Making a case for closing schools
WOONSOCKET — Two members of the state’s delegation are among 30 Democratic congressional leaders calling on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to issue guidance to K-12 and other public schools contemplating the cancellation of classroom study in attempts to contain the spread of coronavirus.
U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse were among those who signed a letter to DeVos, asking the Department of Education to explain how the federal government will backstop families who rely on schools for federally-subsidized meals and inschool computer equipment to do lessons online.
“Increasing numbers of K-12 schools and institutions of higher education are considering school closures in order to mitigate the spread of the virus,” the senators said. “We urge the U.S. Department of Education to consider several serious issues related to school closure as it works with school districts, state education agencies, educators, and institutions of higher education, as well as with the President’s Task Force and public health officials.”
As the virus continues to spread throughout the country, the senators said some schools have already closed and it is “increasingly likely many more” will do so. While the scale of the closures remains unknown, the senators urged DeVos to “do everything you can to ensure you are continuing to prepare stakeholders for a variety of scenarios.”
The senators said the top issues DeVos should
issue guidance on are:
● How K-12 schools should ensure students can access school lunch programs
● How schools using online learning should meet the needs of students without computers or access to internet and students with disabilities
● How colleges and universities should help students avoid using up their federal financial aid if they have to leave school due to the spread of COVID-19
● How schools should provide mental health services for students remotely.
The senators noted that, already, large school districts in the Seattle and Sacramento areas have temporarily suspended class-based coursework, and some individual schools in Rhode Island have already followed suit, including Roger Williams University and Bryant University in Smithfield.
University of Rhode Island informed students Wednesday that all face-to-face undergraduate and graduate classes have been canceled from March 16-20 – a regularly scheduled vacation week – and that beginning Monday, March 23, through “at least Friday, April 3, all class material would be delivered remotely.”
“All face to face instruction is suspended,” the advisory said. “This includes any class meetings.”
In their letter to DeVos, the senators said they were particularly concerned about he impact of closing K-12 schools on low-income families.
They said “many families rely on the Federal School Lunch Program and may experience food insecurity” if they don’t get a meal in school. Moreover, they said, few districts have experience providing wide-scale online educational services for all students “and not all families have access to home computers and highspeed internet to take advantage of such online options.
In addition to Whitehouse and Reed, several of the Democrats who signed the letter have familiar names because they are, or were, running in the Democratic presidential primaries. They include Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, California Senator Kamala Harris and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.