District leaders are on the hot seat like never before. As coronavirus cases surge again in most states, they are faced with letting students come into classrooms, or requiring that they stay home to learn. It鈥檚 a no-win decision, and they鈥檙e making it with drastically imperfect information.
If superintendents and school boards stick with鈥攐r retreat to鈥攔emote-only instruction, they risk the wrath of parents who want their kids back in classrooms. If they push forward with face-to-face learning, they could be criticized for gambling with the health of students, staff, and their families.
Interviews with superintendents show that as they are wrestling with this unenviable choice, they are not only weighing their local health metrics, but managing the many internal mechanics that shape a safe return to school: The cost and procedures of new safety protocols, labor contracts that need to be renegotiated, and the staffing jigsaw puzzle that buckles if scores of teachers refuse to enter school buildings.
鈥淭here are so many pieces to these decisions,鈥� said Kimberley Cantu, the superintendent of the Mansfield Independent School District, which serves 35,000 students near Dallas. 鈥淧eople get frustrated. Parents might not truly understand. They might know some of the parts we deal with, but not all the parts.鈥�
Increasingly, the debate is also taking on an equity subtext, as superintendents struggle with opinions about reopening that frequently cleave along lines of wealth, politics, race, and privilege.
Take the Shelby County schools in Tennessee. About 73 percent of the Memphis-area district鈥檚 more than 100,000 students are Black; COVID-19 hit the city鈥檚 Black community hard. And with COVID rates outpacing the local health department鈥檚 recommendations for returning, Superintendent Joris Ray has bucked the regional trend: He鈥檚 refused so far to return to in-person learning.
鈥淚 just can鈥檛 take that gamble in a school district where some of my parents don鈥檛 have access to health insurance,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 take it when the students here stay in multigenerational homes with a square footage of no more than 900 square feet.
鈥淪ometimes parents look at this from a middle-class lens, and they negate some of the other risk factors that our children have.鈥�
One of the Most Cautious Stances Toward Reopening Schools
The Montgomery County, Md., school district, one of the nation鈥檚 largest, with 163,000 students, is a case study of the complexity of school districts鈥� reopening decisions, and the difficulty of judging whether districts are being too cautious, taking too much risk, or playing it just right. Currently, it鈥檚 weighing a phased return to face-to-face instruction in January.
Nearly everywhere in the U.S., local districts choose which health metrics to base their safe return decisions on. Frequently, they follow their local health department鈥檚 data, and two of the most common indicators they watch are:
- the number of new cases and
- the percent of COVID-19 tests that are positive.
But some health departments use 7-day averages for those metrics, while others use 14-day averages. Each decides which levels of those indicators constitute low, medium or high risk for reopening. Federal and international standards vary, too: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for new cases and test positivity in its school guidance, defining five zones of risk, from green to red. But the and , two leading COVID-19 trackers, use 7-day averages.
In uses a 14-day average for test positivity, so that can be mapped onto the CDC鈥檚 scale. As of Nov. 3, it showed 3.1 percent of COVID-19 tests were positive, putting the county in the CDC鈥檚 鈥渓ower鈥� risk zone. The , had advised governments to consider reopening only when their test positivity rates were 5 percent or lower for two weeks.
Montgomery County uses a 7-day average on its other key metric, new cases per 100,000 people, so that can鈥檛 be judged against the CDC鈥檚 scale. As of Nov. 3, the county reported 13.1 new cases per 100,000 people in the most recent week. Set onto the Harvard Global Health Initiative鈥檚 scale of risk, which uses that same metric, Montgomery County鈥檚 new-case rate is relatively high, a level 3 of 4.
The districts鈥� data points have created a Rorschach test for people on all sides of the school reopening debate: everyone interprets the data, and their attendant risks, differently. That鈥檚 meant parallel rivers of criticism and support for the district鈥檚 decision to stay in all-remote mode. A recent exchange in a local, private parents鈥� group on Facebook illustrates this division.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a deadly disease,鈥� said one parent. 鈥淲e鈥檙e in the middle of a crisis and people want to go back to normal when that isn鈥檛 possible.鈥� Another parent returned fire: 鈥淭he crisis is that kids can be safe in schools, but MCPS pretends that is not the case.鈥�
Derek Turner, who leads the district鈥檚 reopening plans as chief of operations and innovation, defends its decision to stay remote, especially if the case count continues to rise. Schools might have to toggle back and forth between in-person and remote learning, which could be as disruptive to some families as working in all-remote mode feels to others.
