younger children can spread COVID-19 is “still an open question.”
“We certainly know from other studies that children under 10 do get infected. It’s just unclear how rapidly they spread the virus,” Birx said Friday on NBC’s “TODAY” show.
Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, wrote on Twitter Friday that “the administration and federal agencies do not need to spend time continuing to emphasize how valuable school is.”
“What schools and families need is all the available info on kids’ transmission risk to each other, teachers, families, and how to most lower those risks,” he wrote.
This @CDCgov guidance on schools should have included more detail on what is known and unknown about transmission risk (e.g nothing about large Korean study this week that showed kids 10-19 transmitted as well as adults, nothing on Israel experience…1/x https://t.co/eNidZerSqs
— Tom Inglesby (@T_Inglesby) July 24, 2020
At least 64 children have died of COVID-19 in the U.S., according to the CDC, and 342 have been diagnosed with a complication linked to the virus, multisystem inflammatory syndrome, or MIS-C.
Beers also expressed caution: “We need to be very judicious about reopening schools in areas where community spread of the virus is not contained.”
Indeed, some school districts have already decided to provide online learning only, at least to start the school year.
Officials in San Diego and Los Angeles announced remote learning this fall, as well as districts in Nashville and Atlanta because of recent rises in COVID-19 cases.
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]]>The post Colleges want in-person teaching for fall semester, but professors are pushing back appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>Colleges are pushing for a return to in-person teaching in the fall, but professors are refusing to comply due to coronavirus fears.
Roughly 65 percent of schools that plan to hold classes in the fall are planning in-person semesters, according to tracking by The Chronicle of Higher Education. While students are keen to be back on campus, making good on the hefty tuition they spend each year, professors have been digging their heels in regarding any return.
The United States has seen a surge of new COVID-19 cases, reporting record numbers over the past week. Many states have either paused or started to reverse their plans for reopening, putting the future of many businesses and institutions at risk, including universities.
The average age of an American college professor is 55, according to the European University Institute. People over the age of 60 are the most vulnerable to COVID-19, meaning a large number of professors feel they would be gambling with their lives if they return.
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“Until there’s a vaccine, I’m not setting foot on campus,” Dana Ward, 70, an emeritus professor of political studies at Pitzer College, told the New York Times. “Going into the classroom is like playing Russian roulette.”
A Cornell University survey found that around one-third of its faculty were “not interested in teaching classes in person,” one-third were “open to doing it if conditions were deemed safe,” and the remainder were “willing and anxious to teach in person.”
But faculty in other schools, such as Penn State, the University of Illinois, Notre Dame and the SUNY schools, have signed petitions complaining that they are not being consulted and pushed back into the classroom too soon.
“I shudder at the prospect of teaching in a room filled with asymptomatic superspreaders,” wrote Paul M. Kellermann, 62, an English professor at Penn State, in an essay for Esquire magazine.
TEACHERS UNION LEADER INSISTS SCHOOLS WILL NEED MORE FUNDING TO REOPEN ON TIME AMID PANDEMIC
At the minimum, many are asking for the choice — no questions asked — as to whether they wish to teach remotely or in person.
With classes set to start at some colleges in August, many institutions are cutting it close to make a final decision as to whether they will force students back or not. A number of schools faced difficulties in the transition to remote learning.
The transition was not well received. At Harvard, a student has filed a class-action lawsuit against the university alleging the school provided a “subpar” educational experience via remote learning, according to The Harvard Crimson.
CORONAVIRUS SHUTDOWN CAUSES CATHOLIC SCHOOL CLOSURES
“I hope many students choose to return to campus in the fall, as I believe not only is it better to learn in an environment designed for learning, but I also believe we are getting more for our money’s worth,” Henry Bojanowski, a Boston University student, told BU Today. “Additionally, I think many people would benefit from a more social environment like the BU campus, since the vast majority of us have been socially distancing for quite a while.”
Understandably, schools want to avoid such an experience.
Purdue University President Mitch Daniels wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, arguing that it would be “anti-scientific” and “an unacceptable breach of duty” not to reopen.
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“Forty-five thousand young people — the biggest student population we’ve ever had — are telling us they want to be here this fall,” Daniel wrote. “To tell them, ‘Sorry, we are too incompetent or too fearful to figure out how to protect your elders, so you have to disrupt your education,’ would be a gross disservice to them and a default of our responsibility.
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]]>The post In-person classes, online learning or a mix? Reopening schools will bring new struggles appeared first on Virus Reports.
]]>With the next academic year less than three months away, and no end in sight to the coronavirus pandemic, school districts face a daunting decision: Reopen the schools they shuttered, or continue to teach students remotely?
Educators across the United States are weighing their options, taking into account the quality of the education they can offer, the need for children to socialize and keeping safety in mind above all else.
So far, a hybrid model that combines some in-person learning and some remote learning has emerged as the most popular proposal for the fall, according to Dan Domenech, the executive director of AASA, The School Superintendents Association, an advocacy organization for the 14,000 superintendents in the U.S.
That could mean a school has as little as 25 percent of its normal capacity in the building at once, which would give students more space for social distancing in their classrooms and in the hallways. Or schools might bring back as many as 50 percent of students and staff at one time — something Broward County, Florida, envisions with the hybrid model it has proposed for its school year starting Aug. 19.
