COVID-19 Policy Update #93
COVID-19 Policy Update
FRIDAY 8/28
TOP THREE:
UK: Up to 97% of primary schools are ready to reopen.
Vaccines: Great a16z Podcast with Rajeev Venkayya, president of the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company and former White House Special Assistant to the President for Biodefense who led the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza. Issues covered include: Where will vaccines likely be distributed first, who will and won’t get them initially, both across populations… and nations? Where and how can startups and others participate in vaccine development? Can we decouple the question of how we reopen schools with when we have a vaccine? And how do we maintain not just safety and efficacy of vaccines but trust and transparency when it comes to mis/information?
IHME Weekly Brief: Document is available here covering weekly trends, forecasts, and what improvements they've made to the model. Some pretty grim state-by-state forecasts:
FEDERAL
Phase 4: The Speaker and White House attempted to restart negotiations yesterday but they still remain far apart.
FEMA: The agency is considering changes in how it applies a federal emergency declaration which could eliminate federal reimbursement for school PPE and cleaning supplies. NGAand other state organizations sent a letter to FEMA urging them to continue providing the reimbursement.
STATE
Arizona: The University of Arizona found early signs of COVID-19 in a student dorm by testing wastewater and were able to head off an outbreak there. This type of wastewater testing for the early detection has been used in Australia, the Netherlands, and Sweden, among other regions.
California:
The Orange County Board of Education’s legal battle to reopen school campuses for in-person learning got a boost from the state Supreme Court who ordered Gov. Gavin Newsom to defend his executive authority to keep students at home during the pandemic.
There are concerns over LA relaxing attendance policies. For example, if a student does nothing more than send an email, text or talk to a teacher on the phone at any point in the day, the student will be counted as present. This communication does not have to be with the student — it can also take place between a parent or guardian and the teacher.
San Diego plans to reopen starting first with students with special needs as well as those with learning loss.
Michigan: DPSCD and Detroit Federation of Teachers reached a deal to reopen schools. The agreement stipulates a number of safety measures including the placement of school nurses in every school.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Former CBO Directors Warn of Double Dip Recession: And call for additional fiscal relief and stimulus.
Michigan Consensus Project: Group of bipartisan leaders who issued the following recommendations to boost economic mobility: increasing child care subsidies; expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit; and changing Michigan’s school funding approach to make it more needs based.
Better Learning Outcomes Can Help Kick-Start the Economy: Post from CAP covering new research showing better math skills would increase salaries by $21,000 each year. Over two decades, an individual could earn up to $400,000 more by having more math skills.
Emergency Rental Assistance Priority Index: The Urban Institute developed an index that estimates the level of need in a census tract by measuring the prevalence of low-income renters who are at risk of experiencing housing instability and homelessness.
LEARNING PODS
"Let's Provide a Pod' For Every Minnesota Learner Who Needs One": OpEd: The African American Community Response Team (AACRT), along with the Minnesota Social Compact, brought together more than 40 faith-based institutions, education and training institutions, businesses and civic leaders to create the North Star Network — a new initiative to create “pods” for students who need help. The community-based Zoom learning labs will leverage buses outfitted with Wi-Fi access, Chromebooks, air conditioning and staff support.
At Home Learning Pods Cause Concerns Over Licensing: Feels like this is going to be one of the big policy/legal issues with pods. State government agencies in Maine are trying to determine which regulations apply to pods including which agency should oversee them.
Parents Join Forces to Rethink ‘Back to School’: Long NYT piece covering how several families are rethinking school through learning pods and microschools. In Maryland, 11 families are contributing $250 a piece to build a pod within an old barn. I was also struck by this mom: "The spaces for learning are everywhere: Ure’s upstairs playroom has been converted into a Montessori classroom; the downstairs bathroom has been made into a sanitizing station for each child to wash her hands before she enters the home. The kitchen counter serves as a STEM center for science experiments and hands-on learning; in the tidy backyard, play equipment has been added for exercise and outdoor fun."
Low-income Parents Turn to Neighbors, Family: “There are many bright spots of parent leaders who have done things like start their own Facebook pages to help their school communities better communicate with parents in their native languages,” Manigo said. “We’ve seen parents teach other parents how to log into technology. We’ve heard of parent leaders helping to pick up and distribute food for families that can’t leave the house. We’ve heard of parent leaders volunteering at their schools to help make copies for packets, so teachers and staff aren’t doing that alone. There’s lots of beauty in this pandemic.”
Parents Band Together to Create a Better Education Experience: Story covering families in Palo Alto.
Road Schooling: Some families are exploring road trips to national parks and other locations as part of their remote learning.
RESOURCES
Rising Enrollment in Virtual Charters: K12, the country’s largest operator of virtual schools, says enrollment has jumped from 123,000 students last year to 170,000 this year. Connections Academy, the country’s second largest virtual school network, doesn’t have national enrollment numbers yet but says applications have jumped 61%.
The Best Way to Help Schools Reopen: Ideas from Mario Ramirez, who served as acting director for pandemic and emerging threats at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Andrew Buher, a former chief operating officer of the New York City Department of Education: replace the 51,000 local public health jobs lost during the Great Recession and ensuring that an epidemiologist is available to support every school district; implement state-mandated safety protocols in schools, adequately test and trace school community stakeholders, sustain personal protective equipment supply chains, and undertake vaccine policy and planning; Double the number of school-based health centers and modernize facilities; Transition another 2,500 traditional public schools into so-called community schools.
A Guide to School Reopenings: CityLab article examining the various ways of reopening with their pros and cons, including in person, remote, hybrid, and outdoors.
Zooming Into a Student's Home Creates New Privacy Concerns: Online learning has raised several new privacy tensions. The El Paso Independent School District is requiring students to use virtual backgrounds to ensure privacy of a student's home. They are also not recording zoom sessions.
When It Comes to Covid-19, Most of Us Have Risk Exactly Backward: NYT OpEd: "Almost everyone thinks that opening schools is extremely important (myself included). But too few people have been willing to discuss what we might be willing to shut down to make that happen. If we want to make it safer to send kids back to school, we might need to consider reducing the number of people who can drink in bars or eat in restaurants, for example."
Broadband Maps: IES released a new data service that maps Census data. Among the maps it can generate are the percent of students with access to a computer and the Internet:
It's The Weekend After National Dog Day: Take to the field.