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Public Education Partners: Ohio Is Not Ready for a Safe Reopening

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2020 //
10

Public Education Partners is the leading volunteer advocacy group for public schools in Ohio.

They issued this statement last night.

We are public education experts.

Public Education Partners (PEP) is a statewide, grassroots public education advocacy group whose mission is to preserve, protect, and strengthen Ohio’s public schools. Public Education Partners is an integral part of education policy deliberations through legislative consultation, Statehouse testimony, and community forums, among other actions. Over 90% of Ohio’s children attend public schools, and Ohio’s public-school system is the largest employer in the state.

The PEP Board is an entirely volunteer group comprised of:
active and retired educators and administrators with a collective total of over 350 years of teaching experience in Ohio’s public schools’ urban, suburban and rural districts;
public school board members;
city council members;
parents and grandparents of Ohio Public School students

PEP is a nonprofit organization that does not endorse political candidates. Public Education Partners has no paid members.

We believe district-sourced remote learning is warranted for the opening of the 2020-2021 school year across Ohio.

PEP believes that opening the school year with full-time remote learning, sourced within school districts, is the best approach to keeping children, school staff and their families safe from the public health crisis of coronavirus infection and spread.

As much as we know teachers miss face-to-face teaching and students miss their school communities and activities, PEP urges Ohio to embrace a statewide commitment to remote learning until the pandemic is brought under control. Returning to school buildings for on-site teaching and learning should be reassessed quarterly following science-based evaluations of the containment of the virus.

The recent rise in coronavirus cases in Ohio is cause for extreme caution. Subsequent to the gradual reopening of Ohio’s economy beginning in mid-May, coronavirus cases dropped 40% until mid-June; after June 21 the number of cases in Ohio has more than doubled through Sunday, July 19.

During the past four weeks, Ohio has recorded twelve of the fourteen highest daily case totals of the entire pandemic, including a record 1,679 cases Friday July 17, another 1,542 cases Saturday July 18, the third-highest number reported since March, and an additional 1,110 cases Sunday July 19.

Currently, more than 60% of Ohioans are living in counties declared a Level 3 Public Emergency: very high exposure and spread. Governor DeWine’s state orders for Level 3 counties call for limiting activities outside the home as much as possible and wearing face coverings inside all public buildings.

A full 36% of total cases throughout the four months of the pandemic have come in the past twenty-five days. The total number of confirmed and probable cases as of Sunday July 19 is 74,932. A record 9,555 Ohioans have been hospitalized, and 3,174 Ohioans have died of COVID-19.

While we all share the goal of returning to school buildings as soon as possible, experimenting with our children’s health and safety does not reflect a society where we put children first.

Given the rise in coronavirus cases, any full-time or “hybrid” plan to reopen school buildings for on-site teaching and learning puts the lives of Ohio’s children, teachers, administration, school staff, and their families at risk.

Our recommendations are rooted in Science.

School districts should reopen according to evidence-based research from scientists, public health experts, and educators. Because children’s welfare relies on schools’ decisions, neither political expediency nor profit motives should be given priority over science.

According to health experts, COVID-19 is a highly contagious, deadly disease and the role of children in the transmission of COVID-19 is currently unknown. Health experts fear it can cause potential lifelong damage in children and emphasize that the long-term consequences of coronavirus in children are unknown.

A troubling trend concerning children and the virus is the recent report that children in Florida are showing a 31.1 percent positivity rate for COVID-19 infections based on state testing data. Children in Florida are testing positive for the virus at a 20 percent higher rate than adults who have about an 11 percent positivity rate.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recently declared that it was not confident that reopening schools in the middle of this public health crisis is the best option for children. This reversal of its earlier statement exemplifies the speed with which schools continue to receive vague and conflicting information from the medical and scientific communities.

This is a novel and evolving virus. There is emerging evidence that airborne transmission is a significant factor in the virus spread. Scientists continue to discover new symptoms, risk factors, and methods of virus transmission. The long-term effects of the disease to Covid-19 survivors are yet unknown.

