COVID-19 Policy Update #197
COVID-19 Policy Update
WEDNESDAY 2/10
TOP THREE
School Closures May Not Reduce Coronavirus Deaths: Study from City University of Hong Kong, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute researchers who ran thousands of simulations of the pandemic response in New York City with variations in social distancing behavior at home, in schools, and in the workplace.
They found school closures are not largely beneficial in preventing serious cases of COVID-19.
The study reported “school closure is almost ineffective: the total infections and deceased cases are nearly the same as the results of those without any control (theoretical no intervention).”
It May Take Until Thanksgiving to Get Herd Immunity: “Top members of Biden’s COVID response team are warning internally that the U.S. may not reach herd immunity until Thanksgiving or even the start of winter—months later than originally calculated—according to two senior administration officials.”
Washington Post: with an interactive:
"So if Biden wanted to vaccinate, say, everyone in America, he’d need to administer about 660 million doses. At a rate of 1 million per day, we’d get there by October 2022."
"If he wanted everyone to be vaccinated by Christmas Eve, he’d have to nearly double that to about 1.9 million per day."
How One District Is Budgeting for Learning Loss: Greenville schools proposed $38.5 million plan to address learning loss.
For the 2020-21 school year, the plan would pay for:
Before and After-School Tutoring (K-12): $2,700,000
High School Tutoring (During School): $400,000
Elementary Interventionists: $1,728,000
Elementary Interventionist Materials: $100,000
High School Aides $1,000,000
Summer School (K-12): $7,510,000
For the 2021-22 school year, it would pay for:
Before and After-School Tutoring (K-12): $8,000,000
High School Credit/Content Recovery Licenses: $200,000
Aides for Credit/Content Recovery Licenses: $2,903,000
Elementary/Middle Interventionists: $10,590,000
Middle Read180/System 44 Licenses/Supplies: $1,000,000
Elementary Remediation Kits: $800,000
2022 Summer School (K-12): $7,510,000
FEDERAL
White House:
President Biden Announces Members of the Biden-Harris Administration COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force
Executive Office of the President Presidential Document: Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking
More questions on school openings in today's press briefing:
Q And then, on schools, when President Biden talked for the last couple of months, particularly during the transition, about reopening schools within the first 100 days, why didn’t he ever mentioned the small print that that was just going to be for one day a week as the goal?
MS. PSAKI: Well, again, the President made a — set a goal of reopening the majority of schools within 100 days, and when you asked what that meant, I answered the question.
So we are — that is the — that is not the ceiling, that is the — that is the bar we’re trying to leap over and exceed. And as I said in response to Christian’s [sic] — Kristen’s question, the President wants to not just open schools, he wants them to stay reopened. He wants kids to be back in school learning five days a week. He wants everybody — parents to feel safe, teachers to feel safe.
That’s why he asked his Department of Education and the CDC to work together on guidelines. That’s why he’s put funding — proposed funding in the American Rescue Plan, because he knows that’s not going to happen on its own. It’s going to need some assistance to make it — make it reality.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
CDC Mask Guidance: Wearing a mask properly or even adding a second mask ("Double Masking") can cut COVID-19 transmission by up to 96.5%. (Here's the new study on masks).
FDA Approves New Test: Visby Medical is the first single-use, highly accurate rapid coronavirus test that can be used in a variety of settings. PCR tests fits in the palm of your hand and can deliver results in 30 mins. Could be useful for school settings.
Vaccine Hesitancy: Gov. Kemp, Toomey participate in Morehouse School of Medicine roundtable on vaccine hesitancy.
Vaccine Distribution: Uber and Walgreens on announced they will offer communities of color free rides to vaccination sites.
Using Apple Watch to Predict COVID: A new study from Mount Sinai researchers published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research found the Apple Watch can effectively predict a positive COVID-19 diagnosis up to a week before current PCR-based nasal swab tests. From TechCrunch:
"The primary biometric signal that the study’s authors were watching was heart rate variability (HRV), which is a key indicator of strain on a person’s nervous system. This information was combined with information around reported symptoms associated with COVID-19, including fever, aches, dry cough, gastrointestinal issues, and loss of taste and smell, among others."