The district is also concerned about equity. Within its 500-square-mile area, some ZIP codes have seven new cases per 100,000 people and some have 25, with lower case counts clustering in lower-poverty zones, he noted. But that doesn鈥檛 mean it鈥檚 feasible to reopen in-person in areas with the lowest risk.
鈥淗ow would that be from an equity perspective if we said, 鈥榊ou, you鈥檙e in poverty, and you don鈥檛 get to have that in-person experience, but you, over here, you can have that鈥�?鈥� Turner said. 鈥淭here are so many layers of complexity to this.鈥�
How Much Risk for Coronavirus Transmission Do Schools Actually Pose?
For some, the questions about metrics obscure a key issue: Studies so far suggest that schools , and there鈥檚 an emerging consensus that children under age 10 are less likely to contract the virus鈥攖hough those that do can still pass it on. Many argue that with the right health precautions, including mask-wearing, social distancing, and contact tracing protocols, they can reopen safely.
Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of Brown University鈥檚 School of Public Health, encouraged schools to be bolder about reopening, even as they carefully track their local virus metrics. Too often, he said, fear is trumping science in school-reopening decisions.
鈥淲hat we know right now is that schools don鈥檛 appear to be a place where there is a lot of spread happening,鈥� Jha said in an interview with EdWeek.
But, in a vivid illustration of the division and emotion on the issue, Jha鈥檚 comments came in for both praise and attack on social media. 鈥漇hame on you,鈥� one poster said on EdWeek鈥檚 Facebook page. In a , one person ventured that schools 鈥渃ould be more aggressive鈥� about reopening, while another said: 鈥淧eople who say these things are not in the classroom.鈥�
Some districts still operating in all-remote mode, though, have transmission rates that are, by almost any available measure, extremely low. San Francisco is a case in point: Mayor London Breed has excoriated the city鈥檚 school district for not bringing students back to classrooms, when its health metrics put it in .
But there are also districts with far higher case numbers potentially considering a return to in-person learning. In the big Clark County, Nev., district, which includes Las Vegas, the number of new cases recently surged past 200 new cases per 100,000 people and a positive-test rate of nearly 9 percent鈥攆ar exceeding its adopted guidelines for returning to school.
Fermin Leguen, the acting chief health officer for the Southern Nevada Health District, who has been advising the Clark County district on reopening, acknowledged at its Oct. 22 meeting that metrics were unlikely to improve anytime soon, and said he would support a decision to bring some students back, citing the detrimental effects to student learning and socialization. Such a plan would depend on strict safety protocols and COVID-19 testing of employees, he said. (The district said it will consider transition plans at a Nov. 12 board meeting and declined to comment further.)
The U.S. Department of Education, meanwhile, has all but abdicated any role in providing actionable, comparable data to inform districts鈥� decisions. In mid-October, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had a role to play in collecting and disseminating research or data on the pandemic.
Health Risks, Politics, Equity, and Staffing Drive School Reopening Decisions
As daunting as it is for districts to navigate conflicting metrics and risk levels, a host of other forces apply pressures to their decision-making.
Recent analyses suggest that local politics play a role. The , a research group, found that students鈥� chances of being in a school that reopened when health risk was high, or in a school that took a very cautious approach, were linked to the political party of their state鈥檚 governor.
Equity weighs heavily on district leaders鈥� minds. Surveys and news reports show that communities of color that have been hit more heavily with illness and deaths are less likely to support in-person learning. The American Enterprise Institute that COVID-19 case rates were weakly related to what reopening models district chose, with higher percentages of schools returned to in-person instruction in small, low-minority, low-poverty, and high-achieving districts.
More than a few superintendents are feeling pressure, one way or the other, from their states. Cantu鈥檚 district in Texas planned to stay all-virtual through Sept 28, but began offering in-person options Sept. 8 after the state鈥檚 education commissioner told superintendents that their funding would be at risk if they didn鈥檛 provide in-person options for parents, she told EdWeek. That trumped the advice of county health officials, who鈥檇 urged local districts to stay remote, since new case rates and hospitalizations were trending up earlier this fall, Cantu said.