Ohio is not ready to open schools.

PEP believes that in order for a county to safely reopen its school buildings, the coronavirus transmission rate needs to be scientifically demonstrated to be near zero. Our conviction is consistent with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and ongoing reports from Dr. Anthony Fauci (Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) that the United States remains in the first of what will most likely be a series of viral waves.

In Ohio and most of the United States, there has been no flattening of the curve. The data cited above regarding these continuing spikes in infection rates in July is clear evidence the pandemic is not under control.

Other countries, such as New Zealand, Vietnam, and Germany, have responsibly reopened schools but did so only after they flattened the curve and drastically reduced infection rates through rapid case identification, contact tracing, and isolation.

Our recommendations are rooted in our deep commitment to the role of public schools.

Always, our number one priority in public schools is to keep our school communities safe.

The reopening of schools must be primarily about the health and safety of the learning environment, for the sake of students, faculty, support staff, and their families.

Despite exhaustive efforts throughout the state and the country to safeguard a return to school,
there is currently no tenable plan for keeping children infection-free in our schools,
there is currently no tenable plan for keeping adults infection-free in our schools.

The realities of education budgets must be considered in any discussion about this pandemic.

State funding:

Ohio’s K-12 public school budget has been slashed by $330 million as an emergency measure to cope with Ohio’s collapsing economy. Financially strapped taxpayers are not able to make up the school funding shortfall with additional school levies bringing higher property taxes for homeowners. Schools would be challenged without a pandemic to make the reduced budget work—in the midst of this global pandemic, unprecedented help is needed.

Pandemic-related expenses:
Neither the state of Ohio nor the federal government has provided adequate resources for increased health and safety precautions in school buildings.

Similarly, increased technological needs necessitated by the pandemic and increased distance learning, such as internet infrastructure and personal computers for all students, have not been met.

School buildings with aging heating and cooling systems lack the filtration features that reduce viral transmissions, and windows that do not open properly to promote air circulation will further increase the chance of pandemic spread.

Following CDC recommendations of keeping schools clean and maintaining six-foot physical distances between people, even in makeshift fashion or reduced capacity, is unrealistic. However careful teachers are to facilitate social distancing, mask wearing, and hand washing, students are active social beings who are used to learning and playing close together.

Teacher and staff substitution potential:

Consider some basic facts about Ohio’s teaching workforce-

25% of the teacher workforce is over the age of fifty, which by definition puts them at higher risk of suffering serious illness from Covid-19.

Most schools do not have full-time nurses in their buildings.

The anticipated medical exemptions for teachers who are immunocompromised or have high-risk health conditions will be significant in number.

A shortage of both long-term teachers and substitute teachers that pre-dates the pandemic will only make the infection rates and coverage of teacher absences more difficult for students.

Virus testing is neither universally reliable and timely, nor universally available in Ohio.

Already during the pandemic, mental health issues have escalated in a significant proportion of the population from anxiety and fear of exposure to the virus. The trauma associated with rapid unexpected change will be exacerbated by every known case of viral spread within schools.

The idea of quarantining entire groups of teachers and students upon the discovery of a confirmed case of Covid-19 is untenable, and such disruption compromises the effectiveness of on-site teaching and learning for everyone.

We categorically reject the idea that schools must reopen on behalf of the struggling economy.

PEP believes that federal mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States is the cause of the extreme economic upset that has ensued. It is neither the schools’ responsibility, nor sound policy, to attempt to remedy the situation by reopening school buildings at high risk to the school communities. The health and safety of Ohio’s students, staff, and families must remain our top priority.

Conclusion:

Ohio’s K-12 public school district communities share in the suffering caused by this coronavirus pandemic. Lives have been turned upside down, and the uncertainty of this evolving global crisis causes loss, disequilibrium, and anxiety. PEP believes that moving into the upcoming school year with calm and resolve is the best way to maximize the effectiveness of Ohio’s system of public education.

