As the predicted fall surge of coronavirus cases engulfs much of the country, the picture for the nation’s schools looks grim. Many schools that reopened this fall are now closing their doors, while others that began the year remotely with hopes of reopening later in the semester are delaying those plans.
The Detroit Public Schools system is among the latest districts to suspend in-person instruction, announcing on Thursday that it would switch to remote learning starting on Monday, and stay with it until Jan. 11, citing the city’s rising positivity rate. As of Monday, Detroit’s seven-day-average positivity rate was 6 percent.
Roughly 10,000 of Detroit’s 50,000 students had chosen to attend school in person. Because of the district’s deal with its teachers, which allowed teachers to choose between teaching in-person or online, some of those students were not actually in classrooms with their teachers, but were receiving online instruction under supervision from other school staff.
In Iowa, where cases have nearly tripled over the last two weeks, multiple districts — including Des Moines, West Des Moines and Iowa City — received waivers from the state this week to switch to remote learning.
In New Jersey, where cases are also increasing precipitously, the East Brunswick Community Schools district, which has been operating on a hybrid model, announced this week that it would be going remote starting Monday and remaining so through Jan. 11.
Meanwhile, several districts have put reopening plans on hold, including Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Boston; Anchorage, Alaska; and Minneapolis. Chicago has not set a date for students to return to classes.
Many of the cities where schools are closing or remaining closed still allow for some indoor dining or allow bars to operate, a dichotomy that health experts have seized on as epitomizing the country’s misplaced priorities.
Restaurants, bars and other venues are known to be at a higher risk for transmission than schools, said Dr. Jennifer B. Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
“The growth, development and well-being of our children have been deeply harmed by these school closures,” she said. “We should make the safe operation of schools our top priority and do whatever is needed to bring case numbers to where they need to be to allow schools to stay open.”
— Kate Taylor The New York Times