"The Warrior Watch Study was not only able to predict infections up to a week before tests provided confirmed diagnoses, but also revealed that participants’ HRV patterns normalized fairly quickly after their diagnosis, returning to normal roughly one to two weeks following their positive tests."
More here.
COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria: Study:
"Mass hysteria can have enormous public health costs in terms of psychological stress, anxiety, and even physical symptoms."
"From this perspective, the lockdowns have been a policy error. We have shown that these policy errors may well have been produced by a collective hysteria. To which extent there has been a mass hysteria during the COVID-19 crisis is open for future research."
STATE
California:
Return to school this year for San Francisco students ‘not realistic’ under union deal. "I don't think it's realistic that we can expect schools to open this school year," Breed said during an afternoon press conference. "When you incorporate the vaccine into the requirement, I understand this is something that's important to the union, but at the same time, we are doing everything we can based on supply to get vaccines to people in San Francisco."
LA Times: "Biden wants to reopen schools. California could hold him back"
"Failing to get students back into classrooms would undermine Biden’s efforts to boost the economy by freeing parents to return more fully to work and derail one of his administration’s earliest promises."
"If labor leaders remain unbending on their inoculation requirements, getting students back into classrooms on Biden’s timeline will be difficult because the vaccine supply has failed to meet demand."
"We have to figure out how we get the cities operating again,” said Bethany Gross, associate director for the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. “They serve the largest numbers of kids, they have the largest numbers of schools, and they’re the ones that are in remote now.”
Georgia: Atlanta school district launches online form to report COVID-19 cases (surprised it took 11 months).
Illinois:
CTU approves deal with CPS on return to in-person learning
"CPS said about 20% of students have opted for a return to in-person learning, with 80% continuing with remote learning for the time being."
"The district said Sunday that families who chose to continue remote learning will have another opportunity to return to schools before the start of the fourth quarter that begins in April."
Meridian CUSD 223 say their students aren’t experiencing the “learning loss” based on new diagnostic assessments.
At Monroe Center Elementary 53% of students ranked above the national average in Reading and 59% ranked above the national average in Mathematics.
At Highland Elementary 60% of students ranked above the national average in Reading and 75% ranked above the national average in Mathematics.
Maryland:
Baltimore City Schools to begin COVID-19 testing for everyone in schools.
Montgomery County to reopen schools.
"Some students will be back four days a week, and others will be back four days every other week."
40% of students — 63,000 — have opted into in-person learning, while 60% — 97,000 — are remaining all virtual.
"School officials rejected the criticism — made by some parents — that Montgomery would make in-person learning into a “babysitting service” by hiring 700 to 800 “classroom monitors” who could be used to supervise students as they worked online in classrooms."
Michigan: MEA member survey:
50% have received a first shot.
Current learning model:
47% in-person
25% hybrid
4% virtual but required to report in person
16% virtual and working from home.
North Carolina: NC Senate approves bill requiring K-12 schools to reopen.
"The bill gives local school districts the choice between providing in-person learning under Plan A (minimal social distancing) or Plan B (moderate social distancing), or a mixture of both, for all K-12 students. Students with exceptional needs would be provided in-person learning under Plan A if parents choose that option. All families are still able to select remote learning under the plan."
North Dakota: 18 Dickinson High School teachers filed a grievance stating that they are “owed compensation as the result of increased workload because of the hybrid learning environment.
Ohio: "Inequalities Grow Before Our Eyes"“
"Those gaps could be going from terrifying to absolutely astronomical,” said Dave Hersh, director of Proving Ground, a Harvard University program working with schools in Ohio and other states to improve attendance and student learning."
"Chronic absenteeism among Black students leapt 18 percentage points – from 29 percent two years ago to 47 percent so far this school year in districts that include the high-poverty and mostly-minority Cleveland suburbs of East Cleveland and Maple Heights."
"White student chronic absenteeism rose just eight percentage points – from 22 percent to 30 percent – in the same time frame, with Hispanic and multiracial students falling in between."
"In addition, 51% of all students in urban high schools in Proving Ground were chronically absent, up from 40 percent last year."