Public Education Partners continues to be an educational resource for school districts and local communities across Ohio. PEP proposes pooling our collective community resources to keep our public schools safe. Shared responsibility in creating a risk-free school reopening plan will allow us to emerge stronger together in our commitment to public education and the children and families we serve.

Sources

Home


https://coronavirus.ohio.gov/wps/portal/gov/covid-19/public-health-advisory-system/
https://www.dispatch.com/news/20200715/watch-pandemic-path-leads-dewine-to-heart-to-heart-talk-with-ohioans

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/507442-almost-one-third-of-florida-children-tested-are
https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/07/10/schoolreentrysafety071020
https://www.educationdive.com/news/more-robust-coronavirus-guidelines-needed-to-protect-high-risk-educators/581711/

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/ColumbusDispatch/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TCD%2F2020%2F07%2F19&entity=Ar00303&sk=E4AD08E3&mode=text
http://digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/ODN/ColumbusDispatch/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TCD%2F2020%2F07%2F19&entity=Ar02301&sk=94FADAE9&mode=text

Click to access summary1_page_.pdf

Click to access samestormdiffboats_final.pdf

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/07/14/covid-19-online-school-los-angeles

Categories Health, Ohio, Safety, Science, Students, Teachers

New Study: Children As Young As 10 Can Spread the Virus

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2020 //
18

The New York Times reports on a new study from South Korea that finds that children as young as 10 can spread the coronavirus. Will the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC revise their guidelines based on this new information?

A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do.

The findings suggest that as schools reopen, communities will see clusters of infection take root that include children of all ages, several experts cautioned.

“I fear that there has been this sense that kids just won’t get infected or don’t get infected in the same way as adults and that, therefore, they’re almost like a bubbled population,” said Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota.

“There will be transmission,” Dr. Osterholm said. “What we have to do is accept that now and include that in our plans.”

Several studies from Europe and Asia have suggested that young children are less likely to get infected and to spread the virus. But most of those studies were small and flawed, said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

The new study “is very carefully done, it’s systematic and looks at a very large population,” Dr. Jha said. “It’s one of the best studies we’ve had to date on this issue.”

Other experts also praised the scale and rigor of the analysis. South Korean researchers identified 5,706 people who were the first to report Covid-19 symptoms in their households between Jan. 20 and March 27, when schools were closed, and then traced the 59,073 contacts of these “index cases.” They tested all of the household contacts of each patient, regardless of symptoms, but only tested symptomatic contacts outside the household.

The first person in a household to develop symptoms is not necessarily the first to have been infected, and the researchers acknowledged this limitation. Children are also less likely than adults to show symptoms, so the study may have underestimated the number of children who set off the chain of transmission within their households.

Still, experts said the approach was reasonable. “It is also from a place with great contact tracing, done at the point interventions were being put in place,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Children under 10 were roughly half as likely as adults to spread the virus to others, consistent with other studies. That may be because children generally exhale less air — and therefore less virus-laden air — or because they exhale that air closer to the ground, making it less likely that adults would breathe it in.

Even so, the number of new infections seeded by children may rise when schools reopen, the study authors cautioned. “Young children may show higher attack rates when the school closure ends, contributing to community transmission of Covid-19,” they wrote. Other studies have also suggested that the large number of contacts for schoolchildren, who interact with dozens of others for a good part of the day, may cancel out their smaller risk of infecting others.

The researchers traced the contacts only of children who felt ill, so it’s still unclear how efficiently asymptomatic children spread the virus, said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“I think it was always going to be the case that symptomatic children are infectious,” she said. “The questions about the role of children are more around whether children who don’t have symptoms are infectious.”

Dr. Rivers was a member of a scientific panel that on Wednesday recommended reopening schools wherever possible for disabled children and for those in elementary schools, because those groups have the most trouble learning online. She said the new study does not alter that recommendation.

