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"content": "\u003cp>Teachers are picking up slack for absent colleagues. They're covering for unfilled positions. And 55% of them say they will leave teaching sooner than they had originally planned, according to a poll of its members by the nation's largest teachers union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Education Association\u003ca href=\"https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-survey-massive-staff-shortages-schools-leading-educator\"> poll,\u003c/a> conducted in January, helps quantify the stress being placed on educators right now. It found that the number who say they'll leave the profession sooner has risen significantly since August. Among the NEA poll's other findings:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>90% of its members say that feeling burned out is a serious problem.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>86% say they have seen more educators leaving the profession or retiring early since the start of the pandemic.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>80% report that unfilled job openings have led to more work obligations for those left.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\"Last summer, I started traveling across the country,\" says Becky Pringle, president of the NEA, which has nearly 3 million members, talking about the impetus for the survey. \"Without exception, every stop I made, from Kentucky to Oakland, I heard those similar stories of educators who were exhausted, overwhelmed, feeling unloved, disrespected.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The poll found a racial gap in discontent: 62% of Black teachers and 59% of Hispanic teachers say they will leave earlier than planned, compared with 55% overall. But the desire to leave the profession was at similar levels for rookies, midcareer educators and those closer to retirement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our morning emails every day start with the vacancies that have been unfilled,\" says Amber McCoy, an NEA member who teaches fourth grade in Huntington, W.Va. \"[It] will tell us where we have staffing shortages in the building and [ask] us to step in in any way or any time that we can.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says it's less the 20-year veterans like herself and more the young teachers that are leaving, or considering leaving.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is just not what they bargained for,\" McCoy says. \"I also mentor new teachers in my county and one of the girls that had done some clinical work in my classroom, she called me and she just said, 'Is it normal for me to cry every single day after school?' And I said, 'Honey, it's not normal. But this year it's not uncommon.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, saying that you're thinking about leaving, or reporting the perception that others are leaving, is not the same as actually putting in your notice. Still, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 567,000 fewer educators in America's public schools today than there were before the pandemic. And the NEA's analysis of BLS data indicates that 43% of jobs posted are going unfilled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to solutions, the NEA says money is uppermost in its members' minds. They support raising salaries and hiring more people. Pringle says the union has been amplifying the Biden administration's message that American Rescue Plan money — $122 billion in federal aid to K-12 schools — can and should be used to improve pay and create new positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We were asked to assist [U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona] to really push on this part of the use of those funds,\" Pringle says, \"because some school districts were a little leery about using them to hire staff.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One big reason for that, she explained, is that the extra money is set to sunset within three years, whereas hiring someone or giving them a raise is an indefinite financial commitment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet even if the funding is temporary, Pringle argues, it's needed right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=More+than+half+of+teachers+are+looking+for+the+exits%2C+a+poll+says&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cp>Kids are carrying the trauma of the pandemic and, even if COVID is eventually defanged, it has already left indelible marks on students' psyches and education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's the warning of Chicago school principal, Seth Lavin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the pandemic has disrupted education across the country, the situation in Chicago has been particularly acute. The city's public school system shut down for five days earlier this month as the teachers union and city officials were in a standoff over COVID safety rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our schools are not OK. Children are not OK. Teachers are not OK,\" Lavin wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/1/24/22899360/chicago-principal-our-schools-are-not-ok-mental-health-pandemic-seth-lavin-op-ed\">recent commentary for the Chicago Sun-Times\u003c/a>. \"Yesterday we COVID-tested a line of students 300 children long. But this surreal circus is not the main plot of this year. The surge is ending. The crisis will still be here.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lavin, who heads the Brentano Elementary Math & Science Academy (Pre-K - 8th grade), spoke with NPR's \u003cem>All Things Considered.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59024\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-59024\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/gettyimages-1363878066-ca8690285cc140929f82f785443ecaff407a0a68-scaled-e1643790653123.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Chicago Teachers Union and their supporters participate in a car caravan around City Hall to protest against in-person learning in Chicago public schools on January 10, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. \u003ccite>(Scott Olson/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What's not OK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We've all been through so much in the past two years. Most of last year we were apart and now we're together again. Children and all of us are out of practice being a community. We've all lost a lot. We've all been hurt a lot. So, the children need help. They need love. The adults need help and love too. And so as a community, we're struggling through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How children carry the burdens of COVID\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59025\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-59025\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/seth-levin_vert-3ac7a7c17bd23647449f4b84e32e65a63c38eae9-scaled-e1643790702982.jpe\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Principal Seth Lavin. \u003ccite>(Seth Lavin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kids have experienced loss and kids have lost experiences. They are carrying trauma and, even the ones who aren't carrying trauma from really terrible things happening during this pandemic, they've had experiences that kids shouldn't have and have lacked experiences that kids should have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their friendships are harder. Their emotions are bigger. Their ability to have empathy, and process with those around them, and notice the humans around them is lower. And that just makes everything more challenging in a school because, in a school, we are together and everything we do impacts the people around us directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I talk to friends of mine who are teachers, who are principals, and we all share these stories, just examples of things that worry us about our kids – stories that you wouldn't hear two or three years ago. A friend of mine who's a principal told me when I asked how she's doing, she said in the last three years, she had once gone through the process that you go through when a child has suicidal ideation, when they talk a lot about self-harm. She said [she has] done it four times in the last one month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59026\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-59026\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/gettyimages-1364241597-cc1d1b535356926e13257a61ad89e2358c894d1d-scaled-e1643790741473.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student arrives for classes at a Chicago elementary school on January 12, 2022. \u003ccite>(Scott Olson/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Too much focus on learning loss\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It is objectively true that over the last two years, kids have not experienced the same lessons they would have, if school had just been in person. But, I really think there's too much focus on that or on this idea of learning loss, whatever that means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What school does and what school is isn't just a sequence of lessons that you're supposed to get in order at the right time in order to grow up to be the person you're supposed to grow up to be. That's not what school is really about. School is about becoming the person you're meant to be through being in community and having experiences with others, learning who you are, learning how to be a person who shows up in a way that is good for others – and fractions and grammar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, yes, our kids missed out on things. They have experiences that they need to have, now, to grow into the people they need to be and to grow in community in the right way. That is all much more important and much more urgent than this idea that we need to somehow make up for the lessons that they didn't have because they were remote or because school was closed at a certain period of time. That stuff will come. The urgency is we need to help our kids feel safe and good in community at school, so they know how to be with others.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When will things get back to normal?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We can't pretend that we're not still in the present tense in the pandemic, and I think it's important to say that out loud because when we pretend the pandemic is over, when we pretend that these disruptions aren't still existing in school, when we pretend our kids aren't still experiencing the hardship that they're experiencing as a result of this pandemic, we aren't opening our eyes to what kids and teachers and schools and parents are actually experiencing, and in doing so, we create a disconnect and we make things worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I'm an optimist. I think the omicron surge ending is a really good thing and it may mean we have a time of lower cases and normalcy for a while. That'll give us a longer time of more calm and more stability and school, which is going to help kids and teachers feel more calm and more stable in their bodies and their classrooms to rebuild the community and do the work that we need to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the long term, this isn't a blip. I mean, this is now part of our collective experience. It's been a quarter of my younger son's life. It's not just a thing that happened. It's the world. So, we're going to be making sense of that forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want to go back to normal, but we also always have to ask what normal even was. This moment, cataclysmic as it is, has to be a time when we rebuild the world in a better way. And I really think that people, schools, teachers and their kids and the parents they work with are doing that work classroom by classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+school+principal%27s+blunt+warning%3A+We+can%27t+pretend+the+pandemic+is+over&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Kids are carrying the trauma of the pandemic and, even if COVID is eventually defanged, it has already left indelible marks on students' psyches and education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's the warning of Chicago school principal, Seth Lavin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the pandemic has disrupted education across the country, the situation in Chicago has been particularly acute. The city's public school system shut down for five days earlier this month as the teachers union and city officials were in a standoff over COVID safety rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Our schools are not OK. Children are not OK. Teachers are not OK,\" Lavin wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/2022/1/24/22899360/chicago-principal-our-schools-are-not-ok-mental-health-pandemic-seth-lavin-op-ed\">recent commentary for the Chicago Sun-Times\u003c/a>. \"Yesterday we COVID-tested a line of students 300 children long. But this surreal circus is not the main plot of this year. The surge is ending. The crisis will still be here.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lavin, who heads the Brentano Elementary Math & Science Academy (Pre-K - 8th grade), spoke with NPR's \u003cem>All Things Considered.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59024\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-59024\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/gettyimages-1363878066-ca8690285cc140929f82f785443ecaff407a0a68-scaled-e1643790653123.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Members of the Chicago Teachers Union and their supporters participate in a car caravan around City Hall to protest against in-person learning in Chicago public schools on January 10, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois. \u003ccite>(Scott Olson/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>What's not OK?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We've all been through so much in the past two years. Most of last year we were apart and now we're together again. Children and all of us are out of practice being a community. We've all lost a lot. We've all been hurt a lot. So, the children need help. They need love. The adults need help and love too. And so as a community, we're struggling through it.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>How children carry the burdens of COVID\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59025\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-59025\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/seth-levin_vert-3ac7a7c17bd23647449f4b84e32e65a63c38eae9-scaled-e1643790702982.jpe\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"334\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Principal Seth Lavin. \u003ccite>(Seth Lavin)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Kids have experienced loss and kids have lost experiences. They are carrying trauma and, even the ones who aren't carrying trauma from really terrible things happening during this pandemic, they've had experiences that kids shouldn't have and have lacked experiences that kids should have.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their friendships are harder. Their emotions are bigger. Their ability to have empathy, and process with those around them, and notice the humans around them is lower. And that just makes everything more challenging in a school because, in a school, we are together and everything we do impacts the people around us directly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I talk to friends of mine who are teachers, who are principals, and we all share these stories, just examples of things that worry us about our kids – stories that you wouldn't hear two or three years ago. A friend of mine who's a principal told me when I asked how she's doing, she said in the last three years, she had once gone through the process that you go through when a child has suicidal ideation, when they talk a lot about self-harm. She said [she has] done it four times in the last one month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_59026\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-59026\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/gettyimages-1364241597-cc1d1b535356926e13257a61ad89e2358c894d1d-scaled-e1643790741473.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A student arrives for classes at a Chicago elementary school on January 12, 2022. \u003ccite>(Scott Olson/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Too much focus on learning loss\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>It is objectively true that over the last two years, kids have not experienced the same lessons they would have, if school had just been in person. But, I really think there's too much focus on that or on this idea of learning loss, whatever that means.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What school does and what school is isn't just a sequence of lessons that you're supposed to get in order at the right time in order to grow up to be the person you're supposed to grow up to be. That's not what school is really about. School is about becoming the person you're meant to be through being in community and having experiences with others, learning who you are, learning how to be a person who shows up in a way that is good for others – and fractions and grammar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, yes, our kids missed out on things. They have experiences that they need to have, now, to grow into the people they need to be and to grow in community in the right way. That is all much more important and much more urgent than this idea that we need to somehow make up for the lessons that they didn't have because they were remote or because school was closed at a certain period of time. That stuff will come. The urgency is we need to help our kids feel safe and good in community at school, so they know how to be with others.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>When will things get back to normal?\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>We can't pretend that we're not still in the present tense in the pandemic, and I think it's important to say that out loud because when we pretend the pandemic is over, when we pretend that these disruptions aren't still existing in school, when we pretend our kids aren't still experiencing the hardship that they're experiencing as a result of this pandemic, we aren't opening our eyes to what kids and teachers and schools and parents are actually experiencing, and in doing so, we create a disconnect and we make things worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I'm an optimist. I think the omicron surge ending is a really good thing and it may mean we have a time of lower cases and normalcy for a while. That'll give us a longer time of more calm and more stability and school, which is going to help kids and teachers feel more calm and more stable in their bodies and their classrooms to rebuild the community and do the work that we need to do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the long term, this isn't a blip. I mean, this is now part of our collective experience. It's been a quarter of my younger son's life. It's not just a thing that happened. It's the world. So, we're going to be making sense of that forever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We want to go back to normal, but we also always have to ask what normal even was. This moment, cataclysmic as it is, has to be a time when we rebuild the world in a better way. And I really think that people, schools, teachers and their kids and the parents they work with are doing that work classroom by classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=A+school+principal%27s+blunt+warning%3A+We+can%27t+pretend+the+pandemic+is+over&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Parents and caregivers of young kids say they've hit pandemic rock bottom",
"title": "Parents and caregivers of young kids say they've hit pandemic rock bottom",
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"content": "\u003cp>\"I had a parent tell me to f*** off last week,\" Cori Berg said. She directs the Hope Day School, a church-affiliated early childhood program in Dallas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unhappy mother took her two children out of Berg's center after each of their classrooms were closed for quarantines, saying she'd hire a nanny. Wanting to return, she emailed, called and finally showed up in the middle of the day. Just as Berg had warned her, her spots were taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mother, according to Berg, threw a fit before coming back and apologizing. \"She was like a toddler — she was jumping up and down.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The people who take care of and educate children under 5 years old — both parents \u003cem>and \u003c/em>providers — are in a special kind of hell right now. These children are too young to be vaccinated, and it's difficult for them to wear masks consistently. Many child care directors, like Berg, are still following 10- or 14-day quarantines, closing entire classrooms after a single positive test, which has caused nonstop disruptions given the current record numbers of COVID-19 cases. Recently, Berg's infant room had \"double-decker\" quarantines: closed for two weeks, back for one day, then closed for another two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, caregivers told NPR that they can't get hold of enough rapid tests and that they're struggling to apply the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/child-care-guidance.html\">safety guidance\u003c/a>. Child care directors say they have few substitutes to cover for those out sick, and early childhood educators \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-child-care-system-is-facing-collapse-could-unionizing-help-bring-the-industry-back-from-the-brink/\">typically don't have union protection\u003c/a>. Providers say they are spending out of pocket on equipment such as masks and gloves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents, meanwhile, are losing their tempers, losing sleep and losing jobs when the child care they pay for is canceled, over and over. About 1 in 6 parents told pollsters they had experienced either a school or a day care shutdown in the past few weeks, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index\">national poll\u003c/a> from Axios and Ipsos released on Jan. 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Child care centers are struggling with repeated quarantines\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58955\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58955\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/edit_c1n08643_slide-ffc4752128da679911e51a9ba13df31ce67a47a7-scaled-e1642750482296.jpg\" alt=\"childcare worker \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Berg spoke to NPR while quarantining at home after being exposed to the coronavirus at work. (She has since returned to the classroom.) Before this quarantine, Berg had taken only about two sick days in her nine years at the school. \u003ccite>(Cooper Neill / NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The child care crisis in the U.S. predates the coronavirus pandemic. Average annual public spending on early childhood care across rich countries is $14,436 per child. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/upshot/child-care-biden.html\">In the U.S., it's $500\u003c/a>. Child care is scarce, expensive for most families and of varying quality; and providers earn an average of around $25,000 a year, even with specialized training and degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, as hard as things have been, advocates, parents and early childhood educators like Berg told NPR that January 2022 has been the worst month of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest job numbers show \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf\">child care workers leaving the workforce\u003c/a>, even as other sectors are hiring. The federal incentives for employers to offer paid leave ran out in September. And while the American Rescue Plan provided $24 billion in stabilization grants to child care programs in 2021, the Build Back Better plan, with its $400 billion in federal child care and preschool funding, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/16/1064927774/democrats-forced-to-regroup-as-bidens-signature-spending-bill-stalls\">is stalled in Congress\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is the worst it has ever been,\" Berg said. \"It is so fractious between parents and centers. Last week in particular, every single director I know got really beat up.