COVID-19 Policy Update #94
COVID-19 Policy Update
MONDAY 8/31
TOP THREE:
USDA: After bipartisan pressure from education groups and members of Congress, the USDA has extended waivers from federal meal requirements for children through the end of 2020
Potential NYC Teachers Strike: The United Federation of Teachers could vote today to authorize a strike over reopening schools.
Rhode Island: Smart idea: A multi-agency “Education Operations Center” has been established to support school districts with their Sept. 14 reopening.
STATE
California: LAUSD enrollment decline continues during online learning, with an unexpected 6,000 kindergarten drop.
Florida: Florida Department of Health data shows 48,928 confirmed cases among children through Aug. 26, compared with 39,735 confirmed cases on Aug. 9, with most of the infections occurring in teenagers between 14 and 17 years old.
Michigan: These 100 schools will start the year remote only.
New Jersey: Great article discussing how schools are dealing with shortages of nurses.
Pennsylvania: CTE programs grapple with hands-on learning. Many are reopening in-person learning through hybrid models, even in districts where other students are learning remotely.
Virginia: The Wireless on Wheels program in Louisa County, Virginia brings internet connectivity to underserved students and families via a fleet of solar-powered hotspots on trailers stationed at public schools, parking lots, and other strategic locations throughout the county.
INTERNATIONAL
France: A surge of new cases will mean some schools will be unable to reopen this week.
Hong Kong: Schools are set to resume in-person classes on Sept. 23.
India: WhatsApp and Zoom calls are the most preferred medium of students (59%) who are taking their classes online, followed by 30% of students using their school’s or college’s online platform to attend online classes, according to India Lockdown Learning’ report.
Ireland:
The country's acting chief medical officer has warned that there are “no zero risk” options for reopening schools. He said the decision is also based on scientific evidence regarding the risk of Covid-19 in school children and staff, the experience of other countries that have not closed, or have reopened schools, as well as Ireland’s experience having reopened childcare settings and summer camps since June.
Specialists at Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) have warned that social and mental impacts of lockdown are likely to be far more impactful on most children than coronavirus will be.
Russia: Some teachers fear back-to-school shots of 'Sputnik V' COVID vaccine.
UK: A leaked Sage report suggests a "reasonable worst case scenario" of 85,000 deaths across the UK this winter due to COVID-19. The report stresses that it is a scenario, not a prediction. It also assumes schools will remain open and that the government's tracing, isolation, and quarantine measures will only be 40% effective in cutting the spread of COVID.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Black Economic Development Fund: Costco will contribute $25 million to the LISC operated fund which will focus on making deposits in Black-owned banks and offering financing to minority businesses, charter schools, affordable housing projects and athletic facilities.
PPP: Magic Johnson’s EquiTrust Life Insurance Co., along with MBE Partners, and Carver Federal Savings Bank have funded another $225 million in PPP loans (for a total of $325 million) for women and minority businesses.
A Statewide Action Plan for Increasing Postsecondary Educational Attainment in Ohio: Complete to Compete Ohio Coalition released a report outlining five strategies to boot completion: 1) create demand for all types of credentials and post-secondary options; 2) strengthen the alignment between education, workforce, and social services; 3) create affordable routes to degrees and credentials; 4) ensure all students complete high-school and are able to start college without any remediation; 5) create regional multi sector partnerships. Ohio’s attainment rate currently stands at 49% of working-age adults. However, this is two percentage points below the national average of 51% and places Ohio 31st among all the states.
New Covid-19 Layoffs Make Job Reductions Permanent: As companies brace for years of pandemic-related disruption, thousands of furloughed workers are told they won’t be coming back.
Impact of the Covid-19 Crisis on Women’s Employment: Women’s unemployment rate rose by 12.8 percentage points between February and April 2020, 2.9 percentage points larger than men’s increase of 9.9 percentage points. In contrast, the five previous recessions saw a larger rise in unemployment for men.
LEARNING PODS
Childcare Challenges: NBC story covering the challenges providers are facing. A study by the National Women’s Law Center and the Center for Law and Social Policy found that it would take nearly $10 billion per month to keep the child care system afloat during the pandemic.
Bring Your Kids to Work: Irvine company lets employees bring kids to work for distance learning.