Reopening also requires ensuring a full quotient of staff, and not all districts can make the ends meet. Teachers in the Mansfield district are taking more days off now to take care of family issues or their own health, and far fewer subs on her normal roster are willing to risk coming to work, said Cantu. Normally, she can fill 90 percent of absent teachers鈥� classrooms with substitutes. Now, she鈥檚 lucky if she can get half filled, Cantu said, leading some teachers to take on colleagues鈥� classes, doubling class size. At times, receptionists fill in.
There are also questions about logistics that might help schools get off a reopen-and-close-again roller coaster. In Los Angeles, the country鈥檚 second-biggest district, which is still largely in all-remote mode because of California鈥檚 health-metrics requirements, Superintendent Austin Beutner is leading a large-scale experiment in COVID-19 testing.
The district is still building the program, and it鈥檚 currently voluntary. As of Nov. 4, it had tested 103,000 parents, students, staff, and family members, and found a test-positivity rate of only 0.38 percent, far lower than the average of 3.7 percent in the sprawling county where it鈥檚 situated. As testing is scaled up, Beutner said, it can be a powerful way to monitor the virus in the schools and take the needed precautions when the data suggest they鈥檙e necessary.
鈥淕etting back open is hard,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut keeping open is hard if you don鈥檛 have the testing capability.鈥�
Labor union issues are a big part of the reopening equation, too. Disputes between districts and unions have delayed plans to , and . Complications over a have limited the number of students who can access in-person teaching.
Such issues are now top of mind in the Clark County school district, where negotiations between the district and teachers鈥� union over in-person learning procedures are ongoing.
The Clark County Education Association has put forward a safety plan for the return to in-person learning demanding a test-positivity rate in the county below 5 percent; mandatory testing of all who enter school buildings during the transition to hybrid learning; and clarity on which teachers must return to buildings and which can continue to teach remotely, among other things. And it鈥檚 been reviewing what other teachers鈥� unions in the eight largest U.S. districts have bargained into their latest contracts, said John Vellardita, the CCEA鈥檚 president.
In an informal survey, about 70 percent of the union鈥檚 building representatives said they鈥檇 be open to returning if those conditions are met, he said. But, Vellardita acknowledged, no matter how negotiations work out, some in-person learning is inevitable.
鈥淚 will tell you the pressure is mounting, and it鈥檚 not just from the business community; it鈥檚 also from parents,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o I think it鈥檚 imminent. I think there鈥檚 a marker for January, and it might happen even sooner.鈥�
Threading the Needle
In this tangled mix of dynamics, sometimes school leaders have no option but to take a deep breath, weigh their options, choose the best, and take the heat from opponents.
Baltimore Superintendent Sonja Santelises is threading the needle between a state education commissioner who鈥檚 pressuring districts to reopen and a community that鈥檚 far more hesitant.
Santelises had hoped to open in August with full hybrid options for everyone, but decided the district just wasn鈥檛 ready to bring back that many kids safely.
Staff pushback, concerns about having enough teachers, insufficient contact tracing, and problems securing air filters in its older buildings all played into the decision. In an October survey, half her parents wanted to stay virtual, one-quarter wanted to return in person, and the rest wanted more information about safety protocols.
The district opted for a gradual approach, so it can master the protocols and gauge how everything is going as it brings more students into its buildings. So far, it鈥檚 opened a handful of schools for special-needs children, and about 975 students in supervised virtual-learning settings. In mid-November, it plans to open 44 of its 160 schools for the youngest and highest-need students.
Shelby County leaders are making plans to return to in-person learning in January, when they hope local health metrics will have improved. The district is asking all parents to indicate their preference for remote or hybrid learning so it can begin sketching out its scenarios. It has tentatively prioritized PreK-to-grade 5 students for in-person learning based on the health research, and because those students stand to benefit most from early literacy teaching and socialization.
No matter what eventually happens, though, Superintendent Ray knows someone in Memphis will be upset with his decisions.
鈥淚 get it from both sides. I have a local minister here who鈥檚 questioning why I鈥檓 even discussing in-person learning with the conditions of COVID-19, and I hear from parents who say, 鈥榃e should have gone back two weeks ago,鈥欌�� he said. 鈥淚t is definitely warring factions about should we return, or should we remain.鈥�
