As COVID-19 surges, schools suspend in-person learning
With COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the state spiking to record levels, bus drivers and teachers in quarantine, students getting sick and the holidays looming, Schools Superintendent Scott Hanback in Tippecanoe County, Ind., made a tough decision this week.
The school system, he decreed, would switch to remote learning until after Thanksgiving.
It seemed like the only safeway to proceed after the myriad disruptions caused by the surging coronavirus.
“It has been very, very difficult,” Hanback said, adding that he has been doing “a lot of prayer, rest and trying to just take care of my mental health and physical health just so I can stay sharp.”
Facing equally grim conditions, school systems around the U.S. and abroad are taking similarly tough action. Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis and Philadelphia are among those that are closing classrooms or abandoning plans to offer in-person classes later in the school year, and New York City may be next.
Such decisions are complicated by a host of conflicting concerns — namely, safety versus the potential educational and economic damage from schooling children at home, in front of computers, under their parents’ supervision.
Virus transmission does not appear to be rampant within schools themselves. Instead, many of the infections that are proving so disruptive are believed to be occurring out in the community. Educators fear things could get worse during upcoming holiday breaks, when students and staff gather with family and friends or travel to other hot spots.
The nation has entered “an extremely high-risk period,” said experts at PolicyLab, a Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia teamthat develops guidance. They shifted their advice thisweek, advocating online-only instruction for areas with rapidly rising rates, at least until after Thanksgiving.
Weekly reports by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association show there have been more than 900,000 COVID-19 cases in children and teens in theU.S., and they have been steadily rising. Almost 74,000 cases were recorded during theweek ending Nov. 5, an all-time high.
Severe illness among children and teens is rare, particularly in younger ones, but they can often spread the disease without showing any symptoms. When schools are disrupted, it’s often because teachers, staff and other adult employees have gotten sick.
The academy has stressed the importance of in-person education but says uncontrolled spread in many areas means that cannot happen safely in many schools.
Michael Hinojosa, schools superintendent in Dallas, has been watching and worrying as case numbers rise all around him. Texas surpassed 1 million cases this week.
Many of the district’s 150,000 students are from disadvantaged families, and about half attend at least some in-person classes. Switching to all-remote learning could mean a loss of state funding, Hinojosa said, but if schools reach a crisis point, “we have to be able to pivot on a dime.”
Five district schools had to revert to all-remote education briefly when cases were detected in students and staff. School numbers have been relatively low; just 2 percent of the district’s 22,000 teachers and staff have been infected, and the rate among students is well below that.
But Hinojosa fears that bubble could burst over the holidays.
“We are a very blue city in a purple county in a red state. The governor wants all restaurants open,” he said.