Utah: 30% of Salt Lake City School District's students stay with remote learning.
Virginia: Small focus group of parents in Northern Virginia.
Washington: The Oak Harbor School District brought all grades back to classrooms, with pandemic protocols in place.
Wisconsin: Good article on the staff who make school opening possible: school nurses, custodians, virtual teachers, virtual aides, director of student services, and school psychologists.
INTERNATIONAL
UK:
School catch-up in England could take 5 years, says education recovery tsar
Scientists from University College London, Oxford university and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said there is “tentative evidence” that it will be safe to start reopening schools next month.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
A Million Moms Out of Work: Axios and NYT
"Women in the U.S. hit a milestone in February 2020 when, for the first time in history, they held the majority of non-farm payroll jobs, outnumbering men in the workforce."
"One year later, women's labor force participation is at a 33-year low."
"Distance learning and child care have been huge burdens on parents — especially mothers — who have been forced to balance employment and caregiving," Kolko says."
ISAs: Blair launches $100 million facility to fund ISAs for students
Credentials: New Credential Engine report that finds nearly 1 million credentials (and state-by-state breakdowns)
Postsecondary educational institutions – 359,713 degrees and certificates
Massive open online course (MOOC) providers – 9,390 course completion certificates, micro-credentials, and online degrees from foreign universities
Non-academic providers– 549,712 badges, course completion certificates, licenses, certifications, and apprenticeships
Secondary schools – 48,919 diplomas from public and private secondary schools
RESOURCES
Randi Weingarten: Hits the podcasting circuit:
Leveraging Collective Bargaining, and Educator and School Staff Voice, to Reopen Schools Safely: AFT report with case studies on how affiliates have laid the groundwork for reopening schools safely
Is Biden Lowering the Bar for What ‘Reopening Schools’ Means? Asks EdWeek.
ERN Statement: Says yes, the bar is too low.
Biden’s Goal for School Reopenings Suddenly Became More Attainable: Via USNews:
"Using that definition, Biden may have already reached his stated goal, according to at least one school reopening tracker. Burbio, one of the few outlets navigating reopenings, reported last week that more than half of the country's 53 million K-12 students are enrolled in schools that offer at least some in-person instruction"
"We can't hyper-focus on 100 days," Ellerson Ng says. "It's not a one-time goal. It has to be a growing goal. Really, we got to put our money where our mouth is to focus on offering in-instruction as widely as possible in the fall."
Biden Administration Sends Conflicting Signals on School Reopenings: Via The Hill
Biden’s Schools Bid Pits CDC Science Against Union Clout: Via Bloomberg:
"The administration has pledged to reopen 50% of U.S. classrooms at least one day a week within its first 100 days -- a goal that may have already been met."
"But one misstep came last week, when CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said during an official White House briefing that vaccines were “not a prerequisite for safe reopening of schools.”
"The White House swiftly sought to backpedal, out of apparent concern that the comment could trap them between CDC scientists and teachers unions. Psaki said Walensky was speaking only in her personal capacity, which was not the case."
From Pandemic to Progress: Eight Education Pathways for COVID-19 Recovery: New set of resources from Bellwether. Including:
Redesigning Accountability
Supporting a Diverse Choice Ecosystem From the Bottom Up:
Prioritizing Equity in School Funding
Establishing Coherent Systems for Vulnerable Students
Creating an Institute for Education Improvement
Silicon Schools CEO: Offers hard-earned lessons on remote learning.
How We Decided to Send Our Daughter Back to School: NYT's Erica Green shares her story.
Why Aren’t More Public Schools Opening? Rick Hess with a good piece unpacking five dynamics at work.
Remote Learning Failed My Third-grader Miserably. I Pulled Her Out of Public School: OpEd by Liesl Hickey
Silicon Valley Should Give Every Child a Laptop to Bridge the Digital Divide: The FT's Gillian Tett talks about a "OLPC 2.0"
Colleges Run Into COVID-19 Variants: Via Axios.
Special Ed Litigation: Districts brace for pandemic-related special ed litigation
Parker Plows: Five-year-old Parker is ready to assist with your snow cleanup needs