Education Week - November 25, 2020 - 15

bars, and restaurants, in my mind defies logic, " Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean
of Brown University's School of Public Health, said in a recent interview
with EdWeek.
Experts at the PolicyLab at the
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia,
which has put out useful guidance
for school districts and advised local
areas about school planning, warned
in a recent blog post of " new, sober-

I think the real
issue is going
to be if enough
staff members test
positive that we
can't operate ...
If we see
significant upticks
in staff and
students, we see
that it's spreading.
And we don't
see that yet.
DAVE BARKER
superintendent, Fremont County
School District #1, Lander, Wyo.

ing data that remind us that there
is an upper threshold to safe school
operations. "
The organization noted that, in the
Philadelphia area, as test-positivity
rates approached 9 percent, " we are
seeing [an] increasing burden of students and teachers with COVID-19
infections with linked transmission
events in classrooms, " and urged districts to consider a temporary transition to remote learning.
And Linas argues that beyond 200
new cases per 100,000 people-on
the far upper end of the CDC guidelines for schools-is much too high
for schools to teach in person.
" Over 200 is absolutely lunacy.
I can't believe they put that on the
page, " he said of the CDC guidlines.
Some European countries have
test-positivity rates in the double
digits, but continue to keep schools
open, though the context for those
decisions differs greatly from the
United States'. Those countries typically have more restrictions on gatherings, curfews, and universal health
care and other social supports that
reduce community transmission, and
their school systems are much more
centralized.

Meanwhile, some U.S. states are
headed in the opposite direction.
In South Dakota, more than 1 in 5
COVID-19 tests is coming back positive, and case rates are outpacing
800 new infections per 100,000
people-far beyond any of the competing health metrics put out by the
CDC, Johns Hopkins University, and
the World Health Organization.
Yet many of its districts appear to
be keeping students in schools, and
the state's leaders have yet to set
mask-wearing requirements or put
limits on gatherings.

see that yet. "
In Rhode Island, a state where Gov.
Gina Raimondo has pushed to keep
schools open as much as possible, rising case rates are making things more
complicated, even for school leaders
who agree that schools are among the
safest places for students to be. (Case
rates in the state are now above 500
per 100,000 residents, and test-positivity rates are near 6 percent.)
Jeremy Chiappetta is the CEO of a
small charter school network, Blackstone Valley Prep Mayoral Academy,

in Rhode Island. It currently offers
in-person learning for students in
grades K-4, spread throughout four
schools, while its high school is open
for the most vulnerable secondary
students. So far, he's been able to rule
out any case of student-to-student
transmission in schools; they've been
traced instead to club basketball or
other social settings where students
have mixed.
But the rising rates in the state still
affect daily operations for the network. Recently, Blackstone had to

close an elementary school because
too many staffers were out for testing, quarantining, or had symptoms
of the virus that need to be checked
out.
" The parents don't get that announcement until 7:30 or 8 at night,
and it's jarring. You're pivoting on
a dime each and every day. That's
hard, " Chiappetta said. " We have
six-feet social distancing. We're
cleaning like crazy. We have ventilation. It doesn't mean I can staff the
building. "

School Leaders Rely on
Own Judgments About
In-Person Learning
There are some signs that states
may begin taking a more active
stance on trying to control community spread. California, Michigan,
and New Mexico are among those
that have introduced new restrictions. On Nov. 16, California put
more counties into its most restrictive tier, which prohibits schools from
reopening without a hard-to-obtain
county waiver.
But in most places, districts don't
have such mandates, or even clear
thresholds that outline what schools
should do when key health metrics
shift. That leaves superintendents to
make agonizing judgment calls. And
it requires considerable courage for
them to acknowledge that no matter how good social distancing and
safety protocols are, reopening is
never completely risk-free.
Dave Barker, the superintendent of
Fremont County School District #1,
in Lander, Wyo., oversees a district
that is still fully open for in-person
instruction. Parents can opt to keep
their children home for all-remote
instruction, but 90 percent chose to
send their kids onto the district's six
campuses.
Barker has watched as his county's
test positivity rate soared to 12 percent, the highest-risk zone for keeping schools open, according to the
CDC. But his district occupies only
a small slice of that vast county. And
Barker is finding dramatically lower
rates in his schools than those in the
surging parts of the county: Fewer
than 1 percent of his 2,000-plus students and staff have active cases of
the virus.
With no specific county or state
thresholds that would require him to
close his buildings, Barker is relying
on his own judgment about what it
takes to keep his doors open, and on
gut instinct.
" I think the real issue is going to be
if enough staff members test positive
that we can't operate. Or if [COVID19] really spikes. And I don't even
know exactly what number that
would be, " he said. " If we see significant upticks in staff and students, we
see that it's spreading. And we don't

Supporting Social, Emotional,
and Academic Learning in
Secondary Schools This Year
Social and emotional learning (SEL)
is often overlooked for middle and
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Education Week - November 25, 2020

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