COVID-19 Policy Update #244
COVID-19 Policy Update
THURSDAY 4/29
TOP THREE
FCC: Announced that eligible households can begin applying for the Emergency Broadband Benefit starting May 12.
Households can apply in three ways:
Contact their preferred participating broadband provider directly to learn about their application process.
Go to GetEmergencyBroadband.org to apply online.
Call 833-511-0311 for a mail-in application, and return it along with proof of eligibility to: Emergency Broadband Support Center, P.O. Box 7081, London, KY 40742
The FCC is working on promotional materials that will be available here. Video from an informational webinar is available here.
In-person Schooling Impact on Household Transmission: New study finds that in-person schooling with inadequate mitigation measures raises household member's COVID-19 risk
People living with a child who attends school in-person have an increased risk of reporting evidence of COVID-19, but teacher masking, symptom screening, and other mitigation measures in schools may be able to minimize that excess risk.
A team led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed 600,000 responses from an ongoing Facebook-based COVID-19 symptom survey over two periods between November 2020 and February 2021 before vaccines were widely available
Those living with a child engaged in full-time, in-person pre-K-to-12 schooling were about 38% more likely to report COVID-19-like symptoms such as fever, cough, or difficulty breathing, compared to those living with a child schooled exclusively in a home setting
The strength of these associations appeared to increase with grade level. At the K and pre-K level, the association with COVID-19 outcomes was not significant for all outcomes, but the strength of those associations rose steadily, peaking at the grade 9-12 level--where the excess risk of a recent positive SARS-CoV-2 test for household members was over 50%.
"The survey asked about 14 mitigation measures which were associated with less risk per mitigation measure. Each additional mitigation measure reduced risk. Teacher masking and daily symptom screening appeared to be the strongest risk reducers."
"A positive association between in-person schooling and COVID-19 outcomes persists at low levels of mitigation, but when seven or more mitigation measures are reported, a significant relationship is no longer observed."
"While in-person schooling is associated with household COVID-19 risk, this risk can likely be controlled with properly implemented school-based mitigation measures."
How the Closure of In-School Learning Damaged U.S. Children's Mental Health During the Pandemic: Via Time
Psychologist Tali Raviv at Northwestern University studied 32,000 caregivers looking after children from kindergarten to grade 12 in the Chicago public school system.
"Raviv and her colleagues asked each caregiver to rate the children they were looking after on how they exhibited 12 different traits in the time before the end-of-school date, and in the time after (the surveys themselves were filled out between June 24 and July 15)."
"The results were striking. On every one of the negative traits the overall scores went up, and on every one of the positive ones, there was a decline."
"A small number of the children studied, Raviv says, improved over the before-and-after period. “About 7% actually benefited” from the shift to in-person learning, she says. Self-harm and suicidal ideation, for example, declined from 0.5% to 0.4% among Black children, and from 0.4% to 0.3% among Latinx kids. “Maybe school was a stressful place and remote learning was good for them.”
"These findings suggest that COVID-19 was associated with negative caregiver perceptions of children’s psychological well-being, requiring a comprehensive public health strategy."
FEDERAL
Joint Session of Congress: Education, workforce, and children's issues played a prominent role in both the President's speech and Sen. Scott's response. Worth watching/reading if you missed them.
Sen. Tim Scott's response (Video / Transcript)
White House: American Families Plan
10 Things to Know about Team Biden & the Future: Via Bruce Mehlman
A Progressive Vision Is Possible if We Spend Money Thoughtfully Now via Robert Gordon and Results for America's Michele Jolin
NYT with a visualization of the two infrastructure plans
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Vaccine Hesitancy with Children: Only 52% of Mississippi parents intend to vaccinate their children against COVID-19
Austria Uses 'Lollipops' to Test Toddlers for COVID-19: A newly developed, lollipop-shaped coronavirus test is being rolled out in some of Austria's kindergartens as an alternative for toddlers who don't take well to throat or nose swabs.
STATE
Arizona: One year into pandemic, some families are still choosing online learning.
"Kyrene Digital Academy Principal Dr. Kyle Ross says 1,200 students are currently enrolled, making it one of the largest schools in the district. He says so far, 800 students are signed up for next year."
California: A Public Policy Institute of California poll showing 57% of adults and 64% of public school parents approve of Newsom’s handling of K-12 education
71% of Democrats, compared to 49% of independents and just 24% of Republicans say the state’s K–12 school system is going in the right direction.
53% say schools should be partially opened and 28% say they should be fully opened. Among public school parents, 48% say schools should be partially opened and 27% say they should be fully opened.
Looking ahead to fall 2021, Six in ten adults say they are concerned schools will not be open for full-time in-person instruction, as do two in three public school parents.
"At least two in ten across racial/ethnic groups say they are very concerned that schools will not be open for full-time in-person instruction this fall (25% Asian Americans, 25% Latinos, 24% whites, 21% African Americans)."
Three in four (75% adults, 76% public school parents) favor conducting year-end state testing to measure the pandemic’s impact on student learning.
A lot of other interesting data on other issues including low support for state tests but a surprisingly high support for school choice.
Connecticut: Some Kids Never Logged on to Remote school. Now What? Via Politico covering the homework gap and the state's efforts to close it.
Colorado: Two Colorado EducationInitiative (CEI) pieces of interest:
Grit Digital Health to be Adapted for High School Student Use
Sensemaking Stimulus Funds with Colorado School Districts – What We’re Asking and What We’re Hearing
New Mexico: Rio Rancho Public Schools will be offering free summer school for high school students.
"If you look at failure rates two years ago, they were anywhere in between 5% and 10%," Saucedo said. "Where this year, we've seen them raise up to 15% to 20%."
New Jersey: Newark Public Schools released a Google Form asking for public input on how they should spend the $84 million they are receiving in federal funds.
Side Note: It's amazing how little background they provide and how short the response fields are. Also - no privacy notice on the form even though they collect names, emails, and phone numbers.
New York: Mayor DeBlasio’s budget provides $500 million for testing and tutoring to help students catch up.
Tennessee: Some Middle schools will not provide a virtual option for students this fall
Texas: Jump in student failure rates
Hutto ISD’s rate of high school students failing at least one class jumped from 17% before the pandemic to 31% during it.
Hays CISD the ate of failures from the first semester of last year to this year’s ballooned from 28% to 44%.
Wimberly ISD had a rate of just 1.3% of high school students failing a course in spring 2020; that climbed to 18.7% in the fall.
Washington: Child mental health visits in Spokane rise by 73% at Sacred Heart
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
GDP: 6.4% in the first quarter of 2021, up from 4.3 in Q4 of 2020. Narrowly missing economist expectations of 6.5%
It marked the second-fastest pace for growth since the second quarter of 2003
"Consumers, who account for 68.2% of the economy, accelerated spending by 10.7% in the quarter, compared with a 2.3% increase in the previous period. The expenditures were largely focused on goods, which increased 23.6%, but spending on services, which had been the missing link in the recovery, still grew by 4.6%."
LEARNING PODS
LA Pods: Learning PODS adapt to hybrid learning as LAUSD makes switch.
"In Studio City, Cynthia Ceballos leads a POD of four first graders. Before the pandemic, Ceballos was a substitute teacher with LAUSD, but when the pandemic started, she decided to focus on her own business, a tutoring center in Woodland Hills called Leaders in Training Tutoring."
"The time these children spend in their POD is shorter, going from six hours a day while virtual learning to three hours a day."
RESOURCES
What Students Are Saying About ‘Learning Loss’ During the Pandemic: NYT interviews students
It's Almost Friday: Get. Excited.