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berg spoke to NPR while she was quarantining at home after being exposed to the coronavirus at work. (She has since returned to the classroom.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've got [a] sore throat, fever, chills.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58956\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58956\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/edit_c1n08687_slide-4410b3d3cb142c31ac2f3d727a3089870c5cdbd2-scaled-e1642750572143.jpg\" alt=\"books at day care center\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Recently, Berg's infant room had \"double-decker\" quarantines: closed for two weeks, back for one day, then closed for another two weeks. \u003ccite>(Cooper Neill for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But she wasn't sure she actually had COVID-19 — she couldn't find a rapid test, and the earliest PCR test appointment she could find was four days later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm almost more worried that I don't have it and people are going to be mad at me that I've been out these days,\" she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before this quarantine, Berg had taken only about two sick days in her nine years at the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berg has already downsized from eight classes to four since the start of the pandemic because of a lack of available staff. As of Tuesday, she had 12 cases reported among children and two of her four classrooms shut down for quarantine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Berg, Kasia Kaim-Gonçalves, who runs an early childhood program in Brooklyn, N.Y., also said the omicron wave has marked the hardest time of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Not only did I get sick — my whole family was sick — but also with such high positivity rates, half the children are out at a given time.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, she has resorted to requiring rapid tests every day for the roughly half of her children who have yet to contract COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's very stressful for families. It's very stressful for us,\" she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both of her employees quit recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One said that she didn't feel safe coming in, and that was really difficult for her and for me.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Working parents can't always afford to keep a sick child home\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58960\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58960\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/cb_6112_slide-82784f4d952828e04e729f66806b2f1fe4042eb3-scaled-e1642750622882.jpg\" alt=\"Bernadette Ngoh runs an at-home day care in West Haven, Connecticut. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bernadette Ngoh runs an at-home day care in West Haven, Conn. She said some of her parents are front-line workers who have been reluctant to test their children for the coronavirus. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gladys Jones is an in-home day care provider in Staten Island, N.Y. She serves families on public subsidies who are living paycheck to paycheck. Some are in shelters. They can't afford to miss work, so sometimes sick children show up at Jones' house. One recent morning, a toddler girl started vomiting — it turned out her sister had been exposed to the coronavirus on the school bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Her mother didn't come get her until the evening. We cleaned her up, made her comfortable, but in the meantime we're all exposed,\" Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bernadette Ngoh also cares for children in her home, in West Haven, Conn. She said some of her parents are front-line workers who have been reluctant to get their children tested for the coronavirus when they show symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58961\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58961\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/cb_6089_slide-a868e09796ab7f48a433e71aa04ae9741823e80c-scaled-e1642750721928.jpg\" alt=\"Ngoh cares for children at her home.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ngoh cares for children at her home in West Haven. She said they spend a lot of time outdoors, no matter the weather. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"Some parents explain to me, 'If I take my child to test and then it comes back positive, then I cannot go to work, because this child cannot go to day care. What will I do with my rent, with my bills?' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has told families that she will not charge them if they keep a sick child out for a week, even though she can't really afford to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was so, so expensive [for me] — but if more than one child might get sick, then the whole program will be closed.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Parents and children are dealing with unpredictable disruptions\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\"We got the email at 9:30 p.m. ... There's been an exposure. And now we're done with having child care for our 4-year-old for the rest of the week,\" said Elliot Haspel. He's a father of two in Richmond, Va., and this is his second day care shutdown in as many months. He also happens to be an early childhood care advocate and author of the book \u003cem>Crawling Behind: America's Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My experience is privileged. I can work from home. My wife works part time. She can work from home,\" he said. \"It's just the constant — it's like a quakestorm of disruption, and it's so unpredictable, which is not great for young kids either, by the way, who thrive on predictability and reliability. That's certainly not great for the mental health of parents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Early childhood educators don't know what health guidance to follow\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58957\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58957\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/cb_6148_slide-0fda3caf0720e47f96dd1774f34a33750c7a2d4c-scaled-e1642750778134.jpg\" alt=\"Child and children's art at day care center. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The walls of Ngoh's day care display children's artwork and reminders about wearing masks and washing hands. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In December, the CDC \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065189208/cdc-school-coronavirus-testing-quarantines-vaccines-masks\">endorsed \"test to stay\" policies\u003c/a> to keep K-12 students in school despite coronavirus exposures by using rapid tests. The agency also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/12/27/1068358102/cdc-quarantine-covid\">cut its recommended isolation periods\u003c/a> for people infected with the coronavirus from 10 days to five, without requiring a test to return to activities. With \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1071005184/december-jobs-report-omicron-inflation\">worker shortages across the economy\u003c/a>, employers are summoning people, including working parents, back to work faster than before. And those parents need child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But child care centers, full of unvaccinated children, aren't sure exactly how to apply the new rules. That leads to tension between parents and providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58962\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58962\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/os_6544_slide-cd7a094f3c213b751595df2532cba31b9ccebb54-scaled-e1642750850957.jpg\" alt=\"Early childhood educator and parent with a preschooler and baby\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gladys Jones (left) runs a day care in Staten Island, N.Y. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"It's crazy because we don't know which guidelines to follow,\" said Kaim-Gonçalves, in Brooklyn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, New York state \u003ca href=\"https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/provider-letters/2022/Dear-Provider-2022Jan17-COVID-Guidance.pdf\">issued new guidance\u003c/a>, recommending a shortened five-day isolation period for children in child care, in some cases. Before that, Kaim-Gonçalves had been requiring 10 days, and families had been lobbying her to change the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"People send me articles like, 'Look, I've read this. Look, CDC changed the rules to decrease the quarantine. Can't we do that?' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Texas, Berg said some parents who don't like her day care's policies have gone one step further, calling the state's health department and its child care licensing agency to demand changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in March 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order \u003ca href=\"https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2021/08/20/406474/how-we-got-here-a-timeline-of-gov-greg-abbotts-covid-policies/\">lifting all state-imposed COVID-19 operating limits on businesses\u003c/a>. So it's now up to \"little mom and pops\" like her to enforce health guidance all by themselves, Berg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Everybody threw us under the bus.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The market can't solve the child care problem\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>To child care advocates like Haspel, in Richmond, the omicron wave is an acute disaster on top of the long-term problem of child care supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Child care staffing is still 10% below its pre-pandemic levels,\" he said, \"and pre-pandemic was not robust. ... There is so little public money in the child care sector that programs cannot offer competitive wages at a time when many other industries have been able to raise their benefits and their wages.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The child care industry has \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf\">bled workers for the past three months\u003c/a> — 3,700 in December alone — at a time when other sectors are hiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can get paid more to go work at Walmart than you can to take care of a child for eight hours a day. We can't compete,\" said Berg, who starts her assistant teachers at $12.50 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We can't take in any more children. Parents are upset with us, but they can't leave to go find another center that meets their needs because they can't get in somewhere.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, a study of American child care put it this way: \"The existing child care system in the United States, which relies on private financing ... fails to adequately serve many families. This is not just happenstance — sound economic principles explain why relying on private money to provide child care is bound to come up short.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those words didn't come from a progressive child advocacy group, but from the \u003ca href=\"https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/The-Economics-of-Childcare-Supply-09-14-final.pdf\">U.S. Treasury Department\u003c/a>. The report explains that high-quality care and education for small children requires low child-staff ratios, specialized training and experience, and clean, healthy facilities. Being human-capital intensive, it is inherently expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden's Build Back Better bill includes funding for states to expand infant and toddler care, a universal preschool program for 3- and 4-year-olds and payments directly to parents to lower the out-of-pocket cost of care, plus a child tax credit for all parents. While the full package seems to have faltered, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/01/19/1073825012/biden-press-conference-covid-19-aid-infrastructure\">news conference\u003c/a> on Wednesday, Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/19/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference-6/\">said\u003c/a>, \"I'm confident we can get pieces, big chunks, of the Build Back Better law signed into law.\" But he said he was \"not sure\" about the child tax credit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/12/20/manchin-biden-child-tax-credit/\">By some reports\u003c/a>, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., one of the two Democrats whose votes on the full package have been most elusive, backs at least the pre-K part of the proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What we're seeing now is sort of a taste of what is to come on a more permanent basis if we don't put public money into the child care sector,\" warned Haspel. \"The U.S. Treasury Department is very clear. It's a market failure — and it's not a pandemic artifact. It's not going away.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said unless the Senate can pass a new plan, this is the new \"terrible\" normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Parents+and+caregivers+of+young+children+say+they%27ve+hit+pandemic+rock+bottom&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The people who take care of and educate children under 5 years old, who are too young to be vaccinated, are in a special kind of hell right now.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\"I had a parent tell me to f*** off last week,\" Cori Berg said. She directs the Hope Day School, a church-affiliated early childhood program in Dallas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The unhappy mother took her two children out of Berg's center after each of their classrooms were closed for quarantines, saying she'd hire a nanny. Wanting to return, she emailed, called and finally showed up in the middle of the day. Just as Berg had warned her, her spots were taken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mother, according to Berg, threw a fit before coming back and apologizing. \"She was like a toddler — she was jumping up and down.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The people who take care of and educate children under 5 years old — both parents \u003cem>and \u003c/em>providers — are in a special kind of hell right now. These children are too young to be vaccinated, and it's difficult for them to wear masks consistently. Many child care directors, like Berg, are still following 10- or 14-day quarantines, closing entire classrooms after a single positive test, which has caused nonstop disruptions given the current record numbers of COVID-19 cases. Recently, Berg's infant room had \"double-decker\" quarantines: closed for two weeks, back for one day, then closed for another two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, caregivers told NPR that they can't get hold of enough rapid tests and that they're struggling to apply the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/child-care-guidance.html\">safety guidance\u003c/a>. Child care directors say they have few substitutes to cover for those out sick, and early childhood educators \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-child-care-system-is-facing-collapse-could-unionizing-help-bring-the-industry-back-from-the-brink/\">typically don't have union protection\u003c/a>. Providers say they are spending out of pocket on equipment such as masks and gloves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents, meanwhile, are losing their tempers, losing sleep and losing jobs when the child care they pay for is canceled, over and over. About 1 in 6 parents told pollsters they had experienced either a school or a day care shutdown in the past few weeks, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index\">national poll\u003c/a> from Axios and Ipsos released on Jan. 11.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Child care centers are struggling with repeated quarantines\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58955\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58955\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/edit_c1n08643_slide-ffc4752128da679911e51a9ba13df31ce67a47a7-scaled-e1642750482296.jpg\" alt=\"childcare worker \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Berg spoke to NPR while quarantining at home after being exposed to the coronavirus at work. (She has since returned to the classroom.) Before this quarantine, Berg had taken only about two sick days in her nine years at the school. \u003ccite>(Cooper Neill / NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The child care crisis in the U.S. predates the coronavirus pandemic. Average annual public spending on early childhood care across rich countries is $14,436 per child. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/06/upshot/child-care-biden.html\">In the U.S., it's $500\u003c/a>. Child care is scarce, expensive for most families and of varying quality; and providers earn an average of around $25,000 a year, even with specialized training and degrees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, as hard as things have been, advocates, parents and early childhood educators like Berg told NPR that January 2022 has been the worst month of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest job numbers show \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf\">child care workers leaving the workforce\u003c/a>, even as other sectors are hiring. The federal incentives for employers to offer paid leave ran out in September. And while the American Rescue Plan provided $24 billion in stabilization grants to child care programs in 2021, the Build Back Better plan, with its $400 billion in federal child care and preschool funding, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/16/1064927774/democrats-forced-to-regroup-as-bidens-signature-spending-bill-stalls\">is stalled in Congress\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This is the worst it has ever been,\" Berg said. \"It is so fractious between parents and centers. Last week in particular, every single director I know got really beat up.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berg spoke to NPR while she was quarantining at home after being exposed to the coronavirus at work. (She has since returned to the classroom.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've got [a] sore throat, fever, chills.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58956\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58956\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/edit_c1n08687_slide-4410b3d3cb142c31ac2f3d727a3089870c5cdbd2-scaled-e1642750572143.jpg\" alt=\"books at day care center\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Recently, Berg's infant room had \"double-decker\" quarantines: closed for two weeks, back for one day, then closed for another two weeks. \u003ccite>(Cooper Neill for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But she wasn't sure she actually had COVID-19 — she couldn't find a rapid test, and the earliest PCR test appointment she could find was four days later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I'm almost more worried that I don't have it and people are going to be mad at me that I've been out these days,\" she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before this quarantine, Berg had taken only about two sick days in her nine years at the school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berg has already downsized from eight classes to four since the start of the pandemic because of a lack of available staff. As of Tuesday, she had 12 cases reported among children and two of her four classrooms shut down for quarantine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Berg, Kasia Kaim-Gonçalves, who runs an early childhood program in Brooklyn, N.Y., also said the omicron wave has marked the hardest time of the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Not only did I get sick — my whole family was sick — but also with such high positivity rates, half the children are out at a given time.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In January, she has resorted to requiring rapid tests every day for the roughly half of her children who have yet to contract COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's very stressful for families. It's very stressful for us,\" she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both of her employees quit recently.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One said that she didn't feel safe coming in, and that was really difficult for her and for me.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Working parents can't always afford to keep a sick child home\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58960\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58960\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/cb_6112_slide-82784f4d952828e04e729f66806b2f1fe4042eb3-scaled-e1642750622882.jpg\" alt=\"Bernadette Ngoh runs an at-home day care in West Haven, Connecticut. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bernadette Ngoh runs an at-home day care in West Haven, Conn. She said some of her parents are front-line workers who have been reluctant to test their children for the coronavirus. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gladys Jones is an in-home day care provider in Staten Island, N.Y. She serves families on public subsidies who are living paycheck to paycheck. Some are in shelters. They can't afford to miss work, so sometimes sick children show up at Jones' house. One recent morning, a toddler girl started vomiting — it turned out her sister had been exposed to the coronavirus on the school bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Her mother didn't come get her until the evening. We cleaned her up, made her comfortable, but in the meantime we're all exposed,\" Jones said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bernadette Ngoh also cares for children in her home, in West Haven, Conn. She said some of her parents are front-line workers who have been reluctant to get their children tested for the coronavirus when they show symptoms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58961\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58961\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/cb_6089_slide-a868e09796ab7f48a433e71aa04ae9741823e80c-scaled-e1642750721928.jpg\" alt=\"Ngoh cares for children at her home.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ngoh cares for children at her home in West Haven. She said they spend a lot of time outdoors, no matter the weather. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"Some parents explain to me, 'If I take my child to test and then it comes back positive, then I cannot go to work, because this child cannot go to day care. What will I do with my rent, with my bills?' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She has told families that she will not charge them if they keep a sick child out for a week, even though she can't really afford to do that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It was so, so expensive [for me] — but if more than one child might get sick, then the whole program will be closed.