State health officials revise guidelines for in-person school
Arizona health officials made key changes to optional school reopening and closing guidelines that alters their advice on a move back to virtual classes.
Under the revisions made last week, schools potentially could stay open longer in the event of substantial COVID-19 spread.
Schools are provided with three metrics as part of the guidelines unveiled in August: the number of cases, the percentage of people testing positive and the percentage of hospital visits for CO
VID-like illness.
When those metrics indicate spread is substantial, health officials recommend virtual school. When the numbers indicate moderate spread, officials recommend hybrid school. And when spread is minimal, schools can fully reopen.
The changes to the guidelines, first reported by ABC15, involve when the state recommends schools move back to virtual education.
Before the changes, the state recommended that schools prepare for a
switch to virtual school in the event one or more metrics rise to substantial levels.
Now, guidelines state that if a school is in a county where all three benchmarks show substantial spread for two weeks, they should prepare for virtual learning. If one benchmark shows substantial spread for two weeks, the recommendation now is to consult with local health officials about a move to virtual.
“ADHS updated its recommendations based on the school benchmarks to be consistent with the recent change in how counties can move between moderate and substantial spread on the business benchmarks,” wrote Steve Elliott, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, said the change is “misguided” because closure decisions could now hinge on the third indicator, the percentage of hospital visits for COVIDlike illness. That indicator is “flimsy,” he said, because hospitals don’t have to report that number.
Multiple counties, including Yuma and Graham, show substantial or moderate spread in the first two metrics but not in the COVID-like illness in
dicator.
“It is disingenuous to intentionally include a metric that you know is not going to go bad, because it’s a flimsy metric, and use that as a new decision point, because all three have to be going bad now,” he said. “That is wrong. That’s flat-out bad public policy decision making.”
Richie Taylor, an Arizona Department of Education spokesperson, wrote in a statement that his agency was aware of the conversations around changing the guidelines. The updates were shared with schools, he said.
“School leaders are in regular communication with county health officials to help guide their decision making processes as data is updated on the school data dashboard each week,” he wrote.
The state’s guidelines are optional. Local school leaders initially followed the metrics, but many have bucked them more recently in favor of fully reopening.
County-level data currently recommends most schools conduct class in a hybrid format, which usually requires students to attend school on an alternate schedule, so fewer students are oncampus at one time.
Some districts, like Mesa Public Schools, the state’s largest, initially held school in a hybrid format, but then fully reopened after several weeks.