Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): How Can School Administrators Reopen Safely During COVID-19?

What to do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

1. What is the risk that students will spread the novel coronavirus to me or my colleagues?

Evidence suggests that transmission from young children to adults is extremely rare. On the other hand, adolescents — especially high school students — do appear capable of transmitting the virus.

In a study out of Iceland, not a single instance of a child infecting parents was found. Similarly, a study in northern France found zero cases of an infection transmitting from student to teacher.

Rather, within families, the virus is usually transmitted from adults to children. A Dutch study found no instances in which a child under 12 years old was the first infected person in their family. Further, children are less often infected with the virus than adults.

An exception to this trend occurred in Israel, where an outbreak at a high school infected over 100 students and 15 staff members. Notably, teachers and students at the school did not wear masks and the school did not aggressively quarantine infected individuals.

This experience highlights the value of ensuring that if high schools reopen, they do so with proper protocols in place to help minimize the likelihood of transmission between students.

2. What should give me comfort that my risk of getting infected by young children is low?

Most European countries reopened schools last spring, without a rise in COVID-19 cases, including Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and Singapore.

3. Can students fall severely ill from COVID-19?

Children are at very low risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. There have been reports of a significant but extremely rare inflammatory syndrome in children due to COVID-19, but the syndrome appears to be manageable with medical intervention.

Overall, Americans under the age of 25 represent 0.15% of all COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the odds of an individual under 25 dying from COVID-19 are around 2.2 per million, or 1 in 447,000.

Hospitalization rates among school-aged children are also sufficiently low to justify the reopening of schools. Influenza pandemics carry significantly greater risks for children, but the U.S. does not close schools for the flu.

4. What should I know about COVID-19 transmission between teachers and staff in schools?

A more meaningful risk is the transmission from adults to other adults in schools. It is important that administrators and teachers social distance from one another.

Young and healthy administrators and teachers, especially those under 45, are at lower risk of serious illness and death. But older administrators and teachers and those with certain underlying cardiovascular, metabolic, or autoimmune conditions will need to take extra precautions, and in some cases stay home, in order to protect themselves.

5. Even still, isn’t the safest thing to do wait for a vaccine before we reopen schools?

While we should hope for a vaccine to be available soon, we cannot wait to reopen schools until we have one. There has never been a vaccine developed for a coronavirus before. The fastest vaccine pre-qualification process that the World Health Organization has ever conducted was for Ebola, which took five years. Scientists have been trying to develop a vaccine for HIV for nearly 40 years, and we still don’t have one.

It is essential to understand that as schools reopen, some children will test positive for COVID-19, for the same reasons that they test positive in the general population. Teachers should fully expect that some of their students will test positive.

6. What should I know about the harms of keeping kids out of school?

A national survey of American parents found that 71 percent believed their children learned less than they would have had schools remained open. That survey also found that 40 percent of students had no individual interactions with teachers.

Beyond the immediate educational impacts, ongoing shutdowns of schools also significantly affects the social and public health of American children, and particularly disadvantaged kids, as the American Academy of Pediatrics details. Widespread school closures, suspended sports and other extracurricular activities, and shuttered public parks and playgrounds have serious negative physical consequences for children.

Anecdotal reports suggest that some health care providers are seeing an increase in child abuse incidents during the pandmemic. But reports of abuse are reportedly down which raises concerns that children are suffering abuse at home that is not identified by teachers at school.

7. What kind of precautions should administrators be enforcing in the classrooms?

Teachers and administrators should wear masks, as well as older children, such as those in high school and middle school, with accommodations for those with health needs, the deaf, and other special populations. School health staff, in particular, should be trained in the proper wearing of masks, and be able to offer that instruction to students and teachers.

Every school should conduct temperature and symptom screening of every child, teacher, and staffer on a daily basis, in order to identify potential positive cases of COVID-19. Schools need to have a clear plan for screening students, teachers, and staff, and a clear plan for sending individuals home who screen positively.

Administrators should also urge parents to conduct temperature tests each day at home, in order to identify symptomatic children and keep them at home. If an administrator, teacher, or child is found to be symptomatic, he or she should stay home for two weeks.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has has developed a pragmatic set of recommendations, highlighting both the “need to account for…vulnerable populations, including those who are medically fragile, live in poverty, have developmental challenges, or have special health care needs or disabilities,” while reopening school for those who most benefit from it.

8. How should I dialogue with parents who are afraid to send their child back to school?

Know that four-in-five parents do not feel safe sending their children back to school next month or September. Nearly 40 percent report that they plan to keep their kids home until a vaccine is available, though this view may change if schools reopen with success.

However, a national survey of American parents found that 71 percent believed their children learned less than they would have had schools remained open. That survey also found that 40 percent of students had no individual interactions with teachers.

The likelihood that the pandemic will persist into — and perhaps well beyond — the 2020–21 school year requires policymakers to plan for the reopening of the nation’s schools. Parents should realistic expectations that they will see cases of COVID-19 in the school, and will want to know the plans in place to deal with these expected occurrences.

9. What kind of alternatives to in-person learning should I be considering?

Administrators should follow guidelines and make plans to integrate classroom instruction with distance learning and to transition between these two modes as required.

States should take the lead, not local school districts, in developing virtual schools and curriculums for primary and secondary students who need to stay home. It will be essential for states to realign school funding formulas such to accommodate alternatives to traditional schools.

Microschools, sometimes called “pods,” are also a promising option for students who require limited exposure to the traditional school setting for health reasons.

10. What is a microschool or pod?

For those who need it, one practical option for providing out-of-home schooling is microschooling or “pods.” For example, a teacher could provide a microschool setting for a group of children to limit exposure to the traditional school setting.

At a microschool, a child could learn in a variety of ways including through teacher instruction, virtual learning, or hybrid-homeschooling. Importantly, microschools would provide the child care that many families may require to work outside of the home in addition to in-person instruction. Prenda Schools are one prominent example of a network of microschools across the United States, and recently reported growing interest in their program. Other innovators in this field include SchoolHouse, Selected for Families, and Learning Pods.

Schools should transition to a mastery-based approach to measuring learning, so that we can compare performance of virtual and microschool models to those of traditional classrooms.

11. What are trusted resources for the latest data on school reopening?

Reopening America’s Schools and Colleges During COVID-19 by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP.org), which details all of the considerations and options for school reopenings, from pre-K all the way to college.

COVID-19 Planning Considerations: Guidance for School Re-Entry by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The AAP’s guidelines are more practical than those of the CDC, and better aligned with the latest scientific evidence.