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Parents and children are dealing with unpredictable disruptions\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\"We got the email at 9:30 p.m. ... There's been an exposure. And now we're done with having child care for our 4-year-old for the rest of the week,\" said Elliot Haspel. He's a father of two in Richmond, Va., and this is his second day care shutdown in as many months. He also happens to be an early childhood care advocate and author of the book \u003cem>Crawling Behind: America's Child Care Crisis and How to Fix It. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My experience is privileged. I can work from home. My wife works part time. She can work from home,\" he said. \"It's just the constant — it's like a quakestorm of disruption, and it's so unpredictable, which is not great for young kids either, by the way, who thrive on predictability and reliability. That's certainly not great for the mental health of parents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Early childhood educators don't know what health guidance to follow\u003c/h3>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58957\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58957\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/cb_6148_slide-0fda3caf0720e47f96dd1774f34a33750c7a2d4c-scaled-e1642750778134.jpg\" alt=\"Child and children's art at day care center. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The walls of Ngoh's day care display children's artwork and reminders about wearing masks and washing hands. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In December, the CDC \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065189208/cdc-school-coronavirus-testing-quarantines-vaccines-masks\">endorsed \"test to stay\" policies\u003c/a> to keep K-12 students in school despite coronavirus exposures by using rapid tests. The agency also \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/12/27/1068358102/cdc-quarantine-covid\">cut its recommended isolation periods\u003c/a> for people infected with the coronavirus from 10 days to five, without requiring a test to return to activities. With \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/01/07/1071005184/december-jobs-report-omicron-inflation\">worker shortages across the economy\u003c/a>, employers are summoning people, including working parents, back to work faster than before. And those parents need child care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But child care centers, full of unvaccinated children, aren't sure exactly how to apply the new rules. That leads to tension between parents and providers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58962\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58962\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2022/01/os_6544_slide-cd7a094f3c213b751595df2532cba31b9ccebb54-scaled-e1642750850957.jpg\" alt=\"Early childhood educator and parent with a preschooler and baby\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gladys Jones (left) runs a day care in Staten Island, N.Y. \u003ccite>(Mohamed Sadek for NPR)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"It's crazy because we don't know which guidelines to follow,\" said Kaim-Gonçalves, in Brooklyn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, New York state \u003ca href=\"https://ocfs.ny.gov/programs/childcare/provider-letters/2022/Dear-Provider-2022Jan17-COVID-Guidance.pdf\">issued new guidance\u003c/a>, recommending a shortened five-day isolation period for children in child care, in some cases. Before that, Kaim-Gonçalves had been requiring 10 days, and families had been lobbying her to change the rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"People send me articles like, 'Look, I've read this. Look, CDC changed the rules to decrease the quarantine. Can't we do that?' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Texas, Berg said some parents who don't like her day care's policies have gone one step further, calling the state's health department and its child care licensing agency to demand changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in March 2021, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order \u003ca href=\"https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2021/08/20/406474/how-we-got-here-a-timeline-of-gov-greg-abbotts-covid-policies/\">lifting all state-imposed COVID-19 operating limits on businesses\u003c/a>. So it's now up to \"little mom and pops\" like her to enforce health guidance all by themselves, Berg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Everybody threw us under the bus.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The market can't solve the child care problem\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>To child care advocates like Haspel, in Richmond, the omicron wave is an acute disaster on top of the long-term problem of child care supply.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Child care staffing is still 10% below its pre-pandemic levels,\" he said, \"and pre-pandemic was not robust. ... There is so little public money in the child care sector that programs cannot offer competitive wages at a time when many other industries have been able to raise their benefits and their wages.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The child care industry has \u003ca href=\"https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf\">bled workers for the past three months\u003c/a> — 3,700 in December alone — at a time when other sectors are hiring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can get paid more to go work at Walmart than you can to take care of a child for eight hours a day. We can't compete,\" said Berg, who starts her assistant teachers at $12.50 an hour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We can't take in any more children. Parents are upset with us, but they can't leave to go find another center that meets their needs because they can't get in somewhere.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In September, a study of American child care put it this way: \"The existing child care system in the United States, which relies on private financing ... fails to adequately serve many families. This is not just happenstance — sound economic principles explain why relying on private money to provide child care is bound to come up short.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those words didn't come from a progressive child advocacy group, but from the \u003ca href=\"https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/The-Economics-of-Childcare-Supply-09-14-final.pdf\">U.S. Treasury Department\u003c/a>. The report explains that high-quality care and education for small children requires low child-staff ratios, specialized training and experience, and clean, healthy facilities. Being human-capital intensive, it is inherently expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>President Biden's Build Back Better bill includes funding for states to expand infant and toddler care, a universal preschool program for 3- and 4-year-olds and payments directly to parents to lower the out-of-pocket cost of care, plus a child tax credit for all parents. While the full package seems to have faltered, in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/01/19/1073825012/biden-press-conference-covid-19-aid-infrastructure\">news conference\u003c/a> on Wednesday, Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/19/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference-6/\">said\u003c/a>, \"I'm confident we can get pieces, big chunks, of the Build Back Better law signed into law.\" But he said he was \"not sure\" about the child tax credit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/12/20/manchin-biden-child-tax-credit/\">By some reports\u003c/a>, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., one of the two Democrats whose votes on the full package have been most elusive, backs at least the pre-K part of the proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"What we're seeing now is sort of a taste of what is to come on a more permanent basis if we don't put public money into the child care sector,\" warned Haspel. \"The U.S. Treasury Department is very clear. It's a market failure — and it's not a pandemic artifact. It's not going away.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "What it really takes to keep schools open during the omicron surge",
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"content": "\u003cp>Brittany Gonzalez has 10 students, and only five of them consistently wear masks. She teaches special education to second- and third-graders in Lee County, Fla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It is a foreign piece of cloth on their face,\" she says. \"And not all of them have the level of understanding as to why we're doing it and what it means and how to wear it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzalez knows that showing up to work every day in person, as she has since fall 2020, means risking exposure to COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I have not been — knock on wood — impacted by a death personally,\" she says. \"But a lot of people around my county have. So it's very scary.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a rare show of pandemic consensus, political leaders at all levels are singing from the same hymnal when it comes to in-person learning during the omicron surge. Governors as ideologically far apart as \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/biden-schools-omicron-526474\">Ron DeSantis in Florida\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/12/22/newsom-unions-commit-to-keeping-our-classrooms-open-9428091\">Gavin Newsom in California\u003c/a> are pledging to keep classrooms open, and President Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/04/remarks-by-president-biden-before-meeting-on-covid-19/\">has said\u003c/a> \"schools should remain open.\" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its schools guidance, underlining that it's possible to limit COVID-19 transmission even during an outbreak, given proper mitigation. And indeed, according to \u003ca href=\"https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/\">Burbio\u003c/a>, an organization that tracks individual school and district websites, most U.S. schools are open for in-person learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But NPR interviewed teachers and administrators from around the country, and they say the devil is in the details. Schools are just starting to get consistent access to testing. Teachers are still, in 2022, paying out of pocket for essential safety equipment like high-quality masks and air purifiers. And qualified staff, from substitutes to bus drivers, can't be conjured out of thin air, even when federal dollars exist to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I see people on Twitter, you know, 'Just open the schools! Just open the schools!' \" says Joseph Ricca. He's the superintendent of White Plains Public Schools, in New York, which is open for in-person learning. \"Every teacher and every administrator and every parent wants to open the schools. But it's not just opening schools, it's are the schools safe? Are they staffed? Are the children coming? Do you have everything you need? ... A lot of these 'just open\u003cem>'\u003c/em> proclamations are coming from folks who are comfortably seated in their own home.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Schools are trying to use tests to stay safe, but it isn't easy\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The CDC has placed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065189208/cdc-school-coronavirus-testing-quarantines-vaccines-masks\">increasing emphasis\u003c/a> on the use of tests, including rapid tests, to prevent transmission in schools and to keep exposed students in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some districts, like Seattle and \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/06/dc-schools-covid-test-return/\">Washington, D.C.\u003c/a>, canceled classes for a day or more to test students coming back from winter break. And states and cities \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/01/03/1069907437/officials-are-determined-to-keep-schools-open-despite-omicron\">have purchased and sent millions of tests to schools\u003c/a> in the past few weeks. Besides general screening, these can be used in \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065189208/cdc-school-coronavirus-testing-quarantines-vaccines-masks\">test to stay\u003c/a>\" programs, where students who are exposed to COVID-19 can avoid quarantines and keep coming to class as long as they test negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the increased demand for tests, combined with rising cases, has led to lab delays and logistical snarls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago, where teachers this week \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/classes-for-chicago-public-schools-students-cancelled-for-a-second-day/787890f3-5486-452b-b546-a4def19037ed\">refused to teach in person\u003c/a> due to safety concerns, is a case in point: Over winter break, Chicago Public Schools \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.chalkbeat.org/2021/12/14/22834852/chicago-public-schools-covid-home-testing-kits-students-quarantine-winter-break\">distributed about 150,000 take-home COVID-19 tests\u003c/a> to students, directing them to communities hardest hit by the virus. Families were supposed to mail back the samples for results. Then the trouble started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local news reports \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/12/28/chicago-public-schools-covid-19-test-pileup/\">show FedEx drop boxes that were overflowing with completed test kits\u003c/a>, piled on sidewalks, in the snow. CPS \u003ca href=\"https://www.cps.edu/services-and-supports/covid-19-resources/covid-19-readiness-data/\">reported\u003c/a> 35,944 tests were completed between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1, but 25,026 — nearly 70% — were ruled invalid. In response to a request for comment from NPR, CPS gave a statement that read, in part: \"Over the holiday weekend, we learned from our vendors, ThermoFisher and Color, that more than half of the 40,000 submitted tests could not be validated. While we continue to seek answers, we are focused on increasing on-site testing opportunities for the impacted students and schools this week as part of our ongoing weekly testing.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York state provided Ricca, the superintendent in White Plains, with one rapid test for each of his 7,000-odd students during winter break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Kudos to the New York state government for recognizing we've got to get tests in the hands of schools if we expect schools to stay open,\" he says. But he's already put more orders in, knowing that they're going to be using the tests continuously and the supply is unpredictable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have lines out the door\" at testing centers, says Gonzalez, in Florida. \"I personally don't know that if I needed to do a test today, I could.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>There aren't enough substitutes and bus drivers to cover quarantining staff\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Insufficient testing can snowball into staff and student absences. Aaron Neimark, who teaches kindergarten in San Francisco, missed the first few days back from winter break because he was waiting for the results of a PCR test after being exposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said a lot of his colleagues were out too. \"It was about like eight or nine teachers [out] with only one substitute.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools have had to close or limit service because of staff shortages \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/11/23/1057979170/school-closures-mental-health-days-families-childcare-thanksgiving-break\">since earlier in the fall\u003c/a>. Montgomery County Public Schools, a large, affluent district in Maryland, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=13086&type=&startYear=&pageNumber=&mode=\">canceled scores of bus routes\u003c/a> earlier this week because of a lack of drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A music teacher, a superintendent and an instructional coach who typically trains teachers all told NPR they are pinch-hitting as substitutes. Other teachers said they are giving up their planning periods to cover classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kennita Ballard teaches sixth grade at an all-girls, primarily Black public school in Louisville, Ky. There's a nationwide \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/6121336/substitute-teacher-shortage-pandemic/\">shortage of substitute teachers\u003c/a>, but she says it hits even harder in schools like hers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We're just trying to put bodies into the classroom, and not all the bodies that we're putting into the classroom need to be around all of our children,\" she says. \"There's a portion of our subs who cannot be in [schools like mine] because ... they bring in ... their not-so-implicit biases.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says the educational mission suffers when too many classes are covered by stand-ins. \"We are not here to be babysitters and to make sure that they are eating and breathing. No. As teachers, we're not able to do what we have gone to school for a number of years to be able to do — build out this generation of critical thinkers and future leaders.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Safety equipment can be hard to find\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Most of the teachers NPR spoke with were providing their own masks, paying for them out of pocket. Ballard, in Kentucky, chooses pink KN95s to express her individuality. The district says N95 masks were delivered to schools starting this week, but Ballard says she hasn't seen them yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making sure students have the right safety supplies adds another layer of difficulty. Neimark, in San Francisco, says, \"The kids are going to come with either their own cloth mask, which is almost useless, or the surgical mask, which is almost as useless because you can't really have a 5-year-old double mask. They need those little KN95s, but we don't have those yet.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>William Baur, a high school science teacher in Vancouver, Wash., has repurposed a piece of science lab equipment for COVID-19 safety: a carbon dioxide monitor, which indicates the quality of ventilation in his classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The previous school [I was] at didn't have a central HVAC system, so the CO2 levels would get pretty elevated,\" he says. He's also spent a few hundred dollars out of pocket hacking together DIY air purifiers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/08/26/1031018250/does-your-kids-classroom-need-an-air-purifier-heres-how-you-can-make-one-yoursel\">using box fans\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Everyone agrees kids need school\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Every educator NPR spoke with described navigating an emotional storm as the omicron variant continues to spread. They're trying to give kids continuity, warmth and normalcy, while also watching out for signs of illness that can send students and teachers home abruptly. Teachers say they're reliving the scary days of the early pandemic and wondering what is going to happen next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We can feel the intensity,\" says Gonzalez, in Florida. \"I don't want to say hysteria, because it's not hysteria — it's warranted. But you can start feeling the mounting pressure here again, that it's coming back.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She describes calling a mother to pick up a student with a runny nose on the first day of school after winter break. Gonzalez herself has two children attending the school where she teaches and has had to quarantine multiple times, so she sympathized with that working mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's very hard to go to work, and two hours later: 'Hi, it's the school district. You need to come pick up your kid or else they're going to sit in an isolation room until you do.' It's kind of scary and sad and frustrating, but we're kind of in this stalemate in 2022, because we're trying to protect your kid and you're trying to live your life. But you also want us to protect your kids, and we have to figure out a way to make it work.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ricca, in White Plains, says, \"All of us have been sustaining some level of trauma since March of 2020. We're going to be dealing with the effects of the pandemic for years to come. But it's certainly going to be a larger problem if we start taking steps backwards. In our community, in White Plains, the preponderance of parents and guardians and faculty and staff members want our schools open. We know how important it is for kids to be in school.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballard, in Kentucky, feels the surge \"looming\" and is worried that higher poverty schools like hers will be disproportionately driven into remote learning because of staff shortages. She says she's trying to reassure her students: \"Hey, if you need me, you all have my number. We've gotten through this before, we're going to get through this again. Trust your teachers here, that we are competent enough, going into this nebulous future.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballard says she wants her students to know that above all, she's got their back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=What+it+really+takes+to+keep+schools+open+during+the+omicron+surge&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Schools are just starting to get regular access to testing; teachers are still paying out of pocket for masks and air purifiers; and qualified substitutes and bus drivers can be hard to find.",
