WEDNESDAY 8/5
FEDERAL
Reopening Debate:
Phase 4:
- According to NBC News, Senate McConnell conceded that he will lack Republican support to pass a package and instead will rely on Democrats to negotiate a deal with the White House. “If you’re looking for total consensus among Republican senators, you’re not going to find it. We do have division about what to do.”
- The White House signaled a concession on expanded UI - $400 per week until December 15 along with an extension of the eviction moratorium until December 15 and $200 billion for state stabilization. There is still no agreement on education funding, childcare (Democrats want $50 billion and Republicans are at $15 billion). The US Postal Service has also become a flashpoint due to mail-in voting. Democrats want $25 billion and Republicans offered $10 billion.
- Related, "Many economists expect last week’s expiration of $600 in enhanced weekly unemployment benefits to lead to a sharp drop-off in household spending and a setback for the U.S. economy’s near-term recovery, even if the lapse turns out to be temporary."
STATE
As of August 5, 12 of the 15 largest school districts are choosing remote learning only as their back-to-school instructional model, affecting over 3.2 million students. Via EdWeek.
Alabama: Jefferson County Schools will start the year remotely. A survey of parents found that 56% preferred online instruction compared to 44% who wanted to start the school year with a traditional classroom setting.
Colorado: Children's Hospital released "Guidelines for Managing COVID-19 with Schools Reopening" along with Charting Pediatrics podcast designed to help school administrators and board members determine how they can most safely reopen their schools for in-person learning.
Florida: The Florida Education Association filed an emergency hearing on Aug. 3 to block reopening brick and mortar schools while a lawsuit against the state is pending.
Georgia: Five employees tested positive on the first data of school for Marietta City Schools.
Idaho: Boise schools will open remotely.
Illinois:
- Chicago, the nation’s third-largest district, will begin the new school year remotely. "The decision to keep kids at home is an abrupt about-face from city officials who have faced heavy pressure from teachers and parents to go fully remote over health concerns during a pandemic, and who only four days ago asked families to decide whether their children would take part in the district’s in-person plan."
- The state's largest teachers union is creating a medical review panel it says will judge whether individual school districts' reopening plans are safe.
Indiana: Dr. Kris Box, Indiana's state health commissioner said schools could safely reopen.
Massachusetts: Somerville Public Schools will start the school year remotely.
Michigan: A new poll finds that half of Michigan residents don’t believe it’s safe for children to return to in-person classroom learning.
Mississippi: The Governor issued an order requiring any county that has more than 200 cases or more than 500 cases per 100,000 people will have to delay back to school start dates.
Tennessee: Out of the 50 school districts who have reopened, at least 14 have confirmed COVID-19 cases.
Texas: A useful list of start dates and reopening plans for all east Texas schools.
Washington: Rainier, Woodland, Toledo, Winlock, and Kalama schools will all open remotely.
International
Bolivia: Just canceled the entire school year.
UK: Anne Elizabeth Longfield, the Children's Commissioner for England, said "Schools should be last to close and first to reopen in the event of a second wave of Covid-19, with regular testing for pupils and teachers to reassure parents and keep schools safe."
RESOURCES
Learning Pods:
- Interesting article in Vogue from a parent's perspective with pods. It starts with, " Last week I started crying for no apparent reason while I was making lunch. I was running on fumes and was wondering how I was going to finish an assignment that was due in a few days" and ends with "By this measure, the creation of these pods is yet another example of parents filling the holes created by our broken system. Here’s the rub: if the quarantine has amplified the social inequities in our educational system, sadly our solutions reveal our haste to throw money at immediate problems – as well as exposing our tacit refusal to pay attention to the root cause."
- "We watched as this phenomenon that these learning pods have just taken off throughout the country and in Texas,” said Angie Mock, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of San Antonio. "And what we've decided to do is we are going to execute a similar strategy, but for low income kids."
- In South Carolina, a Facebook pod group has 300 members. The article also talked about a $7,900 a year microschool costing parents $12 an hour.
- Article of a pod group in Texas. Kids will be learning virtually with the teacher of their school district, but when it comes time for the kids to do a task the teacher assigned, the four families have hired a tutor.
- A New Jersey pod group pulls in a variety of teachers.
- A group of mothers in Fort Collins, CO is working to help connect families with one another to form schooling pods. In less than two weeks, they have more than 1,000 members.
- Brit+Co published a Playbook for Organizing a Pandemic Pod This Fall
- Swing Education launched a new service, called “Bubbles.” The idea is to match family requests with teachers based on geography, age groups, teaching styles and subject expertise. Each pod is capped at eight students, who gather with their teacher at one of the family’s homes for about 25 hours each week.
- Tom Vander Ark on how microschools meet the moment.
Why Are Child Care Programs Open When Schools Are Not?: NYT article. "A recent survey by the National Association for the Education of Young Children of more than 5,000 child care providers from all 50 states, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico found that about half of the nation’s child care programs may close by December, absent additional government assistance. Unlike public schools, for most child care programs, temporary closure or reduced group sizes because of pandemic health concerns is a pathway to shuttering permanently."
The US Has A COVID Data Problem: "It's like we're flying blind."
The Difficulty in Modeling COVID: Future deaths are even harder to predict than the course of a hurricane. “You make better forecasts when you make multiple models,” said Nick Reich, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health. “If you rely on just one model, you’re going to be disappointed.” The CDC is funding Covid-19 ForecastHub which analyzes two dozen models for a consensus forecast.
Ventilation Should Be Part of the Conversation on School Reopening: Article in Stat, "As a result of months of misapplied focus on surface disinfection, the importance of air circulation and the potential use of filtration is missing from the national debate on school reopening."
Put It In Airplane Mode: Apparently the astronauts encountered a problem loading a customized SpaceX app on an iPad Mini. The solution was putting it into airplane mode. That has nothing to do with COVID or schools but I thought it was interesting.
Vaccine Tracker: Via NYT.
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Risk Reduction Strategies for Reopening Schools: Guide from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
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