The study is more worrisome for children in middle and high school. This group was even more likely to infect others than adults were, the study found. But some experts said that finding may be a fluke or may stem from the children’s behaviors.

These older children are frequently as big as adults, and yet may have some of the same unhygienic habits as young children do. They may also have been more likely than the younger children to socialize with their peers within the high-rise complexes in South Korea.

“We can speculate all day about this, but we just don’t know,” Dr. Osterholm said. “The bottom line message is: There’s going to be transmission.”

He and other experts said schools will need to prepare for infections to pop up. Apart from implementing physical distancing, hand hygiene and masks, schools should also decide when and how to test students and staff — including, for example, bus drivers — when and how long to require people to quarantine, and when to decide to close and reopen schools.

But they face a monumental challenge because the evidence on transmission within schools has been far from conclusive so far, experts said. Some countries like Denmark and Finland have successfully reopened schools, but others, like China, Israel and South Korea, have had to close them down again.

Categories Health, International, Safety, Students

Andy Hargreaves: What Should Happen to Education Post-Pandemic?

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2020 //
14

Andy Hargreaves, a scholar of international renown, participated in a virtual seminar in South Korea about post-pandemic education.

His 20-minute presentation is brilliant, pithy, and compelling.

Look for it on this YouTube video. He starts at about 22:00 minutes and concludes at about the 43:00 minute mark.

He urges South Korea and the rest of the world not to “return” to austerity, competition, high-stakes testing, and education that is subservient to GDP, but to pursue a very different path.

To learn about that different and very alluring vision of the future, take 20 minutes of your time, watch and listen.

Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Competition, Creativity, Education Industry, Education Reform, Health, Hope, International, Privatization, Real Education, Students, Teachers, Technology, Testing

Teachers: Why Not Shift to Outdoor Learning?

By dianeravitch
July 18, 2020 //
32

A group of New York City teachers argue in The New York Daily News that the best way to restart the schools, especially for young children, is to hold classes outdoors. They do not address the problems of rain and freezing weather.

Liat Olenick, Darcy Whittwmore, and Heather Costanza see many virtues in outdoor learning.

Holding classes indoors in a city with over one million students, they write, will create dangerous and unhealthy conditions. Why not grab this opportunity for creative solutions?

Move the younger children outdoors, they say, while keeping high school students online.

Outdoor learning is a tried and tested fit for early childhood. There are all-day outdoor kindergartens in wintery Maine and Vermont, in which children dress for the weather and learn outside nearly every day. Vaunted models of early childhood education like Reggio-Emilia emphasize outdoor exploration because ages 4-8 comprise the crucial stage in which multisensory, interactive learning is essential for children’s cognitive growth. Outdoor learning offers children authentic, stimulating experiences that foster skills like creative problem solving, independence, flexibility and resiliency as they form a deep connection to the natural world. Learning outdoors also offers possibilities for culturally responsive, place-based learning, giving students hands-on, meaningful opportunities to engage and connect with their communities.

In the context of COVID, outdoor learning becomes even more appealing. Elementary students are more likely to live near school, making finding a space that works for families without needing public transit more feasible.

And per current guidelines, the requirements of indoor learning — sitting six feet apart, no contact, no sharing materials, and staying in one enclosed space for hours on end — are not developmentally appropriate for young children.

If we move outdoors, kids will have room to be kids without fear of punishment or infecting someone they love. Given the ongoing criminalization of students of color in schools, we fear the consequences of imposing new, high stakes social-distancing rules on all, but particularly on our youngest students.

We have the space to make outdoor learning work. New York City is home to 28,000 acres of public parkland, more than 1,100 school and community gardens, plus schoolyards, rooftops, cemeteries, beaches, private outdoor space and even parking lots or closeable neighborhood streets which could be spruced up with benches and planters.

These investments in public space might even foster greater equity in our city; experiences in nature are essential for children’s mental health, but green space is often concentrated in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods.

Transforming our streets and playgrounds into possibility-rich outdoor classrooms could be a way to equalize access to nature at a time when many outdoor programs serving children of color have been shuttered.

