TEACHER-LED PLAN FOR REOPENING SCHOOLS

This spring, the American Federation of Teachers released a plan for reopening schools this fall. It focuses primarily on the health and safety of students, teachers and staff. Here are the highlights:

■ Maintaining physical distancing until the number of new cases declines for at least 14 consecutive days. Reducing the number of new cases is a prerequisite for transitioning to reopening plans on a community-bycommunity basis.

■ Putting in place the infrastructure and resources to test, trace and isolate new cases. Transitioning from community-focused physical distancing and stay-in-place orders to case-specific interventions requires ramping up the capacity to test, trace and isolate each and every new case.

■ Deploying the public health tools that prevent the virus’s spread and aligning them with education strategies that meet the needs of students.

■ Involving workers, unions, parents and communities in all planning. Each workplace and community faces unique challenges related to COVID-19. To ensure that reopening plans address those challenges, broad worker and community involvement is necessary. They must be engaged, educated and empowered.

■ Investing in recovery: Do not abandon America’s communities or forfeit America’s future. These interventions will require more — not fewer — investments in public health and in our schools, universities, hospitals, and local and state governments. Strengthening communities should be a priority in the recovery.

DAVIE HINSHAW / CHARLOTTE (N.C.) OBSERVER