TOP THREE
How Five Schools Reopened Without Sparking a Covid Outbreak: Great long piece from MIT Technology Review
Collaboration with the public health department is key.
Community partnerships can fill gaps in school services.
Communication with parents should be preemptive and constant.
Require masks, and model good masking for kids.
Regular testing can prevent cases from turning into outbreaks.
Improve ventilation and hold classes outside where possible.
Schools may still be focusing too much on cleaning.
Give agency to parents and teachers in protecting their kids.
We need more granular data to drive school policies.
Invest in school staff and invite their contributions to safety strategies.
Johnson & Johnson: Announced promising COVID-19 booster data, delays on kids' vaccine trial (Press Release)
"Promising booster data showed 94% efficacy for its COVID-19 vaccine when given after six months of the initial dose."
The initial dose of the vaccine continued to provide consistent protection against the virus, including against the Delta variant."
"The news puts the vaccine in stark contrast to mRNA vaccines, which have shown waning immunity over time."
"J&J previously targeted a fall start date [for trials with children], but Mammen said it could be later this year. "Our trials with children and pediatric population(s) won't start till later this year," Mammen said."
Schools Need Better Data to Grade COVID-19 Impact and Risk: Via JHU
The Coronavirus Resource Center last week launched a new section that provides state-by-state breakdowns of cases, deaths, tests, and vaccinations by the demographic categories of age, race and ethnicity, and sex and gender.
Helps with stats such as children make up 9.7% of cases in California, 0.46% of deaths, and nearly 10% of vaccinations.
"We need to have very accurate, detailed, granular data at the level of the schools so that school leaders can assess their risks," Moss added."
FEDERAL
Infrastructure: Playbook reports: “House Democratic leaders confirmed this morning that they won’t be delaying the Sept. 27 vote on the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill — even though the party’s larger $3.5 trillion reconciliation package won’t likely be ready to go by then.”
“This is a huge win for moderates in both chambers. That effectively decouples the two bills, officially spiking the so-called ‘two-track’ process that leadership hoped would enable passage of both while keeping the party united.”
Speaker Pelosi told her colleagues this morning that House lawmakers will not be permitted to amend the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
COVID-19 RESEARCH
Boosters: Dr Fauci "now suggests Moderna and J&J boosters may be ready for rollout within 2-3 weeks. (So far deliberations have just been over Pfizer booster. We've yet to hear about timeline from FDA for review of booster shots for Moderna & J&J.)"
States Bracing for Confusion About Booster Rollout: Sate health officials spoke of the "difficulty in messaging, difficulty in telling people to be patient yet again - yet another challenging and confusing message that doesn't universally apply."
"Some states, such as Virginia, anticipating the interest in boosters, have posted online notices urging residents to be patient and to wait for further guidance once final recommendations have been provided by the federal government."
COVID-19’s Death Toll Has Topped the 1918 Pandemic: Via CNBC
Polls on COVID-19 Vaccination Closely Align with CDC Data: Via Pew
STATE
Colorado: A former Denver Public Schools principal (and VELA grantee) started a microschool to serve middle school-age Latinx students.
Florida: Quinnipiac poll of Florida residents:
60% to 36%, say that they support requiring students, teachers and staff to wear masks in schools. A near-universal 98% of Democrats support this, as do 63% of independents and 24% of Republicans.
54% of Florida residents say they think schools should be able to require masks for all students, while 44% think parents should decide whether or not their own student will be wearing a mask. Of Florida adults with children in school, 70% say their kids will be wearing a mask to school this year.
Georgia: Atlanta-area school districts report a sharp decline in COVID cases.
"Amber Schmidtke, a public health researcher who tracks Georgia’s COVID-19 trends, said the stronger actions taken by school systems and by parents may be behind improving case rates among children."
”When cases started to take off in schools, we saw a lot of schools pivot to virtual learning or they pivoted to a mask requirement if they didn’t have it before,” she said."
Illinois: Gov. Pritzker executive order states schools must exclude any student or school personnel with confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 for at least 10 days. Close contacts must stay out of schools for a minimum of 14 days.
Massachusetts: MCAS test results (and data here):
46% of students in grades 3-8 scored “meeting expectations” or higher in English language arts, while 33% scored the same in math. Both represent a drop compared to 2019, when 52% of students scored “meeting expectations” or higher in English language arts and 49% did so in math
10th grade English language arts, 64% of students scored “meeting expectations” or higher compared to 61% in 2019. In 10th grade math, 52% of students scored “meeting expectations” or higher, compared to 59% in 2019.
New York: NYC is ramping up COVID-19 testing at schools and relaxing quarantining rules.
North Carolina: Wake school board begins plans for testing for unvaccinated students, staff
Pennsylvania: Philadelphia parents blindsided by school district’s last-minute proposal for half days.
South Carolina: SC READY results:
Language arts fell about 2.9%, from 45.4% in 2019 to 42.6% in 2021.
Language arts scores for African-American students fell even more, about 4.3%, from 26.4% in 2019 to 22.1% in 2021, the largest percentage drop of any student group in that subject when broken down by race or ethnicity.
Language arts scores for Hispanic students decreased about 4%, from 36.6% in 2019 to 32.6% in 2021
Virginia: A $257 million CDC grant funds Virginia's K-12 COVID testing program. Most public school districts haven't opted in.
INTERNATIONAL
UK: More than 122,000 children were absent with confirmed or suspected infections last week – the highest number for England during the pandemic. More here.
ECONOMIC RECOVERY
Opportunity Alabama: Launched the Apex Project: Higher Ed’s Guide to Inclusive Economic Development. (Medium Post)
Created a “How To” guide on the six different roles higher ed play in economic resiliency work and a planning guide on deciding which of those roles to play.
Drafted a series of Guidebooks on the nuts and bots of building capital stacks, structuring public private partnerships, finding new funding sources, and using tax credits or Opportunity Zone equity to finance deals.
Employers Are Baffled as U.S. Benefits End and Jobs Go Begging: Via Bloomberg
“We’re only going to see the impact of the federal UI benefits ending a couple of months from now -- I don’t think we’re going to see a big spike one way or another really,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed Inc. “We thought things should be better by Labor Day and they’re not.”
One reason could be pent-up savings, according to Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor Inc. Stimulus checks, boosted unemployment benefits and expanded social safety nets drove the savings rate to a record 34% last year, and it remained elevated at 9.6% in July"
Why Hiring for Child Care Is a Huge Struggle: Via NYT
RESOURCES
Privacy Implications of School-Issued Devices and Student Activity Monitoring Software: New CDT report and poll.
Chris Martin and Kelly's Kids Duet: Was interrupted for bathroom break.