COVID-19 Policy Update #202
COVID-19 Policy Update
THURSDAY 2/18
TOP THREE
CDC's COVID-19 School Guidance Leaves Some Reassured, Others Confused: Via CNN. The underlined section below is news:
"At all levels of community transmission, the strategy provides options for in-person instruction. It is not the case that we are saying that schools that are currently open should close because they are in counties in the 'red,'" CDC spokesperson Benjamin Haynes told CNN in an email on Monday. "Our recommendation is that schools in red areas can, in fact, provide in-person instruction, as long as they are strictly implementing mitigation and monitoring cases in the school community."
‘Make It Even Better’: Teachers hope to improve on remote learning successes
“I think you’re not going to see every child in every classroom in every desk the way they were in 2019,” explained Superintendent Robert Baldwin."
"For example, high school students of the future may take classes at a local community college, they could explore internships with companies in the community, or hone vocational skills with local businesses that focus on trades like building, electrical, and plumbing."
"According to Baldwin, who is also the president of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, some districts might consider small remote learning pods of kids who are more successful learning from home."
“If we go back to what was, shame on us, we haven’t learned. Let’s take something out of this and make it even better.”
National Summer School Initiative (NSSI): Implementation Report. Article at The 74
"Was rolled out as a five-week summer offering by 50 schools and school networks, eventually reaching about 11,800 predominantly non-white and low-income students enrolled in grades 3-8."
"Pupils took part in live, remote math and reading instruction five days per week, mixed with supplemental literacy classes and self-directed mindfulness sessions incorporating activities like dance and yoga."
"To carry out the coursework, 513 “partner” instructors were paired with 15 mentor teachers, many selected from high-performing charter networks like KIPP and Uncommon Schools."
"81 percent of students agreed that they had grown as readers and 75 percent saying the same for their skills as mathematicians."
NSSI has been rebranded as the nonprofit Cadence Learning, with the aim of extending its reach to new schools.
FEDERAL
IES: Students’ Use of School-Based Telemedicine Services. This study predates COVID but is informative for ways of using COVID tech infrastructure to scale health services for students.
"In 2018, a small elementary school district in California introduced school-based telemedicine services for K–6 students to address the health, well-being, and attendance challenges that can interfere with school success."
"During the first two years of implementation, about a quarter of the students used telemedicine services at least once."
"Nearly all students who had a school-based telemedicine visit returned to class afterwards, receiving, on average, approximately 3 hours of instructional time that remained in that school day"
COVID Relief Package:
Broadband funding caught up in debate over reopening schools
New C4: WSJ reports that Biden allies will launch an advocacy group to promote COVID-19 relief and other policies.
"The nonprofit, whose working name is “Building Back Together,” is expected to run advertisements promoting the president’s policies and coordinate with existing nonprofit advocacy organizations on issues such as Covid-19, climate change and the economy."
"The group of Biden associates setting up the nonprofit includes Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic strategist who was former President Obama’s deputy campaign manager in 2012 and produced last year’s largely virtual Democratic National Convention; Patrick Bonsignore, who served as the Biden campaign’s director of paid media; Addisu Demissie, who ran Sen. Cory Booker’s (D., N.J.) presidential campaign and worked closely with Ms. Cutter on the convention; and Matt Barreto, a Biden campaign pollster."
COVID-19 RESEARCH
B.1.1.7: Researchers through the variant's increased infectiousness was due to higher viral load. But a new study with data from the NBA suggests it's related to delayed clearance, longer duration of infections.
STATE
California: LAUSD to open vaccination site specifically for school staff
DC: Dr. Ashley Darcy-Mahoney tweeted, "Our elementary school just gave the re-opening plan for next year. In short: new school year will ONLY be fully in-person if @CDCgov social distancing requirements lifted by August. If reduced to 3ft, hybrid model; if still 6ft, even more hybrid model with MOST time NOT in person."
Georgia: Innovative Atlanta school - Zucchinis - offers alternative learning like urban farming, robotics amidst COVID-19
“We started the school because of the pandemic,” Streeter said. “This has been a moment for families to rethink what education looks like. Families don’t want to go back into a traditional box. We want to create that space for them. We are experienced educators.”
"The school incorporates what Streeter and Muhammad have coined the three P’s in their curriculum that makes learning fun and exciting for students to further their development: personalization, play and exploration, and passion projects."
Hawaii: Superintendent Kishimoto said, "new federal guidelines should be clearer about what’s expected to safely get schools back to normal capacity."