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"headline": "What it really takes to keep schools open during the omicron surge",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Brittany Gonzalez has 10 students, and only five of them consistently wear masks. She teaches special education to second- and third-graders in Lee County, Fla.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It is a foreign piece of cloth on their face,\" she says. \"And not all of them have the level of understanding as to why we're doing it and what it means and how to wear it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gonzalez knows that showing up to work every day in person, as she has since fall 2020, means risking exposure to COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I have not been — knock on wood — impacted by a death personally,\" she says. \"But a lot of people around my county have. So it's very scary.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a rare show of pandemic consensus, political leaders at all levels are singing from the same hymnal when it comes to in-person learning during the omicron surge. Governors as ideologically far apart as \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/news/2022/01/04/biden-schools-omicron-526474\">Ron DeSantis in Florida\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/12/22/newsom-unions-commit-to-keeping-our-classrooms-open-9428091\">Gavin Newsom in California\u003c/a> are pledging to keep classrooms open, and President Biden \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/01/04/remarks-by-president-biden-before-meeting-on-covid-19/\">has said\u003c/a> \"schools should remain open.\" The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its schools guidance, underlining that it's possible to limit COVID-19 transmission even during an outbreak, given proper mitigation. And indeed, according to \u003ca href=\"https://cai.burbio.com/school-opening-tracker/\">Burbio\u003c/a>, an organization that tracks individual school and district websites, most U.S. schools are open for in-person learning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But NPR interviewed teachers and administrators from around the country, and they say the devil is in the details. Schools are just starting to get consistent access to testing. Teachers are still, in 2022, paying out of pocket for essential safety equipment like high-quality masks and air purifiers. And qualified staff, from substitutes to bus drivers, can't be conjured out of thin air, even when federal dollars exist to pay for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I see people on Twitter, you know, 'Just open the schools! Just open the schools!' \" says Joseph Ricca. He's the superintendent of White Plains Public Schools, in New York, which is open for in-person learning. \"Every teacher and every administrator and every parent wants to open the schools. But it's not just opening schools, it's are the schools safe? Are they staffed? Are the children coming? Do you have everything you need? ... A lot of these 'just open\u003cem>'\u003c/em> proclamations are coming from folks who are comfortably seated in their own home.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Schools are trying to use tests to stay safe, but it isn't easy\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The CDC has placed \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065189208/cdc-school-coronavirus-testing-quarantines-vaccines-masks\">increasing emphasis\u003c/a> on the use of tests, including rapid tests, to prevent transmission in schools and to keep exposed students in school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some districts, like Seattle and \u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/01/06/dc-schools-covid-test-return/\">Washington, D.C.\u003c/a>, canceled classes for a day or more to test students coming back from winter break. And states and cities \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/01/03/1069907437/officials-are-determined-to-keep-schools-open-despite-omicron\">have purchased and sent millions of tests to schools\u003c/a> in the past few weeks. Besides general screening, these can be used in \"\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/12/17/1065189208/cdc-school-coronavirus-testing-quarantines-vaccines-masks\">test to stay\u003c/a>\" programs, where students who are exposed to COVID-19 can avoid quarantines and keep coming to class as long as they test negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the increased demand for tests, combined with rising cases, has led to lab delays and logistical snarls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chicago, where teachers this week \u003ca href=\"https://www.wbez.org/stories/classes-for-chicago-public-schools-students-cancelled-for-a-second-day/787890f3-5486-452b-b546-a4def19037ed\">refused to teach in person\u003c/a> due to safety concerns, is a case in point: Over winter break, Chicago Public Schools \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.chalkbeat.org/2021/12/14/22834852/chicago-public-schools-covid-home-testing-kits-students-quarantine-winter-break\">distributed about 150,000 take-home COVID-19 tests\u003c/a> to students, directing them to communities hardest hit by the virus. Families were supposed to mail back the samples for results. Then the trouble started.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Local news reports \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2021/12/28/chicago-public-schools-covid-19-test-pileup/\">show FedEx drop boxes that were overflowing with completed test kits\u003c/a>, piled on sidewalks, in the snow. CPS \u003ca href=\"https://www.cps.edu/services-and-supports/covid-19-resources/covid-19-readiness-data/\">reported\u003c/a> 35,944 tests were completed between Dec. 26 and Jan. 1, but 25,026 — nearly 70% — were ruled invalid. In response to a request for comment from NPR, CPS gave a statement that read, in part: \"Over the holiday weekend, we learned from our vendors, ThermoFisher and Color, that more than half of the 40,000 submitted tests could not be validated. While we continue to seek answers, we are focused on increasing on-site testing opportunities for the impacted students and schools this week as part of our ongoing weekly testing.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York state provided Ricca, the superintendent in White Plains, with one rapid test for each of his 7,000-odd students during winter break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Kudos to the New York state government for recognizing we've got to get tests in the hands of schools if we expect schools to stay open,\" he says. But he's already put more orders in, knowing that they're going to be using the tests continuously and the supply is unpredictable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have lines out the door\" at testing centers, says Gonzalez, in Florida. \"I personally don't know that if I needed to do a test today, I could.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>There aren't enough substitutes and bus drivers to cover quarantining staff\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Insufficient testing can snowball into staff and student absences. Aaron Neimark, who teaches kindergarten in San Francisco, missed the first few days back from winter break because he was waiting for the results of a PCR test after being exposed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said a lot of his colleagues were out too. \"It was about like eight or nine teachers [out] with only one substitute.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools have had to close or limit service because of staff shortages \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/11/23/1057979170/school-closures-mental-health-days-families-childcare-thanksgiving-break\">since earlier in the fall\u003c/a>. Montgomery County Public Schools, a large, affluent district in Maryland, \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/press/index.aspx?pagetype=showrelease&id=13086&type=&startYear=&pageNumber=&mode=\">canceled scores of bus routes\u003c/a> earlier this week because of a lack of drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A music teacher, a superintendent and an instructional coach who typically trains teachers all told NPR they are pinch-hitting as substitutes. Other teachers said they are giving up their planning periods to cover classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kennita Ballard teaches sixth grade at an all-girls, primarily Black public school in Louisville, Ky. There's a nationwide \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/6121336/substitute-teacher-shortage-pandemic/\">shortage of substitute teachers\u003c/a>, but she says it hits even harder in schools like hers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We're just trying to put bodies into the classroom, and not all the bodies that we're putting into the classroom need to be around all of our children,\" she says. \"There's a portion of our subs who cannot be in [schools like mine] because ... they bring in ... their not-so-implicit biases.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says the educational mission suffers when too many classes are covered by stand-ins. \"We are not here to be babysitters and to make sure that they are eating and breathing. No. As teachers, we're not able to do what we have gone to school for a number of years to be able to do — build out this generation of critical thinkers and future leaders.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Safety equipment can be hard to find\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Most of the teachers NPR spoke with were providing their own masks, paying for them out of pocket. Ballard, in Kentucky, chooses pink KN95s to express her individuality. The district says N95 masks were delivered to schools starting this week, but Ballard says she hasn't seen them yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Making sure students have the right safety supplies adds another layer of difficulty. Neimark, in San Francisco, says, \"The kids are going to come with either their own cloth mask, which is almost useless, or the surgical mask, which is almost as useless because you can't really have a 5-year-old double mask. They need those little KN95s, but we don't have those yet.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>William Baur, a high school science teacher in Vancouver, Wash., has repurposed a piece of science lab equipment for COVID-19 safety: a carbon dioxide monitor, which indicates the quality of ventilation in his classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The previous school [I was] at didn't have a central HVAC system, so the CO2 levels would get pretty elevated,\" he says. He's also spent a few hundred dollars out of pocket hacking together DIY air purifiers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/08/26/1031018250/does-your-kids-classroom-need-an-air-purifier-heres-how-you-can-make-one-yoursel\">using box fans\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Everyone agrees kids need school\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Every educator NPR spoke with described navigating an emotional storm as the omicron variant continues to spread. They're trying to give kids continuity, warmth and normalcy, while also watching out for signs of illness that can send students and teachers home abruptly. Teachers say they're reliving the scary days of the early pandemic and wondering what is going to happen next.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We can feel the intensity,\" says Gonzalez, in Florida. \"I don't want to say hysteria, because it's not hysteria — it's warranted. But you can start feeling the mounting pressure here again, that it's coming back.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She describes calling a mother to pick up a student with a runny nose on the first day of school after winter break. Gonzalez herself has two children attending the school where she teaches and has had to quarantine multiple times, so she sympathized with that working mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's very hard to go to work, and two hours later: 'Hi, it's the school district. You need to come pick up your kid or else they're going to sit in an isolation room until you do.' It's kind of scary and sad and frustrating, but we're kind of in this stalemate in 2022, because we're trying to protect your kid and you're trying to live your life. But you also want us to protect your kids, and we have to figure out a way to make it work.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ricca, in White Plains, says, \"All of us have been sustaining some level of trauma since March of 2020. We're going to be dealing with the effects of the pandemic for years to come. But it's certainly going to be a larger problem if we start taking steps backwards. In our community, in White Plains, the preponderance of parents and guardians and faculty and staff members want our schools open. We know how important it is for kids to be in school.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballard, in Kentucky, feels the surge \"looming\" and is worried that higher poverty schools like hers will be disproportionately driven into remote learning because of staff shortages. She says she's trying to reassure her students: \"Hey, if you need me, you all have my number. We've gotten through this before, we're going to get through this again. Trust your teachers here, that we are competent enough, going into this nebulous future.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ballard says she wants her students to know that above all, she's got their back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=What+it+really+takes+to+keep+schools+open+during+the+omicron+surge&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Where are the students? For a second straight year, school enrollment is dropping",
"title": "Where are the students? For a second straight year, school enrollment is dropping",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>The troubling enrollment losses that school districts reported last year have in many places continued this fall, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt public education across the country, an NPR investigation has found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We compiled the latest headcount data directly from more than 600 districts in 23 states and Washington, D.C., including statewide data from Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama. We found that very few districts, especially larger ones, have returned to pre-pandemic numbers. Most are now posting a second straight year of declines. This is particularly true in some of the nation's largest systems:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City's school enrollment dropped by about 38,000 students last school year and another 13,000 this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Los Angeles, the student population declined by 17,000 students last school year, and nearly 9,000 this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Chicago public schools, enrollment dropped by 14,000 last year, and another 10,000 this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When I talk to my colleagues ... across the country, there's a lot of concern right now,\" says Chicago schools chief Pedro Martinez. \"Pre-pandemic, we were already seeing enrollment decline. So it wasn't that we had stability. What happened during COVID, we just saw an increase in the number that didn't come.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019-2020, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/06_28_2021.asp\">public school enrollment \u003c/a>dropped by 3 percent nationwide, erasing a decade of slow gains. The decline was attributed largely to COVID-related disruptions, and was concentrated in the early grades. Many families simply opted out of remote learning in the non-compulsory grades of pre-K and kindergarten. School leaders hoped this year would bring recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the contrary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our sample is neither comprehensive nor necessarily representative, but it is large enough to suggest some important patterns. This reporting builds on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/10/09/920316481/enrollment-is-dropping-in-public-schools-around-the-country\">NPR's reporting from 2020\u003c/a>, which documented enrollment drops at a similar sample of districts across the country. That finding was substantiated nine months later by the National Center for Education Statistics, including the fact that enrollment losses in public schools were greatest in pre-K and kindergarten.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where have the students gone? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators and researchers we spoke with gave several possible explanations for the continuing falloff: an increase in home-schooling, a shift to charter schools and private schools, another year of delays in entering pre-K or kindergarten, and families moving to enroll in districts that weren't captured in our sample.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But educators are most worried about vulnerable students who may have fallen through the cracks in the widespread economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We think we found most of them, but there are still probably a thousand kids out there, we just don't know what happened to them,\" says Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa. \"Other urban superintendents are telling me they have significantly higher numbers of students that they're really worried about.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are some of the enrollment trends we found this year and what they say about the pandemic's lingering impact — as well as what school leaders are doing to win back families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Some of the youngest students still have not enrolled\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020, federal data found a remarkable, 13 percent drop in pre-K and kindergarten enrollment. Districts hoped to see many of these children arrive this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Champlain Valley, Vermont's largest school district, enrollment hasn't returned to pre-pandemic levels, but the schools are seeing a kindergarten bump this fall. \"Some of these students were held out of school during the pandemic so they could start kindergarten this year,\" says the district's superintendent, Rene Sanchez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Half the kids we lost were pre-K kids,\" says Hinojosa in Dallas. Over the summer, he says, his team mounted \"a very intentional drive in the community to get those kids back.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some did return, overall enrollment in the Dallas Independent School District remains down more than 10,000 students from fall 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The challenge now, for educators, is understanding where those young children and their older siblings went. Did they simply stay home — or did their families enroll them elsewhere?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A shift to private schools \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Private and parochial schools generally enroll about 10 percent of all students in the United States, or about \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgc\">5.7 million students.\u003c/a> While nationwide enrollment in private schools dropped last year along with public schools, this year it has rebounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Association of Independent Schools comprises private, non-parochial schools. They report a net enrollment growth of 1.7% over the two pandemic years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's a particularly big rebound in private preschool enrollment in the NAIS sample. That number dropped dramatically between 2019-20 and 2020-21, but then grew 21% this fall for a net growth of 6% over two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While accurate data are not yet available for parochial schools, media reports suggest their enrollment has rebounded this fall as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We saw a couple thousand students that transferred over to private schools in the city,\" says Martinez, who took over as chief executive officer this summer in Chicago. \"And that was because the private schools were assuring the families that they would be open in-person, no matter what.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similarly, \"the New Hampshire \u003ca href=\"https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-catholic-school-enrollment-goes-up-after-incentive-program-announced/33405573\">diocese gave some significant discounts\u003c/a> for folks to come [last school year], and it made it really affordable for some families to have that option,\" says John Goldhardt, the superintendent in Manchester, that state's largest district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah McVay pulled her children from the Seattle Public Schools this fall. \"We stuck it out the pandemic year — bad choice — and my 3rd grader essentially sat bored, learning very little all year,\" she says. \"The number of tech issues was infuriating ... it was constant.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McVay says a staffing change announced at the end of the last school year for seniority reasons, which would have left her son with a long-term substitute, was the last straw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tim Robinson, lead media relations specialist for the Seattle schools, acknowledged the difficulties some parents faced last year amid the disruption. \"We recognize – and always did recognize – that remote learning presented many challenges,\" he said. \"And we are very pleased to be able to be back in the classroom this year.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Seattle Public Schools report that the district has lost 6.4% of its students since the start of the pandemic. Statewide, districts in Washington are down 3.5% in the same time period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We moved to Concordia Lutheran,\" McVay says. \"We aren't Lutheran, or even religious, and it was an act of desperation. But it has been truly amazing, and we are going to stay through 8th now.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The charter school factor\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fall of 2020, charter schools, which are publicly funded but run separately from districts, saw a \u003ca href=\"https://www.publiccharters.org/sites/default/files/documents/2021-09/napcs_voting_feet_rd6.pdf\">7 percent jump in enrollment\u003c/a>, adding about 240,000 students nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It translated to the single highest year, in terms of raw numbers, that we've ever seen charter schools grow,\" says Debbie Veney at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. This figure included a big jump at \u003cem>virtual\u003c/em> charter schools — a controversial, largely for-profit sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fall 2021 that story has shifted: K12 Inc and Connections Academy, the nation's largest virtual charter providers, told NPR their enrollment is relatively flat from last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile some brick and mortar charters continue to gain students, as NPR's examination of statewide data in Massachusetts and Georgia showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In New York City, the KIPP charter school network opened three new schools this fall, fueling an enrollment jump of 11 percent. In fact, KIPP schools in the city grew during both pandemic years, to a total of 7,150 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We benefited just from having deep relationships with our families for retention,\" says Jane Martinez Dowling, KIPP NYC's external chief officer. \"And we sort of doubled down on making sure that we were in touch with our families, that we did have different modes of going out there and doing recruitment even during COVID.\" This included multilingual advertising in local publications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Rochester, N.Y., public schools, enrollment has fallen from 25,000 before the pandemic to around 22,000 this year, says Lesli Myers-Small, the superintendent. Almost 7,000 students now attend local charters, which, she says, tells her: \"We have to make our schools attractive again.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Homeschooling is up, too\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public schools face competition not just from charters and private schools, but from families who have chosen to keep their kids home another year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Rochester, the district's homeschooling numbers are still above average, \"because we are limiting the remote options this year,\" says Myers-Small. \"And we recognize and honor the fact that it might be concerning or scary\" for some parents to send their children back to school at this point, especially with fresh fears around the Omicron variant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A rise in remote work, and the experience of managing students' virtual learning, may have made more families take a serious look at teaching their children at home. Yet \u003ca href=\"https://hslda.org/legal?gclid=Cj0KCQiAzMGNBhCyARIsANpUkzOl7oiws5PD2sayHFGmI1fFv72H55Mnx4yGPQi8huJAC1KNyVgVPfYaAtJOEALw_wcB\">homeschooling oversight \u003c/a>varies widely from state to state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Errick Greene, the superintendent of the Jackson, Miss., public schools, worries about \"bootleg homeschooling\" — families that may be keeping children at home, but not necessarily giving them a thorough education. \u003ca href=\"https://hslda.org/legal/mississippi?gclid=Cj0KCQiAzMGNBhCyARIsANpUkzOl7oiws5PD2sayHFGmI1fFv72H55Mnx4yGPQi8huJAC1KNyVgVPfYaAtJOEALw_wcB\">Mississippi has no testing requirement\u003c/a>s, no teacher qualifications and no mandated subjects for homeschooled students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some parents, continuing concerns about safety are driving them to keep their children home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tanesha Grant, the founder of Parents Supporting Parents New York City, represents a group of about 250 families who, she says, were \"traumatized\" by the pandemic. They are keeping their kids home from public school, but not officially removing them from the district. They call themselves \"school strikers,\" holding out for a permanent remote option because they don't see school as safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Black and brown families we know are disproportionately affected and have had someone die or have COVID-19 in their families,\" Grant says. \"We live in multigenerational homes. We are still in mourning and still traumatized.