Rethinking Space: New Yorkers keeping their children out of schools this fall are getting creative with space, repurposing city gyms, condo rooftops, music schools and more into makeshift classrooms.
Massachusetts Pods: State education officials that families can form small remote-learning co-ops, after-school programs can operate during typical school hours, and churches and community centers can host students who might otherwise be unsupervised when out of school this fall. The state is also expediting licensing so that child-care providers can tap additional space to expand capacity to serve older children. "Learning pods, or groups convened by up to five families, will be able to operate without licenses, as long as a parent is on-site at all times. Payments are not allowed, and exchanges of funds are limited to compensation for food and materials."
Black Communities Turning to Pods: Communities of color weigh in on learning pod equity. "Our kids in our community are already behind, and most of our families don’t have the luxury of having a two-parent household where one parent stays home and can keep track of those kids," McBride said. "A lot of our households are single parents, or if they are two parents, both parents have to work.”
Wonderschool Seeks To Equitably Enable Pandemic Pods: Michael Horn interviewing Wonderschool CEO Chris Bennett: "I feel that microschools, alongside more traditional models, are a part of the long-term solution to creating more equitable, accessible options for more children. They can be customized to respond to different preferences and abilities and still ensure that everyone gets a quality experience and a rigorous education."
Schoolhouse: New service that matches parents with private, public, and charter-school teachers. Instruction occurs in parent's homes or at a secure and accessible location - such as a community center or church. They work with families to help them find what method best suits them, whether that's a Montessori approach, project-based learning, or STEM.
RESOURCES
COVID Testing on Campus: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is testing students twice a week.
Cheap, Fast Testing, Enabled By A $5 Million XPRIZE: OpenCovidScreen intends to catalyze COVID-19 testing to enable a safe return to work and school, and to protect hotspots like nursing homes. They launched the XPRIZE Rapid Covid Testing competition four weeks ago which has already attracted 450 teams from 50 countries.
September is K-12 Digital Equity Outreach Month: A nationwide effort by school districts in every state to connect with families, understand their home digital access needs, and gather the data they need to close the digital divide. Led by AASA, CCSSO, AESA, COSN, ISTE, and EWH.
Surveying Americans on Masks: The COVID Collaborative commissioned Hart Research on a poll to better understand American behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs around wearing masks. Definitely worth reading the deck as they explore why some people don't wear masks, what kinds of messages are most effective, and who is most trusted when encouraging people to wear masks.
Mask Guidance Playbook: Prevent Epidemics, an initiative from Resolve to Save Lives, released a playbook of mask resources including a policymakers guide, graphics, infographics, and a sample questionnaire on mask usage.
Eruditus Closes $113M Series D: Led by Leeds Illuminate and Prosus Ventures with participation from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and existing investors Sequoia India and Ved Capital. Eruditus has partnered with more than 30 universities to power their institution's online learning, including MIT, Columbia, Harvard, Cambridge, INSEAD, Wharton, and UC Berkeley. They've launched more than 100 courses and served students from more than 80 countries.
Football and COVID: ESPN has an incredible visualization of the transmission risks created by crowds at football games.
Tracking Higher Ed Changes: Inside Higher Ed today released a map and database tracking changes in colleges' plans for reopening.
Teachers Retrain to Keep Students on Track in Online Classes: WSJ article covering how teachers are training and preparing for online instruction. "Teachers are also incorporating lessons learned from the spring: children’s cameras should be on so instructors can make sure they are engaged. Videos shouldn’t run longer than three minutes." Teachers are learning to embrace different features on video platforms, including breakout rooms and texting.
A National Gap Year: Richard Reeves: "My idea of the day: a Nationwide Gap Year for all students, at every level. Keep paying teachers (who can do professional development) and just pick up again in 2021/22. Why not?"
Teachers Resigning: In NYC, teacher retirements are up 20% from 2019. In St. Petersburg, FL there have been 58 retirements and 252 resignations.
Missing Children: A number of groups have raised concerns about increased human trafficking, particularly with children. U.S. Marshals say they found 39 missing children in Georgia during a two-week operation.
Challenges With School Buses: Companies struggling to stay afloat and experiencing a shortage of drivers.
Coronavirus Rhapsody: Curving can get flatter, you'll see...