Arizona schools can follow leads

My son’s first day of kindergarten is Aug. 5.

We have a school computer to use, but no log in.

We haven’t met his teacher yet and only late on July 31 received a rough daily schedule for his lessons.

I don’t blame the school for the limited and late-arriving details. The goalposts keep moving, and educators are doing their best to keep pace.

But I know a lot of parents are frustrated and stressed out, not knowing what to expect (much less what to tell their employers).

That’s why I hope the Arizona Department of Health Services doesn’t take until its Aug. 7 deadline to suggest metrics for when schools can reopen to in-person learning.

It was the right move to create these metrics. Deciding when to reopen schools – and when to close them if cases emerge – should have a firm foundation in public health data.

But, man, we’re down to the wire here. And schools are mostly paralyzed in their decision-making until the state makes its recommendations.

Yes, schools have the final say on when to reopen. But I doubt most districts and charters will forge their own public health parameters to inform that decision.

Most are going to use what DHS suggests.

And depending on what those metrics are, they could result in vastly different planning scenarios for schools, which must pivot staffing, sanitation and a slew of other resources relatively quickly once they are cleared to reopen.

It’s one thing if that pivot may come within a few weeks of the new school year starting. It’s another if it isn’t likely to happen for the first quarter or even the first semester.

State schools superintendent Kathy Hoffman has called for Arizona to consider using “a downward trajectory in new confirmed cases of COVID-19, a decrease in positivity rates for COVID-19 testing” and “the widespread availability of testing with timely results.”

But it’s unclear which public health metrics the state health department will ultimately recommend, or what the thresholds for reopening will be.

If Arizona follows the direction that schools in other states are taking, it’s probably going to be a while before inperson instruction resumes.

Schools can reopen in New York, for example, when their specific region has a daily infection rate of 5% or below, on average, over 14 days. Schools must close when the infection rate increases to 9% using a seven-day average. The state is expected to release the formula to calculate this next week.

In Oregon, its statewide testing positivity rate must be 5% or less over the preceding seven days for three straight weeks. Counties must have similar positivity rates, as well as 10 or fewer new cases per 100,000 population, with a few exceptions.

Oregon noted in its research that when Denmark, Germany and Australia reopened schools, they had new daily case rates ranging from 2.6 per 100,000 people in Denmark to less than 1 in Australia.

According to data from Covid Act Now, Oregon’s daily new case rate as of July 29 was 7.3 per 100,000.

Arizona’s was 33.9.

Tennessee, meanwhile, has created three zones – green, yellow and red – for school operations, allowing schools to open with five or fewer new daily cases per 100,000 people.

Its Department of Health also has created a decision tree to help guide schools on whether to close classrooms or the entire building when cases are confirmed on campus.

In Milwaukee, schools can reopen when the city reaches Phase 5 of its reopening plan, which requires a slew of case, testing, hospital capacity and contact tracing metrics to not only be met but maintained – something that has yet to happen.

I’m sure some will point out that most of these are blue cities and states, and that a red (or perhaps purple) state like Arizona will not choose similar thresholds that would ensure in-person education remains off the table for a long time.

Indeed, it’ll be which way we go.

I just hope we decide soon. Schools – and parents – need to know.

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