Outdoor learning will not be perfect. It will require support from schools, parks, neighborhood institutions and families to plan for site-specific challenges. But compare that with our other two options: Fully remote learning, which means zero childcare for caregivers and especially fails our young students, or a blended, classroom model for 1.1 million students that is likely to put our most vulnerable communities in grave danger.

This is our clarion call. We hope it spurs intrepid leaders to consider outdoor learning as a viable option for all of our youngest students during COVID and beyond. Organizations around the country, including New York private schools, are already developing proposals to take learning outside. With a little imagination and support from our city, we could make it happen here — not just for the privileged few, but for all.

Olenick, Whittemore and Costanza are public elementary school teachers in Brooklyn.

Categories Early Childhood Education, New York City, Play, Students, Teachers

Florida: Nearly One-Third of Those Tested Under 18 Were Positive for Coronavirus

By dianeravitch
July 17, 2020 //
19

This is worrisome. Those demanding the speedy and full reopening of schools have taken for granted that children are unlikely to become infected with coronavirus.

But the latest data from Florida show that complacency is unwarranted. 

Those localities where the pandemic is growing and out of control should be cautious and aware of the risk to children.

The Huffington Post reports:

Nearly one-third of children who have been tested for the coronavirus in Florida have tested positive, according to data from the state’s Department of Health that comes amid ongoing debate and uncertainty over whether schools will reopen this fall.

Of the 54,022 people under the age of 18 who have been tested for COVID-19 in Florida, 16,797 of them, or roughly 31%, have tested positive, data released Friday shows. In comparison, roughly 11% of everyone in the state who has been tested for the virus — roughly 2.8 million people — has tested positive.

Nearly half of the state’s positive cases among children were in the counties of Broward, Dade, Hillsborough and Palm Beach.

Cases throughout the Sunshine State have risen at alarming rates in recent weeks. On Thursday the state set a new one-day coronavirus death record while also reporting nearly 14,000 new cases of COVID-19 ― the second-highest daily total that the state has seen. Its highest total reported last weekend set a national record.

Amid this growth, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has continued to push for schools to reopen this fall, with him on Tuesday telling mayors in south Florida — the state’s hardest-hit area for cases — that doing so is low-risk.

Categories Florida, Health, Safety, Students

Black Students and Staff Speak Out About Charters

By dianeravitch
July 16, 2020 //
7

Black students/staff at charter schools fight back on Instagram. Lots of
amazing stuff here.

@blackatuncommon
@_theuncommontruth
@dearcharterschool
@truecolorsofcharter
@blackandbrownatdp
@defundcharterschools
@beingblackatkipp
@survivors_of_successacademy
@sa.vanguards

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Privatization, Race, Racism, Resistance, Students

Thomas Pedroni: Detroit School Board Votes to Reopen Schools Despite Concerns of Teachers and Parents

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2020 //
21
Last night the Detroit Board of Education, which opened for summer school Monday, voted to unanimously reopen school on the regular first day in August. This happened despite three hours of unified testimony by teachers, parents, and community organizers that the schools should not be reopened until minimum conditions are met. We held a state wide Press conference this morning calling on schools not to open until a set of health conditions have been met. Here is some remarkable testimony given by one teacher to the board last night. 

.https://www.facebook.com/30308059/posts/10107099891572474/?d=n

Here is our archived press conference from this morning:

https://www.facebook.com/38514087/posts/10104168872243786/?d=n

Here are the demands:

https://mailchi.mp/afbe6d675b55/press-release-on-school-reopenings-5033109?e=71d7c71fdb

Best, Tom

Thomas C. Pedroni

Associate Professor, Curriculum Studies
Wayne State University 
Categories Detroit, Health, Parents, Safety, Students, Teachers

UTLA: It Is Not Safe to Open Schools This Fall

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2020 //
78

Media Contact / Anna Bakalis 213-305-9654

For immediate release / June 9, 2020

Press release: https://www.utla.net/news/utla-recommends-keeping-school-campuses-closed

UTLA recommends keeping LAUSD school campuses closed; refocus on robust distance learning practices for Fall

LOS ANGELES — Amid COVID-19 infections and deaths surging to record highs, Trump’s threats to open schools prematurely, and a groundbreaking research paper that outlines necessary conditions for safely reopening schools, the UTLA Board of Directors and Bargaining Team are recommending to keep school campuses closed when the semester begins on Aug. 18.