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lingering concerns about COVID rules and enforcement \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COVID safety protocols have been polarizing and politicized in this country, and that is keeping a vocal minority of parents away from public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have people in our community that are anti-mask. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying, they have their right to self-identify that way,\" says Jon Dean, the schools superintendent in Grosse Pointe, Mich. \"We exist in a county that has a mask mandate. So we know we have families that are not attending right now because masks are mandatory in our school district.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dean says parents' frustrations over masking requirements showed up in surveys of families who have opted out of public school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goldhardt, in Manchester, also saw students leave for private schools with looser COVID rules. \"They didn't require masking ... and we did.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>High school students are dropping out to work \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students opting out for charters, private schools or homeschooling can hurt public schools because their funding is based on headcount. For the moment, federal relief funds may cover for revenue lost to enrollment drops, but that money is designed to phase out in several years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Declining district enrollment is also a community-wide matter, because strong public schools are a selling point for businesses and homebuyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the biggest concern for the country at large is students who drop out of school entirely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Baltimore, John Davis, the city's chief of schools, says his district used federal relief dollars to actively find and reconnect with these students over the summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Literally, just do outreach nonstop ... We made \u003cem>thousands\u003c/em> of contacts. Those folks did a wonderful job, and I think that's why we, overall, didn't see a huge decline [this school year],\" Davis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendents say they are often losing students to paid jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"A lot of my principals were saying, 'Dr. Small, we're losing kids. They're telling us, I have to work,' \" says Myers-Small in Rochester. \"We did talk to some businesses and said, 'Listen, you know, Cory should not be working [at this time]. School is in session. He is a student.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers-Small says Rochester has increased opportunities for working students to make up lost credits online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We ... knew that we were fighting against survival and poverty,\" she explains. \"We wanted to make sure that there were learning opportunities in the afternoon and evening, and we track that we had some scholars who were logging on at seven or eight o'clock at night and doing their coursework.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Jackson, Miss., Superintendent Greene says that, during remote learning, teachers told him of students \"who were on Zoom calls during the day \u003cem>and\u003c/em> at work.\" He says some of his principals and staff have reached out to local business-owners to plead for students to have shifts that start after a particular required course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greene says he's tried hard not to force these teens to choose between school and work, and the district is designing a new, fully virtual option for working students or anyone who thrives learning from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"School does not have to happen in the hours in which it happens right now. You know, late afternoon, early evening, weekends,\" Greene says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Dallas, educators are trying to help working students by offering night school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It has become popular because now these kids have started making some money, and their families depend on them,\" says Superintendent Hinojosa. \"And they don't want to give up their jobs. And so we had to find a different way to meet their needs.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'We need you back'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendents across the country tell NPR the pandemic pushed many families to think more deeply about each child's education — what they need and how best to get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think families have a desire to gain more control of their lives,\" says Ed Graff, the superintendent of the Minneapolis public schools, where enrollment has also continued to decline. \"The public education landscape has changed significantly, and families are making calculated decisions to pursue other learning options that are best for their children and for themselves.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's one reason Hinojosa, in Dallas, put up billboards. \"We got very aggressive with families and said, 'We need you back,' \" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His district paid for billboards along the city's roadways, display ads on buses, even in convenience stores — an approach pioneered by charter schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have [an image of] a little kid with a stethoscope and a doctor's jacket — to say, 'Look, these kids are going to become doctors, but, if they don't come back to school, they're going to fall further behind.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly 40,000 children attend Dallas-area charter schools, and Hinojosa says he's had to get creative, even before the pandemic, reaching families and winning them over. Now, he says, they're pulling out all the stops, including the creation of new schools with more popular curricular offerings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We embrace competition, which makes us better,\" Hinojosa says. \"And I think we're beating them.\" Though that's not yet reflected in the district's enrollment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Where+are+the+students%3F+For+a+second+straight+year%2C+school+enrollment+is+dropping&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The declines many school districts reported last year have continued, an NPR investigation finds. What educators don't know is where those students have gone.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The troubling enrollment losses that school districts reported last year have in many places continued this fall, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt public education across the country, an NPR investigation has found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We compiled the latest headcount data directly from more than 600 districts in 23 states and Washington, D.C., including statewide data from Massachusetts, Georgia and Alabama. We found that very few districts, especially larger ones, have returned to pre-pandemic numbers. Most are now posting a second straight year of declines. This is particularly true in some of the nation's largest systems:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New York City's school enrollment dropped by about 38,000 students last school year and another 13,000 this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Los Angeles, the student population declined by 17,000 students last school year, and nearly 9,000 this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Chicago public schools, enrollment dropped by 14,000 last year, and another 10,000 this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"When I talk to my colleagues ... across the country, there's a lot of concern right now,\" says Chicago schools chief Pedro Martinez. \"Pre-pandemic, we were already seeing enrollment decline. So it wasn't that we had stability. What happened during COVID, we just saw an increase in the number that didn't come.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2019-2020, \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/press_releases/06_28_2021.asp\">public school enrollment \u003c/a>dropped by 3 percent nationwide, erasing a decade of slow gains. The decline was attributed largely to COVID-related disruptions, and was concentrated in the early grades. Many families simply opted out of remote learning in the non-compulsory grades of pre-K and kindergarten. School leaders hoped this year would bring recovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To the contrary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our sample is neither comprehensive nor necessarily representative, but it is large enough to suggest some important patterns. This reporting builds on \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2020/10/09/920316481/enrollment-is-dropping-in-public-schools-around-the-country\">NPR's reporting from 2020\u003c/a>, which documented enrollment drops at a similar sample of districts across the country. That finding was substantiated nine months later by the National Center for Education Statistics, including the fact that enrollment losses in public schools were greatest in pre-K and kindergarten.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Where have the students gone? \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Educators and researchers we spoke with gave several possible explanations for the continuing falloff: an increase in home-schooling, a shift to charter schools and private schools, another year of delays in entering pre-K or kindergarten, and families moving to enroll in districts that weren't captured in our sample.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But educators are most worried about vulnerable students who may have fallen through the cracks in the widespread economic and social disruption caused by the pandemic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We think we found most of them, but there are still probably a thousand kids out there, we just don't know what happened to them,\" says Dallas Superintendent Michael Hinojosa. \"Other urban superintendents are telling me they have significantly higher numbers of students that they're really worried about.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Below are some of the enrollment trends we found this year and what they say about the pandemic's lingering impact — as well as what school leaders are doing to win back families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Some of the youngest students still have not enrolled\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2020, federal data found a remarkable, 13 percent drop in pre-K and kindergarten enrollment. Districts hoped to see many of these children arrive this fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Champlain Valley, Vermont's largest school district, enrollment hasn't returned to pre-pandemic levels, but the schools are seeing a kindergarten bump this fall. \"Some of these students were held out of school during the pandemic so they could start kindergarten this year,\" says the district's superintendent, Rene Sanchez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Half the kids we lost were pre-K kids,\" says Hinojosa in Dallas. Over the summer, he says, his team mounted \"a very intentional drive in the community to get those kids back.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While some did return, overall enrollment in the Dallas Independent School District remains down more than 10,000 students from fall 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The challenge now, for educators, is understanding where those young children and their older siblings went. Did they simply stay home — or did their families enroll them elsewhere?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A shift to private schools \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Private and parochial schools generally enroll about 10 percent of all students in the United States, or about \u003ca href=\"https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cgc\">5.7 million students.\u003c/a> While nationwide enrollment in private schools dropped last year along with public schools, this year it has rebounded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National Association of Independent Schools comprises private, non-parochial schools. They report a net enrollment growth of 1.7% over the two pandemic years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's a particularly big rebound in private preschool enrollment in the NAIS sample. That number dropped dramatically between 2019-20 and 2020-21, but then grew 21% this fall for a net growth of 6% over two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While accurate data are not yet available for parochial schools, media reports suggest their enrollment has rebounded this fall as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We saw a couple thousand students that transferred over to private schools in the city,\" says Martinez, who took over as chief executive officer this summer in Chicago. \"And that was because the private schools were assuring the families that they would be open in-person, no matter what.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Similarly, \"the New Hampshire \u003ca href=\"https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-catholic-school-enrollment-goes-up-after-incentive-program-announced/33405573\">diocese gave some significant discounts\u003c/a> for folks to come [last school year], and it made it really affordable for some families to have that option,\" says John Goldhardt, the superintendent in Manchester, that state's largest district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sarah McVay pulled her children from the Seattle Public Schools this fall. \"We stuck it out the pandemic year — bad choice — and my 3rd grader essentially sat bored, learning very little all year,\" she says. \"The number of tech issues was infuriating ... it was constant.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>McVay says a staffing change announced at the end of the last school year for seniority reasons, which would have left her son with a long-term substitute, was the last straw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tim Robinson, lead media relations specialist for the Seattle schools, acknowledged the difficulties some parents faced last year amid the disruption. \"We recognize – and always did recognize – that remote learning presented many challenges,\" he said. \"And we are very pleased to be able to be back in the classroom this year.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Seattle Public Schools report that the district has lost 6.4% of its students since the start of the pandemic. Statewide, districts in Washington are down 3.5% in the same time period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We moved to Concordia Lutheran,\" McVay says. \"We aren't Lutheran, or even religious, and it was an act of desperation. But it has been truly amazing, and we are going to stay through 8th now.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The charter school factor\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the fall of 2020, charter schools, which are publicly funded but run separately from districts, saw a \u003ca href=\"https://www.publiccharters.org/sites/default/files/documents/2021-09/napcs_voting_feet_rd6.pdf\">7 percent jump in enrollment\u003c/a>, adding about 240,000 students nationwide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It translated to the single highest year, in terms of raw numbers, that we've ever seen charter schools grow,\" says Debbie Veney at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. This figure included a big jump at \u003cem>virtual\u003c/em> charter schools — a controversial, largely for-profit sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fall 2021 that story has shifted: K12 Inc and Connections Academy, the nation's largest virtual charter providers, told NPR their enrollment is relatively flat from last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile some brick and mortar charters continue to gain students, as NPR's examination of statewide data in Massachusetts and Georgia showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In New York City, the KIPP charter school network opened three new schools this fall, fueling an enrollment jump of 11 percent. In fact, KIPP schools in the city grew during both pandemic years, to a total of 7,150 students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We benefited just from having deep relationships with our families for retention,\" says Jane Martinez Dowling, KIPP NYC's external chief officer. \"And we sort of doubled down on making sure that we were in touch with our families, that we did have different modes of going out there and doing recruitment even during COVID.\" This included multilingual advertising in local publications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the Rochester, N.Y., public schools, enrollment has fallen from 25,000 before the pandemic to around 22,000 this year, says Lesli Myers-Small, the superintendent. Almost 7,000 students now attend local charters, which, she says, tells her: \"We have to make our schools attractive again.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Homeschooling is up, too\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public schools face competition not just from charters and private schools, but from families who have chosen to keep their kids home another year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Rochester, the district's homeschooling numbers are still above average, \"because we are limiting the remote options this year,\" says Myers-Small. \"And we recognize and honor the fact that it might be concerning or scary\" for some parents to send their children back to school at this point, especially with fresh fears around the Omicron variant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A rise in remote work, and the experience of managing students' virtual learning, may have made more families take a serious look at teaching their children at home. Yet \u003ca href=\"https://hslda.org/legal?gclid=Cj0KCQiAzMGNBhCyARIsANpUkzOl7oiws5PD2sayHFGmI1fFv72H55Mnx4yGPQi8huJAC1KNyVgVPfYaAtJOEALw_wcB\">homeschooling oversight \u003c/a>varies widely from state to state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Errick Greene, the superintendent of the Jackson, Miss., public schools, worries about \"bootleg homeschooling\" — families that may be keeping children at home, but not necessarily giving them a thorough education. \u003ca href=\"https://hslda.org/legal/mississippi?gclid=Cj0KCQiAzMGNBhCyARIsANpUkzOl7oiws5PD2sayHFGmI1fFv72H55Mnx4yGPQi8huJAC1KNyVgVPfYaAtJOEALw_wcB\">Mississippi has no testing requirement\u003c/a>s, no teacher qualifications and no mandated subjects for homeschooled students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For some parents, continuing concerns about safety are driving them to keep their children home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tanesha Grant, the founder of Parents Supporting Parents New York City, represents a group of about 250 families who, she says, were \"traumatized\" by the pandemic. They are keeping their kids home from public school, but not officially removing them from the district. They call themselves \"school strikers,\" holding out for a permanent remote option because they don't see school as safe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Black and brown families we know are disproportionately affected and have had someone die or have COVID-19 in their families,\" Grant says. \"We live in multigenerational homes. We are still in mourning and still traumatized.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Lingering concerns about COVID rules and enforcement \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>COVID safety protocols have been polarizing and politicized in this country, and that is keeping a vocal minority of parents away from public schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have people in our community that are anti-mask. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just saying, they have their right to self-identify that way,\" says Jon Dean, the schools superintendent in Grosse Pointe, Mich. \"We exist in a county that has a mask mandate. So we know we have families that are not attending right now because masks are mandatory in our school district.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dean says parents' frustrations over masking requirements showed up in surveys of families who have opted out of public school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Goldhardt, in Manchester, also saw students leave for private schools with looser COVID rules. \"They didn't require masking ... and we did.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>High school students are dropping out to work \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Students opting out for charters, private schools or homeschooling can hurt public schools because their funding is based on headcount. For the moment, federal relief funds may cover for revenue lost to enrollment drops, but that money is designed to phase out in several years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Declining district enrollment is also a community-wide matter, because strong public schools are a selling point for businesses and homebuyers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the biggest concern for the country at large is students who drop out of school entirely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Baltimore, John Davis, the city's chief of schools, says his district used federal relief dollars to actively find and reconnect with these students over the summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Literally, just do outreach nonstop ... We made \u003cem>thousands\u003c/em> of contacts. Those folks did a wonderful job, and I think that's why we, overall, didn't see a huge decline [this school year],\" Davis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendents say they are often losing students to paid jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"A lot of my principals were saying, 'Dr. Small, we're losing kids. They're telling us, I have to work,' \" says Myers-Small in Rochester. \"We did talk to some businesses and said, 'Listen, you know, Cory should not be working [at this time]. School is in session. He is a student.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers-Small says Rochester has increased opportunities for working students to make up lost credits online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We ... knew that we were fighting against survival and poverty,\" she explains. \"We wanted to make sure that there were learning opportunities in the afternoon and evening, and we track that we had some scholars who were logging on at seven or eight o'clock at night and doing their coursework.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Jackson, Miss., Superintendent Greene says that, during remote learning, teachers told him of students \"who were on Zoom calls during the day \u003cem>and\u003c/em> at work.\" He says some of his principals and staff have reached out to local business-owners to plead for students to have shifts that start after a particular required course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Greene says he's tried hard not to force these teens to choose between school and work, and the district is designing a new, fully virtual option for working students or anyone who thrives learning from home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"School does not have to happen in the hours in which it happens right now. You know, late afternoon, early evening, weekends,\" Greene says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Dallas, educators are trying to help working students by offering night school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It has become popular because now these kids have started making some money, and their families depend on them,\" says Superintendent Hinojosa. \"And they don't want to give up their jobs. And so we had to find a different way to meet their needs.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>'We need you back'\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendents across the country tell NPR the pandemic pushed many families to think more deeply about each child's education — what they need and how best to get it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think families have a desire to gain more control of their lives,\" says Ed Graff, the superintendent of the Minneapolis public schools, where enrollment has also continued to decline. \"The public education landscape has changed significantly, and families are making calculated decisions to pursue other learning options that are best for their children and for themselves.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's one reason Hinojosa, in Dallas, put up billboards. \"We got very aggressive with families and said, 'We need you back,' \" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His district paid for billboards along the city's roadways, display ads on buses, even in convenience stores — an approach pioneered by charter schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We have [an image of] a little kid with a stethoscope and a doctor's jacket — to say, 'Look, these kids are going to become doctors, but, if they don't come back to school, they're going to fall further behind.' \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly 40,000 children attend Dallas-area charter schools, and Hinojosa says he's had to get creative, even before the pandemic, reaching families and winning them over. Now, he says, they're pulling out all the stops, including the creation of new schools with more popular curricular offerings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We embrace competition, which makes us better,\" Hinojosa says. \"And I think we're beating them.\" Though that's not yet reflected in the district's enrollment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Where+are+the+students%3F+For+a+second+straight+year%2C+school+enrollment+is+dropping&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Should schools require the COVID vaccine? Many experts say it's too soon",
