With help from President Biden….
Health experts are pushing for school children to return to in-school learning if their school practice safe daily screening , masks, open ventilation, and social distancing in the classrooms….
For a lot of children…
This weeks marks a year they have been out of school…
Almost everyone agrees virtual learning in son substitute for being IN a classroom with others students ….
Scientists and doctors who study infectious disease in children largely agreed, in a recent New York Times survey about school openings, that elementary school students should be able to attend in-person school now. With safety measures like masking and opening windows, the benefits outweigh the risks, the majority of the 175 respondents said.
In some ways, they were more supportive of broad reopening than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was in recently published guidelines. But the experts pointed to the large share of schools in the United States and worldwide that have opened with minimal in-school spread while using such precautions.
Below are a representative range of their comments on key topics, including the risks to children of being out of school; the risks to teachers of being in school; whether vaccines are necessary before opening schools; how to achieve distance in crowded classrooms; what kind of ventilation is needed; and whether their own children’s school districts got it right.
In addition to their daily work on Covid-19, most of the experts had school-aged children themselves, half of whom were attending in-person school…
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The experts felt strongly that, while vaccines were important, they shouldn’t be required of any population for schools to open as long as other precautions were followed to keep both teachers and students safe. (This, along with much of what the panel said, aligns with new federal government recommendations for opening schools.Like the C.D.C., the panel thought more precautions were necessary before older students could return, because they are likelier to spread the virus.) Many recommended prioritizing teachers for vaccines, along with frontline workers….
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The experts felt strongly that, while vaccines were important, they shouldn’t be required of any population for schools to open as long as other precautions were followed to keep both teachers and students safe. (This, along with much of what the panel said, aligns with new federal government recommendations for opening schools.Like the C.D.C., the panel thought more precautions were necessary before older students could return, because they are likelier to spread the virus.) Many recommended prioritizing teachers for vaccines, along with frontline workers….
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Even though most respondents said it was not crucial that classes be divided in half, most preferred a standard of six feet of distance between children in classrooms — which can be impossible to achieve with full classes. This is an example of how opening schools requires creativity and weighing various risks: Many said the six-foot standard could be relaxed in situations where ventilation was good, and especially among younger children, who are less likely to spread Covid-19….
image…Naima Green for The New York Times
Also…
A $39 billion lifeline for American child care
A LIFELINE FOR AMERICAN CHILD CARE — It might seem like the nation’s child care providers are flush with cash right about now, if you’re only looking at government spending.
— Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat, just announced plans to ship more than $303 million of federal aid to struggling child care centers across the Keystone State. Larry Hogan, Maryland’s Republican governor, launched a new $60 million grant program last month. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills of Maine also recently set out to distribute more than $30 million; an estimated three-quarters of that amount is slated for grants to providers.
— The money’s coming from a $10 billion slice of coronavirus relief that Congress approved last fall in the last government stimulus package, before it was dished out to states, territories and tribes. That’s atop another $3.5 billion dedicated to child care earlier in 2020 under the CARES Act. But supporters say those dollars can only soften the pandemic’s heavy blow to an industry central to early childhood education, the ability for women to participate in the nation’s workforce and the country’s broader economic recovery.
— “Access to affordable, good quality childcare was a deep challenge before the pandemic,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), who sits on the HELP Committee, told reporters last week. “And what has happened with Covid is it has pushed child care to the brink, and put many child care providers at risk of going out of business.”
— Much more funding could be on the way: Congress is on the verge of approving a whopping $39 billion in spending for child care agencies and aid to providers affected by the pandemic, as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion recovery proposal. The bill also includes $1 billion for Head Start programs and an expanded tax credit for family child care expenses. Now the question is what’s next for care centers, their workers, and the families who rely on them….
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