“It is time to take a stand against Trump’s dangerous, anti-science agenda that puts the lives of our members, our students, and our families at risk,” said UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz. “We all want to physically open schools and be back with our students, but lives hang in the balance. Safety has to be the priority. We need to get this right for our communities.”

UTLA is also engaging all members in a poll on Friday, July 10, to find out where they stand on re-opening campuses. UTLA will notify members of the results of the poll Friday night.

The research paper, Same Storm but Different Boats: The Safe and Equitable Conditions for Starting LAUSD in 2020-21, (attached) looks at the science behind the specific conditions that must be met in the second-largest school district in the nation before staff and students can safely return.

Even before the spike in infections and Trump’s reckless talk, there were serious issues with starting the year on school campuses. The state and federal governments have not provided the additional resources or funds needed for increased health and safety measures and there is not enough time for the district to put together the detailed, rigorous plans for a safe return to campus.

According to UTLA’s research paper, there is a jarringly disparate rate of COVID-19 infection, severe illness, and death among Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) working communities, where structural racism and economic inequality mean people live with economic and social factors that increase risk of illness and death. In these communities, people are more likely to have “essential” jobs, insufficient health care, higher levels of pre-existing health conditions, and live in crowded housing. Because of the forces of structural racism, Blacks, Latinx, and Pacific Islanders in Los Angeles County are dying of COVID-19 at twice the rate of white residents.

Categories Health, Los Angeles, Parents, Safety, Students, Teachers

Carol Burris: Why Schools Should Reopen, Safely

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2020 //
123

Carol Burris, experienced teacher and educator, writes here about the importance of reopening schools, with caution. Carol is executive director of the Network for Public Education, but she writes here on her own behalf; NPE has not taken a position on when or whether schools should reopen.

This article appeared on Valerie Strauss’s blog, “The Answer Sheet” at the Washington Post.

When covid-19 hit New South Wales, Australia, the majority of students shifted to remote instruction, with in-school instruction only for those families who needed it. After a few weeks, however, educators began to worry when they saw a reduction in calls to child protective services. It was likely that the reduction was not due to a decrease in child abuse, but rather the absence of the vigilance provided by schools. And officials could not guarantee the safety — or the learning — of some of the most vulnerable students, Education Week’s Madeline Will reported, so they shifted to a different strategy.




By May, New South Wales’ schools began to reopen for all — requiring physical attendance for all students at least one day a week. Now, some form of in-school instruction is happening in every Australian state; some have full attendance requirements and others do not. Each state has developed its plan based on local health needs. Schools have been agile in responding whenever an infection occurred.


As a former teacher and principal, I understand New South Wales’ worry. Schools play a critical role in the lives of children beyond the delivery of instruction. As a high school principal on Long Island, much of my day was spent with counselors and social workers addressing crises in teenagers’ lives. Child protective services was called, on average, once a month.
Combating truancy, school phobia, student depression, and drug dependency were part of our everyday work. The tragedy of student suicide was not unknown to us. Some students needed help talking to parents about their pregnancy or support in leaving an abusive relationship. And then there were the students living with parents who themselves were unwell.


Students at risk can easily slip through cracks. Due to the isolation of remote learning, those cracks have become crevices. Anecdotally, pediatricians are reporting rises in depression, obesity, and stress disorders as well as young children having heart palpitations absent a physical cause.