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"content": "\u003cp>The vaccination of children ages 5 to 11 against COVID-19 is well under way: The White House \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/\">announced this week \u003c/a>that an estimated 10 percent of children in that age group have received their first shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has become the first state to announce that it will add this vaccine to its list of the shots required for all school children. And a handful of districts in 14 states are making similar moves, starting with mandates for student-athletes to participate in sports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because almost every child attends school, vaccine mandates have been uniquely effective against diseases like smallpox, polio, pertussis, and most recently chickenpox. But school mandates have also always brought pushback — and that has intensified to a new level in the 21st century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Vaccines have been controversial since the very first vaccine was developed against smallpox,\" says Elena Conis, a historian of medicine at the University of California, Berkeley. \"And vaccination became increasingly controversial when states began to make it mandatory.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here's a whirlwind tour of the past, present and future of vaccine mandates, with some surprises along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. The first school vaccine mandates date back more than 200 years\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-2_custom-b4820e83dbcff85cc2f5cb316f611603628f07c4-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1250\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1818, the King of Wittenberg, in east-central Germany, issued what appears to have been the first school vaccination requirement, for smallpox. The king decreed: \"No person to be received into any school, college or charitable institution; be bound apprentice to any trade; or hold any public office, who has not been vaccinated.\" In 1827, Boston became the first city in the United States to do the same. As the country became more urban toward the end of the 19th century, vaccine requirements increased, and mortality rates from smallpox plummeted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. The first vaccine mandates gave rise to the first anti-vaccinationists. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-6_custom-50a4905022fb821ef37e1d275765ac1c744a5f1e-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1650\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1882 the Anti-Vaccination League of America \u003ca href=\"https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/anti-vaccination-arguments-spread\">held its first meeting\u003c/a> in New York. Among the false assertions made by speakers at the meeting was the idea that smallpox was spread by dirt, not germs. Just as they do today, 19th-century anti-vaccinationists professed doubt in science, faith in religion, and zeal for personal liberty. They made common cause with a range of other outside-the-mainstream groups, like temperance advocates, vegetarians, homeopaths, phrenologists and palm readers. They championed unfounded alternatives to vaccination, like homeopathic remedies; and made false claims, such as that vaccines caused eczema.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conis points out that there were real cases of vaccine injuries in the 19th century that contributed to doubts: \"Vaccination was carried out in a couple of different ways, sometimes with a matter taken from livestock, in particular cows, and sometimes done in a procedure called arm-to-arm,\" where one person's blister from vaccination would be used to vaccinate the next person. \"And both of these methods could sometimes transmit other infections, like tetanus and syphilis.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. The Supreme Court upheld school vaccine mandates a century ago. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The key U.S. Supreme Court ruling on school vaccine mandates came in the 1922 case \u003cem>Zucht v. King. \u003c/em>\"The court was very clear: This is not a liberty violation,\" says James Hodge, a professor of law at Arizona State University and a member of the Network for Public Health Law. \"This is not a constitutional issue. States and localities can impose school vaccination requirements, period. And as a result, we saw obviously 80-plus more years of schools doing exactly that through state law.\" Hodge has been tracking legal challenges to COVID vaccine mandates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. The polio vaccine wasn't mandated for years after it was introduced in 1955.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-5_custom-1154c418a7beb107b06862c1bddc7d0310b52397-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1174\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"When the polio vaccine was first approved, loads and loads of people showed up to get it for themselves, for their children,\" says Conis. \"And it was several years before states even considered mandates to require that vaccine for children.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Since 1979, Mississippi has banned religious and personal belief exemptions to school vaccine mandates, and the state has the \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninashapiro/2021/07/10/mississippi-has-the-lowest-covid-19-vaccination-rate-but-the-highest-childhood-vaccination-rate-heres-why/?sh=4699265d19ab\">\u003cstrong>highest rate of childhood vaccinations\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> in the U.S.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West Virginia, too, has allowed only medical exemptions since it passed its first statewide compulsory vaccination law way back in 1905. California, Connecticut, Maine and New York followed suit in the 2010s, eliminating nonmedical exemptions in response to measles outbreaks that followed from a rise in people opting out of vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. In 1980, 28,000 New York City students were excluded from school after failing to get their measles shots. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was one thing to put state laws on the books requiring vaccinations; it was another thing for schools to enforce them. In 1977, during a measles epidemic in Los Angeles, it was estimated that only two-thirds of lower-income children nationwide were actually vaccinated for the disease. Excluding children from school, as New York City did, was a last resort. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, outbreaks led in turn to crackdowns on one hand, and public immunization campaigns on the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. The World Health Organization named \"vaccine hesitancy\" as one of the 10 most notable threats to global health — back in 2019. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-8_custom-406fe5c9c178fa13211e686688435ef282fc999f-s1000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1226\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although opposition to vaccine mandates is as old as the mandates themselves, scholars agree that the 21st-century movement has been different. That's partly because of the ease of spreading misinformation on social media. It's also partly because of the emotional weight of the opposition, argues Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Parents of children with autism were pulled into the anti-vaccine movement. The anti-vaccine movement offered support, offered them an explanation for how their children became autistic, offered them cures — fake cures, but cures,\" Reiss says. \"It created a very strong core group of people who believed passionately that it was the vaccines [that caused their children's autism], and the movement got more organized, more institutionalized.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. Adding new vaccines to the school mandate list has proven difficult in the 21st century.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All 50 states currently require schoolchildren to be immunized for polio, smallpox, MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis), and varicella. Varicella (chickenpox) is the newest, making the list in the early 2000s, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.immunize.org/aboutus/\">Immunization Action Coalition\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But only a handful of states require rotavirus, flu, or HPV vaccines for school. Because of its association with sexual activity, the HPV vaccine has been especially controversial. \"One of the last vaccines we attempted to mandate for kids was the HPV vaccine,\" says Elena Conis at Berkeley. \"That didn't go so well. And we're in a much more polarized moment with respect to vaccination now than we were back then.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>9. In light of history, especially recent history, many public health experts and vaccine historians say it's not yet time for school vaccine mandates for COVID. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I would say in the next three to six months, encouraging a self-directed push to get people to vaccinate their their kids is probably what will help it to not be so 'line in the sand,' \" says Dr. Stella Safo, founder of Just Equity for Health, a New York City-based health care company that focuses on equitable care delivery. \"And then I think down the line, just as we've mandated that you have to be vaccinated against chickenpox before you can go to school, I think COVID will eventually be added to that portfolio. \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-9_custom-174628cfc3abd72744c7e5a0a4774fd9f018e1fb-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1537\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"My view is still that mandates are premature,\" says Reiss. \"But I want to make it clear ... I'm making my recommendation a little bit from the ivory tower, and the people on the ground may have a very different perspective.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I don't think that it would be the right time to [mandate the COVID vaccine at a state level], especially if we look in the context of the entire pandemic,\" says \u003ca href=\"https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/19,19972,161.html\">Dr. Thomas Dobbs\u003c/a>, Mississippi's state health officer. \"Patients trust their own physician more than anybody else and especially where we are right now in the pandemic, that's the best place for that conversation.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Should+schools+require+the+COVID+vaccine%3F+Many+experts+say+it%27s+too+soon&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The vaccination of children ages 5 to 11 against COVID-19 is well under way: The White House \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/\">announced this week \u003c/a>that an estimated 10 percent of children in that age group have received their first shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has become the first state to announce that it will add this vaccine to its list of the shots required for all school children. And a handful of districts in 14 states are making similar moves, starting with mandates for student-athletes to participate in sports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because almost every child attends school, vaccine mandates have been uniquely effective against diseases like smallpox, polio, pertussis, and most recently chickenpox. But school mandates have also always brought pushback — and that has intensified to a new level in the 21st century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Vaccines have been controversial since the very first vaccine was developed against smallpox,\" says Elena Conis, a historian of medicine at the University of California, Berkeley. \"And vaccination became increasingly controversial when states began to make it mandatory.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here's a whirlwind tour of the past, present and future of vaccine mandates, with some surprises along the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1. The first school vaccine mandates date back more than 200 years\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-2_custom-b4820e83dbcff85cc2f5cb316f611603628f07c4-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1250\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1818, the King of Wittenberg, in east-central Germany, issued what appears to have been the first school vaccination requirement, for smallpox. The king decreed: \"No person to be received into any school, college or charitable institution; be bound apprentice to any trade; or hold any public office, who has not been vaccinated.\" In 1827, Boston became the first city in the United States to do the same. As the country became more urban toward the end of the 19th century, vaccine requirements increased, and mortality rates from smallpox plummeted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. The first vaccine mandates gave rise to the first anti-vaccinationists. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-6_custom-50a4905022fb821ef37e1d275765ac1c744a5f1e-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1650\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 1882 the Anti-Vaccination League of America \u003ca href=\"https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/anti-vaccination-arguments-spread\">held its first meeting\u003c/a> in New York. Among the false assertions made by speakers at the meeting was the idea that smallpox was spread by dirt, not germs. Just as they do today, 19th-century anti-vaccinationists professed doubt in science, faith in religion, and zeal for personal liberty. They made common cause with a range of other outside-the-mainstream groups, like temperance advocates, vegetarians, homeopaths, phrenologists and palm readers. They championed unfounded alternatives to vaccination, like homeopathic remedies; and made false claims, such as that vaccines caused eczema.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conis points out that there were real cases of vaccine injuries in the 19th century that contributed to doubts: \"Vaccination was carried out in a couple of different ways, sometimes with a matter taken from livestock, in particular cows, and sometimes done in a procedure called arm-to-arm,\" where one person's blister from vaccination would be used to vaccinate the next person. \"And both of these methods could sometimes transmit other infections, like tetanus and syphilis.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. The Supreme Court upheld school vaccine mandates a century ago. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The key U.S. Supreme Court ruling on school vaccine mandates came in the 1922 case \u003cem>Zucht v. King. \u003c/em>\"The court was very clear: This is not a liberty violation,\" says James Hodge, a professor of law at Arizona State University and a member of the Network for Public Health Law. \"This is not a constitutional issue. States and localities can impose school vaccination requirements, period. And as a result, we saw obviously 80-plus more years of schools doing exactly that through state law.\" Hodge has been tracking legal challenges to COVID vaccine mandates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. The polio vaccine wasn't mandated for years after it was introduced in 1955.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-5_custom-1154c418a7beb107b06862c1bddc7d0310b52397-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1174\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"When the polio vaccine was first approved, loads and loads of people showed up to get it for themselves, for their children,\" says Conis. \"And it was several years before states even considered mandates to require that vaccine for children.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Since 1979, Mississippi has banned religious and personal belief exemptions to school vaccine mandates, and the state has the \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninashapiro/2021/07/10/mississippi-has-the-lowest-covid-19-vaccination-rate-but-the-highest-childhood-vaccination-rate-heres-why/?sh=4699265d19ab\">\u003cstrong>highest rate of childhood vaccinations\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> in the U.S.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West Virginia, too, has allowed only medical exemptions since it passed its first statewide compulsory vaccination law way back in 1905. California, Connecticut, Maine and New York followed suit in the 2010s, eliminating nonmedical exemptions in response to measles outbreaks that followed from a rise in people opting out of vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. In 1980, 28,000 New York City students were excluded from school after failing to get their measles shots. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was one thing to put state laws on the books requiring vaccinations; it was another thing for schools to enforce them. In 1977, during a measles epidemic in Los Angeles, it was estimated that only two-thirds of lower-income children nationwide were actually vaccinated for the disease. Excluding children from school, as New York City did, was a last resort. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, outbreaks led in turn to crackdowns on one hand, and public immunization campaigns on the other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>7. The World Health Organization named \"vaccine hesitancy\" as one of the 10 most notable threats to global health — back in 2019. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-8_custom-406fe5c9c178fa13211e686688435ef282fc999f-s1000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"1226\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although opposition to vaccine mandates is as old as the mandates themselves, scholars agree that the 21st-century movement has been different. That's partly because of the ease of spreading misinformation on social media. It's also partly because of the emotional weight of the opposition, argues Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of Law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Parents of children with autism were pulled into the anti-vaccine movement. The anti-vaccine movement offered support, offered them an explanation for how their children became autistic, offered them cures — fake cures, but cures,\" Reiss says. \"It created a very strong core group of people who believed passionately that it was the vaccines [that caused their children's autism], and the movement got more organized, more institutionalized.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>8. Adding new vaccines to the school mandate list has proven difficult in the 21st century.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All 50 states currently require schoolchildren to be immunized for polio, smallpox, MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis), and varicella. Varicella (chickenpox) is the newest, making the list in the early 2000s, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.immunize.org/aboutus/\">Immunization Action Coalition\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But only a handful of states require rotavirus, flu, or HPV vaccines for school. Because of its association with sexual activity, the HPV vaccine has been especially controversial. \"One of the last vaccines we attempted to mandate for kids was the HPV vaccine,\" says Elena Conis at Berkeley. \"That didn't go so well. And we're in a much more polarized moment with respect to vaccination now than we were back then.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>9. In light of history, especially recent history, many public health experts and vaccine historians say it's not yet time for school vaccine mandates for COVID. \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I would say in the next three to six months, encouraging a self-directed push to get people to vaccinate their their kids is probably what will help it to not be so 'line in the sand,' \" says Dr. Stella Safo, founder of Just Equity for Health, a New York City-based health care company that focuses on equitable care delivery. \"And then I think down the line, just as we've mandated that you have to be vaccinated against chickenpox before you can go to school, I think COVID will eventually be added to that portfolio. \"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg src=\"https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2021/11/17/ljohnson-vaccines-comicfinalartboard-9_custom-174628cfc3abd72744c7e5a0a4774fd9f018e1fb-s2000-c85.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1537\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">LA Johnson/NPR\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\"My view is still that mandates are premature,\" says Reiss. \"But I want to make it clear ... I'm making my recommendation a little bit from the ivory tower, and the people on the ground may have a very different perspective.