How, exactly, schools will stagger students’ schedules is up to individual districts, and whichever group is not in the building at a given time will continue the curriculum remotely.
But with so many unknowns still, a lot of school districts are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Schools in Virginia are closely monitoring COVID-19 cases before deciding what the fall semester will look like, but have indicated they will do the blended format of in-person and online learning initially — prompting protests from parents in at least one county who want more face-to-face instruction. Last week, health and education officials in Minnesota announced that if state COVID-19 metrics “continue to stabilize and/or improve,” schools could reopen in the fall without strict social distancing guidelines. Texas, meanwhile, plans to have all students return to their school buildings, even as cases in that state spike.
Any option that involves students entering a physical space is certain to be loaded with hurdles — from how to keep them 6 feet apart from one another on the school bus to making sure they are using hand sanitizer, plus adequately stocking their classrooms with cleaning supplies.
“This is going to be a very, very difficult and challenging school year,” said Domenech, whose organization on Friday released a 50-page set of guidelines for reopening schools. “There’s not much time to plan, particularly when you don’t know what to plan for.”
How a mix of online and in-person learning might look
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The hybrid model is not a one-size-fits-all plan. In Virginia, for example, state guidelines urge in-person instruction to be offered first to preschool through third graders and to English-language learners.
And in North Carolina, the state is mulling complex variations that range from students spending half the day at school and half at home to students being in school on alternating days or weeks. The state plans to announce by July 1 whether it will continue remote learning, send all students to school full-time or do some combination of the two.
But even with detailed proposals for the fall, school districts still face a slew of uncertainties, namely how they will pay for whatever scenario they end up going with. An analysis by the School Superintendents Association and the Association of School Business Officials International found that on average, a school district could spend up to an additional $1.8 million to reopen school buildings when factoring in the costs of health monitoring, cleaning, protective equipment and additional staff.
That’s a tall order for strapped school districts at any time, but particularly in an economic downturn.
“Districts are looking at significant cuts in their budget, and wondering where the money will come from,” Domenech said. “They’re caught between a rock and a hard place, and the biggest fear is they’re going to be forced to open schools without the safety guidelines.”
Cash-strapped school districts are “caught between a rock and a hard place, and the biggest fear is they’re going to be forced to open schools without the safety guidelines.”
While children have generally had more mild symptoms from the coronavirus than adults, there have been some severe and even fatal pediatric cases. And there are concerns over a rare, new and potentially serious condition, called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, that appears to be linked to the coronavirus.
Fears of children becoming critically ill from a coronavirus outbreak at school — or of a child transmitting the coronavirus to a vulnerable family member — have spooked parents. Six out of 10 said they would be likely to pursue remote learning instead of sending their children back to school next year, according to a USA Today/Ipsos poll from May.
The concern is not just for the students and their families: With no vaccine or reliable treatment yet, teachers and staff are also at risk, particularly those of advanced age or those with underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to COVID-19 complications. In another USA Today/Ipsos poll, 1 in 5 teachers said they were unlikely to go back to school if their classrooms reopened in the fall.
But many parents desperately want to send their kids back to class. And experts worldwide — including more than 1,500 pediatricians in the United Kingdom — say a return to in-person learning is the best path forward.
“Children need to go back to school,” said Dr. Kathryn Edwards, an infectious diseases specialist and professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine who is on an advisory committee with the board of education in Nashville, Tennessee, that is helping the school system to safely reopen schools. “Children benefit greatly from school: They’re educated, a number of children get at least two meals at school so they are not hungry, and also, there are situations where schools are a way to detect neglect and abuse situations.”
Some other countries have already reopened schools, including Austria, Denmark and Germany, which have not seen a notable uptick in COVID-19 cases since. But in Israel, dozens of schools had to shutter after students returned in May because outbreaks emerged.
Taryn Southard, a second grade teacher in Portland, Maine, worries that she, her students or their families could get sick if everyone returns to school. But teaching remotely has had its downsides.
She had just started to make progress with some of her students, most of whom do not speak English as their primary language, when the abrupt switch to remote learning happened. Seeing her second graders attempt to keep up with the demands of school from home — where many live below the poverty line and do not have a stable environment — highlighted the already existing disparities among them.
“At home, you’re really fighting a lot of different things,” she said, adding that one of her students was homeless and trying to stay on top of his schoolwork while his family shuttled among various friends’ houses.
Some of her students, she said, had parents who could not help with school because they did not speak English or had to go to work during the pandemic. Other students had to vie against their siblings for computer time to complete their assignments.
“This is 100 percent a traumatic event, even under the best of circumstances, for kids at home.”
“This is 100 percent a traumatic event, even under the best of circumstances, for kids at home,” Southard said.
Domenech urged all school leaders to involve parents, teachers, staff and students in the discussions they are having about how the fall will look “so people don’t have the expectation of school opening business as usual, when that’s not going to happen anywhere.”
“The No. 1 priority has to be that whatever’s done is done safely,” he said. “And if that means that remote learning has to continue for a large section of the population, then that’s what needs to happen.”
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