Research tells us that socially isolated children and adolescents are at risk of depression and anxiety. We know that too much screen time can result in inattention and impulsivity, and mental health disorders in both children and adolescents. And preliminary studies have shown that all but top students are academically falling behind — with the most disadvantaged students experiencing the most significant learning loss.


The Maasai tribe of Africa greet each other with the phrase, “Kasserian ingera,” which means, “And how are the children?” Right now, absent in-person contact, most school’s answer would be, “we don’t know.”




There are some things we do know, however. We know that children aged 10 and under are less likely to be infected by covid-19, less likely to be severely ill, and less likely to transmit the disease. A study of the spread of the disease in Iceland did not find even one instance of a child under 10 years old infecting a parent. A study of Australian schools found that “children are unlikely to transmit the coronavirus to each other or to adults in the classroom.” And the cautious, staged reopening of schools in 22 European nations did not lead to “any significant increase in coronavirus infections among children, parents or staff.”


While that is good news, there is a caveat. Reopening schools as they were before the pandemic was, in one case, a mistake. At first, Israel began reopening schools in a cautious way, with smaller classes and staggered schedules. That reopening was problem-free. Then in mid-May, the economy was fully reopened, and the government decided to throw caution to the wind and abandon the safeguards it had put in place. Infections broke out in several schools that had to be shutdown.


All of this, of course, begs the question, what should American schools do this fall?
The virus may very well be with us for a very long time. A vaccine is unlikely to give us perfect protection and surveys show that one-third of Americans may refuse vaccination.

Recognizing the negative impact of children being separated from in-person schooling, the American Academy of Pediatrics recently advised we pursue the goal of having all students physically present in school, while issuing guidance on how best to keep students and teachers safe.




It would be reckless for states with surging cases to reopen schools as though the virus is not happening. However, there are states where the virus is in decline or where low rates are holding steady. When asked whether schools should reopen this fall, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that decisions should be made locally, based on the severity of the virus.


Yes, it is complicated. It may mean periodic shifts to remote instruction for some classes or even schools if surges return.

Some states may have mid-year openings when the virus retreats.


But that is no reason to throw up so many barriers that it becomes impossible for any school to reopen until (and if) the virus disappears.


A recent Change.org petition claims its signers will not return to in-person school until there are 14 covid-free days in the county in which the school is located, along with universal single-payer health care, full payment of all mortgages and rent throughout the pandemic, and the fulfillment of other demands. Decisions about how much in-person time students receive and how much social distancing is required to reduce risk should be informed by science and medicine, not by politics on the one hand or unreasonable fear on the other.


Reopening schools will not be easy or inexpensive. Flexibility and resources will be required. Congress must send funding to states specifically dedicated to ensuring that schools can open safely — money that supplements, not supplants state funding to schools. If we have the funds to bail out corporations, how can we tell our schools to keep children and teachers safe with less?


We must follow the cautious examples of other countries, as well as learn from the success of those centers that have provided childcare for essential workers throughout the pandemic. Adjustments should be made based on grade level and student need.


Even in states that have put the virus in retreat, we will need to start with hybrid models that combine in-person and virtual learning — perhaps beginning as tentatively as New South Wales.

Safety requires small group instruction, health support in every school, masks and other supplies, as appropriate. And as vitally important as economic revival is, our decisions on the reopening of schools must put children first.


Children have been the silent victims of this pandemic. They have been subjected to harm, in part, by irresponsible adults who have refused to do what it takes to put the virus in check.


We owe it to them to not throw up our hands and say, “It is too hard to bring you back to school.” We must answer the question, “And how are the children?” with “better than last spring, and improving every day.”

Categories Health, Science, Students

Jersey Jazzman: A Practical Guide to the Problems of Reopening During a Pandemic

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2020 //
24

In this post, experienced teacher Mark Weber (aka Jersey Jazzman) explains “How Schools Work” and the practical problems that will arise if and when schools open during a pandemic.

Even if schools get all the money they need (which is far from certain), there will still be the issues he raises.