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I don't think that it would be the right time to [mandate the COVID vaccine at a state level], especially if we look in the context of the entire pandemic,\" says \u003ca href=\"https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/19,19972,161.html\">Dr. Thomas Dobbs\u003c/a>, Mississippi's state health officer. \"Patients trust their own physician more than anybody else and especially where we are right now in the pandemic, that's the best place for that conversation.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Should+schools+require+the+COVID+vaccine%3F+Many+experts+say+it%27s+too+soon&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>When can kids safely take off their masks in school? About three-fourths of the nation's largest districts required masks at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.crpe.org/thelens/notes-our-database-latest-2021-22s-rocky-return-school\">start of the school year\u003c/a>. Recently, the calls by some parents to unmask children have grown louder, especially now that there is a COVID-19 vaccine available with emergency authorization for children as young as 5 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The country is still in a pandemic that's killing more than 1,000 Americans every day. And a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/09/10/1035954587/yes-gov-desantis-studies-do-show-masks-curb-covid-19-in-schools\">body of evidence\u003c/a> shows masking, in combination with other safety measures, effectively cuts COVID-19 transmission in K-12 schools. Masks are cheaper than renovating school buildings to improve ventilation or create outdoor learning spaces, and they're (still) easier to get ahold of than COVID-19 tests, which can also be used to preempt transmission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, masking has continued, in many cases, into a third school semester. Several months after most adults have been eligible for vaccines, tens of millions of children are spending school days with the bottom half of their faces swathed in either fabric or, in the case of surgical masks, a substance called \"melt-blown polypropylene.\" If they have a long commute, they could be masking for 10 or more hours a day; in some districts, masks are required even outside. Parents are concerned about social development, language learning, skin irritation and mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR posed the question of when kids can safely take their masks off in school to scientists and policy leaders in different parts of the country and found a range of nuanced positions and timelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When can kids take off their masks? Not now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement to NPR, a spokesperson said, \"CDC continues to recommend universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status or community transmission levels. At this time, there are no changes, however, as the science changes, we will update our guidance as needed.\" CDC director Rochelle Walensky has backed keeping masks on in schools \"as we head into these winter months.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Massachusetts State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Immediately — with enough vaccinations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? A school must demonstrate a vaccination rate of 80% or more of both staff and students. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/on-desktop/2021-1026mask-requirement-extension.pdf\">decision can be made\u003c/a> \"by local school and district leaders in consultation with local health officials.\" Schools must collect proof of vaccination of everyone from administrative assistants to after-school staff. Unvaccinated people must keep masking.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Joseph Allen, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Jan. 1, 2022, once younger children have a chance to get vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? Allen, whose expertise is healthy buildings, is not in favor of a vaccine threshold for unmasking students, given the low risk of COVID-19 to children. He thinks schools should mandate vaccines for adults in school buildings, hold vaccination clinics on-site and provide education to encourage vaccines for kids, and use rapid antigen testing, ventilation and air filtration to lower risk even further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've been a big proponent of mask wearing for a long time, for over a year, but at this point in the pandemic, it no longer makes sense to me,\" he tells NPR. \"If we don't offer paths to removing masks at this point in a pandemic, when risks are low and the tools for protection are there — the vaccine specifically — then we lose trust.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Danny Benjamin, distinguished professor of pediatrics at Duke University, co-chair of the ABC Collaborative\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? January 2022, once younger children have ample chance to get vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? Benjamin of the ABC Collaborative, which has done some of the \u003ca href=\"https://abcsciencecollaborative.org/masking-in-schools-the-abc-science-collaborative-provides-clarity-on-questions/\">largest studies\u003c/a> showing the efficacy of universal masking in schools, would prefer that 100% of adults in the building are vaccinated or masked, and at least 70% of the children are vaccinated. At \"70 to 80 percent, there's a good chance you're going to be successful.\" And, because risk tolerance varies by district, he says, some districts might go mask-free with as few as half the children vaccinated — if they can accept more COVID-19 transmission as a result.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Amy Falk, pediatrician, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? \"In my heart of hearts,\" not for a while, but realistically, once children's vaccines have been available for at least several weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My big holdout is getting every kid protected who wants to be protected. And that, you know, whatever happens after that, I guess everyone's made their choice with it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Falk is lead author of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm\">widely cited study\u003c/a> showing that 90% mask compliance cut COVID-19 transmission within several schools in Wisconsin last fall, even when the spread in the community was high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaccination rates in her community are low — around 50% for adults and even lower for teenagers — and she doesn't expect much better for her younger patients. Opposition to mask mandates, meanwhile, has grown intense. Falk, who offers medical advice to her local school district, has been personally afraid to attend school board meetings since the May 2021 meeting, which she describes as \"a very unsafe situation. There was a mass of anti-masking parents and some students. They were heckling us. They were not letting us leave. It was very, very heartbreaking.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public pressure led to the mask mandate in high schools being lifted this fall, which led in turn, she said, to \"massive spread. It was unreal.\" The board reinstated masking after two weeks. Falk wishes for continued masking, but, she says, \"I actually don't know if I think, at a state level, they could pull it off.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Let's not even talk about it until the spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mokdad sees signs of a coming winter COVID-19 surge and of waning immunity from adult vaccination. He implores, \"We should not celebrate prematurely. We should be very wise about what's happening right now. We're talking about our children. We're talking about our future.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Jeanne Noble, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of COVID response for the UCSF Emergency Department\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Dec. 28 in the Bay Area, eight weeks after the FDA's emergency authorization of the vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? Noble's recommendation is for schools to follow the metrics the Bay Area has set for unmasking adults in public spaces: low community transmission, low and stable COVID-19 hospitalizations, and high rates of vaccination — currently at 80% of San Francisco residents over 5 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Benjamin and the state of Massachusetts, Noble thinks that unmasking once schools reach a threshold of 70% to 80% vaccination rates for students would be fine, even conservative. But she says going by community metrics is preferable because it's simpler and more consistent. Dr. Noble is one of the authors of \u003ca href=\"https://www.caparentpower.org/cdphletter?emci=d53ea0f6-013c-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&emdi=8c2602cc-083c-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&ceid=50079\">a petition signed\u003c/a> by 150 Bay Area medical professionals, asking the state of California to create a clear masking off-ramp for schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"People are tired of this,\" Dr. Noble says. \"There's a sense, I think, in a child's life, particularly, that things are never going to change.\" She says that parents need to be able to give kids hope by telling them that a day is coming when they will be able to play at school with their friends without masks on. \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Jan. 1, 2022\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 9, \u003ca href=\"https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/gov-wolf-state-anticipates-returning-k-12-school-mask-requirement-to-local-leaders%E2%80%AFjanuary-17-2022/\">Wolf, a Democrat, announced\u003c/a> the statewide K-12 mask mandate will lift on Jan. 1. He's not tying it to any requirements around student vaccination but is leaving the decision to local jurisdictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Not yet. The Democratic mayor, who oversees the country's largest school district, said at a news conference that the mandate would stay in place \"out of an abundance of caution.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Incoming New York City Mayor Eric Adams:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When? He \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/11/07/sotu-adams-full.cnn\">told CNN\u003c/a> he \"looks forward to it ... if we can find a safe way to do it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=When+can+kids+take+off+their+masks+in+school%3F+Here%27s+what+some+experts+say&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When can kids safely take off their masks in school? About three-fourths of the nation's largest districts required masks at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.crpe.org/thelens/notes-our-database-latest-2021-22s-rocky-return-school\">start of the school year\u003c/a>. Recently, the calls by some parents to unmask children have grown louder, especially now that there is a COVID-19 vaccine available with emergency authorization for children as young as 5 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The country is still in a pandemic that's killing more than 1,000 Americans every day. And a \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/back-to-school-live-updates/2021/09/10/1035954587/yes-gov-desantis-studies-do-show-masks-curb-covid-19-in-schools\">body of evidence\u003c/a> shows masking, in combination with other safety measures, effectively cuts COVID-19 transmission in K-12 schools. Masks are cheaper than renovating school buildings to improve ventilation or create outdoor learning spaces, and they're (still) easier to get ahold of than COVID-19 tests, which can also be used to preempt transmission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other hand, masking has continued, in many cases, into a third school semester. Several months after most adults have been eligible for vaccines, tens of millions of children are spending school days with the bottom half of their faces swathed in either fabric or, in the case of surgical masks, a substance called \"melt-blown polypropylene.\" If they have a long commute, they could be masking for 10 or more hours a day; in some districts, masks are required even outside. Parents are concerned about social development, language learning, skin irritation and mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>NPR posed the question of when kids can safely take their masks off in school to scientists and policy leaders in different parts of the country and found a range of nuanced positions and timelines.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When can kids take off their masks? Not now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement to NPR, a spokesperson said, \"CDC continues to recommend universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status or community transmission levels. At this time, there are no changes, however, as the science changes, we will update our guidance as needed.\" CDC director Rochelle Walensky has backed keeping masks on in schools \"as we head into these winter months.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Massachusetts State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Immediately — with enough vaccinations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? A school must demonstrate a vaccination rate of 80% or more of both staff and students. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/on-desktop/2021-1026mask-requirement-extension.pdf\">decision can be made\u003c/a> \"by local school and district leaders in consultation with local health officials.\" Schools must collect proof of vaccination of everyone from administrative assistants to after-school staff. Unvaccinated people must keep masking.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Joseph Allen, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Jan. 1, 2022, once younger children have a chance to get vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? Allen, whose expertise is healthy buildings, is not in favor of a vaccine threshold for unmasking students, given the low risk of COVID-19 to children. He thinks schools should mandate vaccines for adults in school buildings, hold vaccination clinics on-site and provide education to encourage vaccines for kids, and use rapid antigen testing, ventilation and air filtration to lower risk even further.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I've been a big proponent of mask wearing for a long time, for over a year, but at this point in the pandemic, it no longer makes sense to me,\" he tells NPR. \"If we don't offer paths to removing masks at this point in a pandemic, when risks are low and the tools for protection are there — the vaccine specifically — then we lose trust.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Danny Benjamin, distinguished professor of pediatrics at Duke University, co-chair of the ABC Collaborative\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? January 2022, once younger children have ample chance to get vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? Benjamin of the ABC Collaborative, which has done some of the \u003ca href=\"https://abcsciencecollaborative.org/masking-in-schools-the-abc-science-collaborative-provides-clarity-on-questions/\">largest studies\u003c/a> showing the efficacy of universal masking in schools, would prefer that 100% of adults in the building are vaccinated or masked, and at least 70% of the children are vaccinated. At \"70 to 80 percent, there's a good chance you're going to be successful.\" And, because risk tolerance varies by district, he says, some districts might go mask-free with as few as half the children vaccinated — if they can accept more COVID-19 transmission as a result.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Amy Falk, pediatrician, Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? \"In my heart of hearts,\" not for a while, but realistically, once children's vaccines have been available for at least several weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"My big holdout is getting every kid protected who wants to be protected. And that, you know, whatever happens after that, I guess everyone's made their choice with it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Falk is lead author of a \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e3.htm\">widely cited study\u003c/a> showing that 90% mask compliance cut COVID-19 transmission within several schools in Wisconsin last fall, even when the spread in the community was high.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Vaccination rates in her community are low — around 50% for adults and even lower for teenagers — and she doesn't expect much better for her younger patients. Opposition to mask mandates, meanwhile, has grown intense. Falk, who offers medical advice to her local school district, has been personally afraid to attend school board meetings since the May 2021 meeting, which she describes as \"a very unsafe situation. There was a mass of anti-masking parents and some students. They were heckling us. They were not letting us leave. It was very, very heartbreaking.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public pressure led to the mask mandate in high schools being lifted this fall, which led in turn, she said, to \"massive spread. It was unreal.\" The board reinstated masking after two weeks. Falk wishes for continued masking, but, she says, \"I actually don't know if I think, at a state level, they could pull it off.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Let's not even talk about it until the spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mokdad sees signs of a coming winter COVID-19 surge and of waning immunity from adult vaccination. He implores, \"We should not celebrate prematurely. We should be very wise about what's happening right now. We're talking about our children. We're talking about our future.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Jeanne Noble, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of COVID response for the UCSF Emergency Department\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Dec. 28 in the Bay Area, eight weeks after the FDA's emergency authorization of the vaccine for 5- to 11-year-olds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How? Noble's recommendation is for schools to follow the metrics the Bay Area has set for unmasking adults in public spaces: low community transmission, low and stable COVID-19 hospitalizations, and high rates of vaccination — currently at 80% of San Francisco residents over 5 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Benjamin and the state of Massachusetts, Noble thinks that unmasking once schools reach a threshold of 70% to 80% vaccination rates for students would be fine, even conservative. But she says going by community metrics is preferable because it's simpler and more consistent. Dr. Noble is one of the authors of \u003ca href=\"https://www.caparentpower.org/cdphletter?emci=d53ea0f6-013c-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&emdi=8c2602cc-083c-ec11-9820-c896653b26c8&ceid=50079\">a petition signed\u003c/a> by 150 Bay Area medical professionals, asking the state of California to create a clear masking off-ramp for schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"People are tired of this,\" Dr. Noble says. \"There's a sense, I think, in a child's life, particularly, that things are never going to change.\" She says that parents need to be able to give kids hope by telling them that a day is coming when they will be able to play at school with their friends without masks on. \u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Jan. 1, 2022\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Nov. 9, \u003ca href=\"https://www.governor.pa.gov/newsroom/gov-wolf-state-anticipates-returning-k-12-school-mask-requirement-to-local-leaders%E2%80%AFjanuary-17-2022/\">Wolf, a Democrat, announced\u003c/a> the statewide K-12 mask mandate will lift on Jan. 1. He's not tying it to any requirements around student vaccination but is leaving the decision to local jurisdictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Outgoing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>When? Not yet. The Democratic mayor, who oversees the country's largest school district, said at a news conference that the mandate would stay in place \"out of an abundance of caution.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Incoming New York City Mayor Eric Adams:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/how-pe-teachers-are-tackling-physical-learning-loss/\">\u003cem>PE teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://eepurl.com/c36ixT\">\u003cem>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amanda Amtmanis, an elementary physical education instructor in Middletown, Connecticut, handed out cards with QR codes to a class of third graders, and told them to start running.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kids sprinted off around the baseball field in a light drizzle, but by the end of the first lap, a fifth of a mile, many were winded and walking. They paused to scan the cards, which track their mileage, on their teacher’s iPad and got some encouragement from an electronic coach — “Way to run your socks off!” or “Leave it all on the track!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A boy in a red Nike shirt surged ahead, telling Amtmanis his goal was to run 5 miles. “Whoa, look at Dominic!” another boy exclaimed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t need to compare ourselves to others,” Amtmanis reminded him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58725\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58725 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fifth grader scans a QR code card that tracks his running mileage. \u003ccite>(Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The third graders finished a third lap, alternating running and walking, and were about to start on a scavenger hunt when the rain picked up, forcing them inside. Amtmanis thanked her students for their willingness to adjust — a skill many of them have practiced far more often than running these past 18 months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The full impact of the pandemic on kids’ health and fitness won’t be known for some time. But it’s already caused at least a short-term spike in \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2783690?