"The superintendent said the updated guidance was “a little bit wishy-washy” when it came to laying out safe distancing protocols, which will be a key factor in ensuring there’s sufficient space."
“The CDC did not go far enough to say with clarity whether the 6 feet of distancing rule is a necessary part of safety,” Kishimoto said during the Zoom interview."
“We can’t fit everyone back into our buildings with 6 feet of social distancing” she added. “That’s actually the most critical decision point that we have to make.”
Kentucky: It's being reported that in survey of about 3,800 JCPS teachers, 58% said the district should continue with full "Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI) even after vaccinations of educators are completed.
Louisiana: Teachers are now eligible to receive the vaccine.
Michigan: Ann Arbor School Board to vote on a plan for most students to finish the year virtually.
INTERNATIONAL
Belgium: Teachers who found themselves left off a priority list for vaccinations are threatening to strike unless they receive doses.
"Students up to age 13 are attending school full time, while older students have a mix of half in-person, half remote. So the decision to leave teachers off the priority list and vaccinate police officers and those in other professions ahead of them was a surprise to many educators."
"Inside primary schools in Belgium’s French-speaking community, there have been 297 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks — six times the caseloads in the first two weeks of class in January,"
India: The pandemic has led to a surge in interest in different approaches to education, from homeschooling to other learner-centric methods.
Israel: Began relaxing restrictions which will allow more schools to open.
UK: Parents will be asked to administer home COVID tests twice a week.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
‘There’s No Natural Dignity in Work’: Ezra Klein has a good piece on the debate around a child allowance.
2021 Milken Institute Best-Performing Cities Index: Released this week.
Provo-Orem, Utah, takes the top spot among this year’s Best-Performing Large Cities on the strength of job, wage, and high-tech GDP growth.
No. 24 San Francisco and No. 22 San Jose, dropped to Tier 2 of the index due to the high cost of housing and a strong negative shift in short-term job growth.
Lots of Heartland cities on the list
Back to Work: Listening to Americans: New report from Carnegie and Gallup. Lots of interesting data:
LEARNING PODS
L Pod: New orca calf born into the L Pod. Has nothing to do with COVID or education but I like orcas and this is the first calf born into the pod since 2019.
RESOURCES
New Study on Digital Divide: New paper which found:
"10.1% of children participating in online learning nationally did not have adequate access to the Internet and a computer."
"Rates of inadequate access varied nearly 20-fold across the gradient of parental race/ethnicity and education, from 1.9 percent for children of Asian parents with graduate degrees to 35.5 percent among children of Black parents with less than a high school education."
Login.gov: Now available to state and local governments for a usable and secure interface for authentication on the web. Greeting timing for state modernization projects.
USA Today Editorial Board: Today: "Has Biden learned nothing from Trump not following science? Don't fail reopening schools."
Another View: From ED's Jessica Cardichon: "President Biden is ensuring that schools have resources to reopen and stay open safely"
Biden Team Struggles With Message: Via the Washington Post.
AP Fact Check: Biden and his shifting goalposts on schools
Interview with Randi Weingarten and Stacy Davis Gates: At Democracy Now.
Schools Reflect Community Spread: CNN analysis that found the level of COVID-19 among children reflects cases in the community, not whether schools were open.
"The five states with the least Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents are also the five states with the lowest case rates among children: Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Oregon and Washington."
"Similarly, four of the five states with the most Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents are also those with the highest case rates among children: North Dakota, Tennessee, South Dakota and Rhode Island."
CAP Urges ED Not To Give Assessment Waivers: Statement. One excerpt:
"At its heart, the Every Student Succeeds Act is a civil rights bill designed to support gaps in opportunity too many of our students have faced historically through to the present. One way it does that is by ensuring that states annually assess all students against the same standards for learning and analyze results by student groups to ensure that students who have been historically marginalized are not experiencing widening gaps in opportunity."
The Case for More Aggressive National Education Reporting: Good piece from Alexander Russo.
Five Lessons for Successful Place-based Philanthropy in Rural Communities: Good ideas from Juliet Squire
Evidence-Based Practices for Assessing Students’ Social and Emotional Well-Being: Via PACE
NASA’s Perseverance Rover Just Landed on Mars:
USA Today with a great interactive showing the complex landing sequence.
NASA video depicting the "7 minutes of terror"
Mission control has a 360 video stream.
The landing was a success and Perseverance sent its first picture back to Earth.
Follow along here.