Even if schools get all of the money they need, and staff show remarkable ingenuity and creativity, there are some basic, inconvenient truths we need to face about how schools work before we claim we can reopen safely this fall. So, in no particular order:

– Children, especially young children, cannot be expected to stay six feet away from everyone else during an entire school day. Sorry, even if a school has the room, it’s just not going to happen. One adult can’t keep eyes on a couple/few dozen children every second of every hour of every day to ensure they don’t drift into each others’ spaces. You certainly can’t do that and teach. And you can’t expect children to self-police. Young children are simply not developmentally able to remind themselves over seven hours not to get near each other.

– Children cannot be expected to wear masks of any kind for the duration of a school day. At some point, the mask has to come off; even adult medical professionals take breaks. And anyone who’s worked with young children knows they will play with their masks and not even realize they’re doing it. It’s simply unrealistic to expect otherwise.

– The typical American school cannot accommodate social distancing of their student population for the duration of the school day. Schools were designed for efficiency, which means crowded hallways and tight classrooms. Schools are expected to foster student and teacher interactions, which means close quarters. Expecting every students and staff member to maintain a 3 foot bubble* around themselves is not realistic given the way most school buildings are laid out.

– School staff do not generally have isolated spaces in their workplaces where they can stay when not working with children. I don’t have an office; I have a classroom. I’m only by myself when the kids leave… but everything they breathed on and touched and coughed on stays. I’m not an epidemiologist so I don’t know exactly what the consequences of this are, but I suspect it matters.

– School buses cannot easily accommodate social distancing, nor can they easily adjust to accommodate staggered school sessions. School buses aren’t as big as you remember (when’s the last time you were on one?). Social distancing is the last thing school bus engineers had in mind when designing the things. In addition: school districts often stagger the times of bus routes, usually by grade level, to get all the kids to school (this is why high school often starts much earlier than elementary school). If you go to split shifts, you are conceivably expanding a bus’s routes from, say, 6 to 12.** Unless you greatly expand the school day and pay a lot more for busing staff, it’s not going to work.

– Like every other workforce, school staff have many people who have preconditions that make them susceptible to becoming critically ill when exposed to Covid-19. The big worry I keep reading about is age — but that’s just the start. Three-fourths of the school workforce are women, and many are in their childbearing years; are we prepared to have pregnant teachers working? What about teachers who think they might be pregnant? And then all the pre-existing conditions…

– Schools are only one part of the childcare system in this country. The big worry seems to be that if we don’t get kids to school, parents can’t get back to work. But for many (most?) parents, the school day only covers part of the work day. Before- and after-school programs are a big part of the childcare system. Are we going to be able to enforce all the same restrictions on children during these hours that we will during the school day?

– Unsupervised adolescents cannot be expected to socially distance outside of the school day if schools are reopened. If we’ve got adults showing up at bars without masks in the middle of a frightening peak in Covid-19 cases, what do you think teenagers are going to do when school’s done for the day? Especially if we leave them at home, unsupervised, learning remotely while their parents work?

– Teachers are trained and experienced within an area of certification; moving them out of that area will lead to less effective instruction. When you become a teacher, you get a certification — maybe even two or three — in a particular area. Each certification requires coursework, and often a placement as a student teacher, in that area. A secondary math teacher, for example, has to study math at a certain level, and then learn how to teach it. You can’t expect a kindergartner teacher who’s been trained in early childhood education to do that job — and vice versa.***

– Even within an area of certification, moving teachers on short notice to a new subject or grade will lead to less effective instruction. How hard can it be to move from teaching 4th Grade to 3rd? More than you’d think. Every grade has its own curriculum, materials, assessments, etc. Teachers spend years developing lessons that often can’t be transferred to another grade level or subject; a choir teacher, for example, can’t just take her lessons over to the school band, even if she is a great music teacher. Expecting teachers to move quickly between grades or within areas and not face a learning curve defies common sense.

There is more. Open the link and keep reading.

Categories Accountability, Health, Students, Teachers and Teaching
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