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jama.2021.15036\">childhood obesity\u003c/a> Rates of overweight and obesity in 5- through 11-year-olds rose nearly 10 percentage points in the first few months of 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amtmanis’ “mileage club,” which tracks students’ running, both in and out of school, and rewards them with Pokémon cards when they hit certain targets, is an example of how PE teachers around the country are trying to get kids back in shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But inclement weather isn’t the only thing PE teachers are up against as they confront what might be called “physical learning loss.” Physical education as a discipline has long fought to be taken as seriously as its academic counterparts. Even before the pandemic, fewer than \u003ca href=\"https://www.shapeamerica.org/advocacy/son/upload/shape-of-the-nation-infographic1.pdf\">half the states\u003c/a> set any minimum amount of time for students to participate in physical education, according to the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE), which represents PE and health instructors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as schools scramble to help kids catch up academically, there are signs that PE is taking a back seat to the core subjects yet again. In some California schools, administrators are shifting instructional minutes from PE to academic subjects — or canceling class altogether so PE teachers can sub for classroom teachers; in others, they’re growing class sizes in the gym, so they can shrink them in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, innovative instructors like Amtmanis, who has worked in her district for more than 20 years, are struggling to get their ideas off the ground. Over the summer, the principal of Macdonough Elementary, one of two schools where Amtmanis teaches, approved her request to participate in another running program called The Daily Mile, in which kids walk or run 15 minutes a day during school hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daily running breaks “boost attentiveness, which has positive effects on academics,” Amtmanis argued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But two weeks into the school year, not a single teacher had bought into the idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The issue is their packed schedule,” Amtmanis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, many schools conducted gym class remotely, with students joining in from their bedrooms and living rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The online format presented several challenges. Many students lacked the equipment, space, or parental support to participate fully. And many instructors grappled with how to teach and assess motor skills and teamwork online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though instructors found \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/kids-are-shooting-hoops-with-rolled-up-socks-but-pandemic-phys-ed-is-not-cancelled/\">creative ways to keep students moving\u003c/a> — substituting rolled-up socks for balls, and “disguising fitness” in scavenger hunts and beat-the-teacher challenges — they still fretted that online gym wasn’t giving students the same benefits as in-person classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compounding their concern was the fact that many students were also missing out on recess and extracurricular sports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a March 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1186/s12889-021-10545-x?sharing_token=ui-wbaHy2SbTtsoJXEPOwm_BpE1tBhCbnbw3BuzI2RM1aboLAUGnazRcnXea8sbbkng8EmA-rTgX2Py05VZsyMdgwZKEL8JOR344i7JDaP1EWZquEz9MeiWBHvXiNxyZMkI9qJvUWTZcFW0fD8iPN0kNNdBnX6Cr4UFu3AmDvS8%3D\">survey\u003c/a> conducted by the Cooper Institute, maker of the popular FitnessGram assessments, close to half the PE teachers and school and district administrators responding said their students were “significantly less” physically active during their schools’ closure than before it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools that reopened last year faced their own set of challenges, including bans on shared equipment that made even a simple game of catch impossible. Schools that were open for in-person learning were also much more likely to cut back on PE instructional time, or eliminate it altogether, the survey found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The consequences of these reductions in physical activity are hard to quantify, especially since many schools suspended fitness testing during the pandemic and have yet to resume it, but some PE teachers say they’re seeing more kids with locomotor delays and weaker stamina than normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The second graders are like first graders, and some are even like kindergarteners,” said Robin Richardson, an elementary PE instructor in Kentucky. They can jump and hop, she said, but they can’t leap. They’re exhausted after 20 seconds of jumping jacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An unusually high number of Richardson’s first graders can’t skip or do windmills. Some lack the spatial awareness that’s essential to group games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They don’t know how to move without running into each other,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other instructors are seeing an increase in cognitive issues, such as difficulty paying attention or following directions, particularly among kids who remained remote for most or all of last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kyle Bragg, an elementary PE instructor in Arizona, has seen kids sitting with their backs to him, staring off into space when he’s talking. “I say ‘Knees, please,’ so they spin around to face me,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And some PE teachers say their students’ social-emotional skills have suffered more than their gross motor skills. “They forgot how to share; how to be nice to each other; how to relate to each other,” said Donn Tobin, an elementary PE instructor in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PE has a key role to play in boosting those skills, which affect how kids interact in other classes, said Will Potter, an elementary PE teacher in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re uniquely situated to handle the social-emotional needs that came out of the pandemic, in a way classroom teachers are not,” Potter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58726\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58726 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-07-scaled-e1636359729788.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanda Amtmanis, the PE instructor at Macdonough Elementary, hands a fifth grader a card with a QR code for tracking her mileage. \u003ccite>(Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Amtmanis, for her part, worries about her students’ mental health. She sees the little signs of strain daily — the kid who got upset because he couldn’t pick his group, for example, and the one who was distressed that his Mileage Club card had gotten mixed up in the front office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their emotional reserves are low,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet not all instructors are reporting drops in their students’ fitness and skill development. Teachers in some middle- and upper-income districts said they haven’t noticed much of a change at all. In some communities, families seemed to spend more time outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We saw the skyrocketing sale of bicycles, we saw families going for walks,” said Dianne Wilson-Graham, executive director of the California Physical Education and Health Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in Title I schools like Macdonough, where more than half the students are low-income, some kids didn’t even have access to a safe place to exercise or play during school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only are they not in soccer leagues, but sometimes they don’t even have a park,” Amtmanis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amtmanis came up with the idea of doing the Daily Mile after spring fitness tests revealed drops in her students’ strength, flexibility and endurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many schools still aren’t sure how much physical learning loss their students have experienced as a result of the pandemic. Most schools pressed pause on fitness testing last year, and some elementary-school instructors are reluctant to restart it. They say the tests aren’t valid with young children, even in ordinary times, and argue the time they take could be better spent on Covid catch-up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andjelka Pavlovic, director of research and education for the Cooper Institute, said its tests are scientifically proven to be valid for students who are 10 and up, or roughly starting in fourth grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fitness testing requirements vary by state, county or even district. Some states specify how often students must be tested; others leave it largely to the teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bragg, the Arizona teacher, said he has put testing “on the backburner” because “right now it’s not at the forefront of what’s important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richardson said she is avoiding testing because she doesn’t want to use up precious instructional time or demoralize her students. “I want my kids to enjoy movement,” she said. If they perform poorly on the tests, “they may not feel as strong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Connecticut, where schools are required to test fourth graders’ fitness annually, Amtmanis approached testing cautiously last year. She didn’t want to embarrass her students, so she made it into a series of games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of Sit-and-Reach, they had a “flexibility contest,” in which kids broke into teams for tag then had to perform stretches if they were tagged. She measured the distances stretched with curling ribbon, tied the ribbons together, and attached a balloon to the end. The team whose balloon soared the highest won fidget putty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pushups became a Bingo game, with the center space representing pushups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My goal was to get through it without ever using the words ‘fitness” or ‘testing,’” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the pandemic drags on, some instructors are taking a similar approach to fitness remediation and acceleration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bragg likes a warmup called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86vTR7qc53M\">Touch Spots\u003c/a>,” in which first graders listen as the instructor reads off the name of a color, then run and touch a corresponding dot on the floor. It works on reaction time, cardiovascular endurance, spatial awareness and sequencing — but the kids don’t know that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students are having so much fun that they don’t realize how much fitness they are doing,” Bragg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Differentiation — tailoring instruction to meet individual students’ needs — has become even more essential, with former remote learners often lagging behind their in-person peers, Bragg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When playing catch, for example, he offers his students different sized balls — the smaller ones are more challenging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Potter, the California teacher, spent the first two weeks of school teaching his students how to connect with their partners, stressing the importance of eye contact and body language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you’re on Zoom, you look at the camera to make eye contact,” he said. “It’s a very different environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bragg reminds his students how to include kids who are standing on the sidelines, modeling excited body language and tone of voice. Lately, he’s noticed that kids who were remote last year are being excluded from groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Social interaction needs to be practiced, just like how to throw a ball,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richardson, the Kentucky PE teacher, is trying to build up her students’ stamina gradually, through progressively longer intervals of exercise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she works in a school with pods, so she sees each group of kids for five consecutive days, every third week. The two weeks in between, she has to hope that teachers will provide recess and “movement breaks.” She’s trying to get them to give kids breaks “when they get glassy-eyed and frustrated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Richardson was at a staff training session at which depleted teachers were “popping candy in the back.” When she raised her hand and requested a break in the training, her colleagues cheered. She told them to remember how they felt when their students return to the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always say, ‘If your bum is numb, your brain is the same,’” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Convincing classroom teachers to set aside more time for movement can be challenging, though. As students return from months of online learning, teachers are under enormous pressure to get them caught up academically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kate Cox, an elementary and middle-school PE teacher in California, wishes schools would “realize what they’re missing when they cut PE because of learning loss in other areas.” Physical education is “readying their minds and bodies to be more successful in other areas,” Cox said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Terri Drain, the president of SHAPE, argued that schools fail students when they treat physical learning loss as less serious than its academic counterpart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the primary grades, children develop fundamental motor skills, such as throwing, catching, running, kicking and jumping,” she said. Unless schools commit to helping kids catch up, “the impacts of this ‘missed learning’ will be lifelong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58724\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58724 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-160x213.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amtmanis, a 20-year veteran of the Middletown school district in Connecticut, is using running to help her students get back in shape. \u003ccite>(Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Connecticut, Amtmanis hasn’t given up on convincing teachers to carve out time for the Daily Mile. She recently sent them a list of suggestions on how to fit 15 minutes of running into the day, including by incorporating it as an active transition between academic blocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While it may seem like there aren’t minutes to spare,” she wrote, “the energizing effect of the active transition should result in more on-task behavior and more efficient working.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Amtmanis plans to keep using the mileage club to motivate her students to run and to monitor their progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to call attention to the fact that not everyone is fit,” she said. “This is an unobtrusive way to keep the data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/how-pe-teachers-are-tackling-physical-learning-loss/\">\u003cem>PE teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://eepurl.com/c36ixT\">\u003cem>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/how-pe-teachers-are-tackling-physical-learning-loss/\">\u003cem>PE teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://eepurl.com/c36ixT\">\u003cem>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amanda Amtmanis, an elementary physical education instructor in Middletown, Connecticut, handed out cards with QR codes to a class of third graders, and told them to start running.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The kids sprinted off around the baseball field in a light drizzle, but by the end of the first lap, a fifth of a mile, many were winded and walking. They paused to scan the cards, which track their mileage, on their teacher’s iPad and got some encouragement from an electronic coach — “Way to run your socks off!” or “Leave it all on the track!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A boy in a red Nike shirt surged ahead, telling Amtmanis his goal was to run 5 miles. “Whoa, look at Dominic!” another boy exclaimed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t need to compare ourselves to others,” Amtmanis reminded him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58725\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58725 size-large\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1020x765.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-800x600.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-160x120.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-768x576.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-09-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A fifth grader scans a QR code card that tracks his running mileage. \u003ccite>(Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The third graders finished a third lap, alternating running and walking, and were about to start on a scavenger hunt when the rain picked up, forcing them inside. Amtmanis thanked her students for their willingness to adjust — a skill many of them have practiced far more often than running these past 18 months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The full impact of the pandemic on kids’ health and fitness won’t be known for some time. But it’s already caused at least a short-term spike in \u003ca href=\"https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2783690?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jama.2021.15036\">childhood obesity\u003c/a> Rates of overweight and obesity in 5- through 11-year-olds rose nearly 10 percentage points in the first few months of 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amtmanis’ “mileage club,” which tracks students’ running, both in and out of school, and rewards them with Pokémon cards when they hit certain targets, is an example of how PE teachers around the country are trying to get kids back in shape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But inclement weather isn’t the only thing PE teachers are up against as they confront what might be called “physical learning loss.” Physical education as a discipline has long fought to be taken as seriously as its academic counterparts. Even before the pandemic, fewer than \u003ca href=\"https://www.shapeamerica.org/advocacy/son/upload/shape-of-the-nation-infographic1.pdf\">half the states\u003c/a> set any minimum amount of time for students to participate in physical education, according to the Society of Health and Physical Educators (SHAPE), which represents PE and health instructors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as schools scramble to help kids catch up academically, there are signs that PE is taking a back seat to the core subjects yet again. In some California schools, administrators are shifting instructional minutes from PE to academic subjects — or canceling class altogether so PE teachers can sub for classroom teachers; in others, they’re growing class sizes in the gym, so they can shrink them in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, innovative instructors like Amtmanis, who has worked in her district for more than 20 years, are struggling to get their ideas off the ground. Over the summer, the principal of Macdonough Elementary, one of two schools where Amtmanis teaches, approved her request to participate in another running program called The Daily Mile, in which kids walk or run 15 minutes a day during school hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Daily running breaks “boost attentiveness, which has positive effects on academics,” Amtmanis argued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But two weeks into the school year, not a single teacher had bought into the idea.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The issue is their packed schedule,” Amtmanis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, many schools conducted gym class remotely, with students joining in from their bedrooms and living rooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The online format presented several challenges. Many students lacked the equipment, space, or parental support to participate fully. And many instructors grappled with how to teach and assess motor skills and teamwork online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though instructors found \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/kids-are-shooting-hoops-with-rolled-up-socks-but-pandemic-phys-ed-is-not-cancelled/\">creative ways to keep students moving\u003c/a> — substituting rolled-up socks for balls, and “disguising fitness” in scavenger hunts and beat-the-teacher challenges — they still fretted that online gym wasn’t giving students the same benefits as in-person classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Compounding their concern was the fact that many students were also missing out on recess and extracurricular sports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a March 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1186/s12889-021-10545-x?sharing_token=ui-wbaHy2SbTtsoJXEPOwm_BpE1tBhCbnbw3BuzI2RM1aboLAUGnazRcnXea8sbbkng8EmA-rTgX2Py05VZsyMdgwZKEL8JOR344i7JDaP1EWZquEz9MeiWBHvXiNxyZMkI9qJvUWTZcFW0fD8iPN0kNNdBnX6Cr4UFu3AmDvS8%3D\">survey\u003c/a> conducted by the Cooper Institute, maker of the popular FitnessGram assessments, close to half the PE teachers and school and district administrators responding said their students were “significantly less” physically active during their schools’ closure than before it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schools that reopened last year faced their own set of challenges, including bans on shared equipment that made even a simple game of catch impossible. Schools that were open for in-person learning were also much more likely to cut back on PE instructional time, or eliminate it altogether, the survey found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The consequences of these reductions in physical activity are hard to quantify, especially since many schools suspended fitness testing during the pandemic and have yet to resume it, but some PE teachers say they’re seeing more kids with locomotor delays and weaker stamina than normal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The second graders are like first graders, and some are even like kindergarteners,” said Robin Richardson, an elementary PE instructor in Kentucky. They can jump and hop, she said, but they can’t leap. They’re exhausted after 20 seconds of jumping jacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An unusually high number of Richardson’s first graders can’t skip or do windmills. Some lack the spatial awareness that’s essential to group games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They don’t know how to move without running into each other,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other instructors are seeing an increase in cognitive issues, such as difficulty paying attention or following directions, particularly among kids who remained remote for most or all of last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kyle Bragg, an elementary PE instructor in Arizona, has seen kids sitting with their backs to him, staring off into space when he’s talking. “I say ‘Knees, please,’ so they spin around to face me,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And some PE teachers say their students’ social-emotional skills have suffered more than their gross motor skills. “They forgot how to share; how to be nice to each other; how to relate to each other,” said Donn Tobin, an elementary PE instructor in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PE has a key role to play in boosting those skills, which affect how kids interact in other classes, said Will Potter, an elementary PE teacher in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re uniquely situated to handle the social-emotional needs that came out of the pandemic, in a way classroom teachers are not,” Potter said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58726\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58726 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-07-scaled-e1636359729788.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amanda Amtmanis, the PE instructor at Macdonough Elementary, hands a fifth grader a card with a QR code for tracking her mileage. \u003ccite>(Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Amtmanis, for her part, worries about her students’ mental health. She sees the little signs of strain daily — the kid who got upset because he couldn’t pick his group, for example, and the one who was distressed that his Mileage Club card had gotten mixed up in the front office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their emotional reserves are low,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet not all instructors are reporting drops in their students’ fitness and skill development. Teachers in some middle- and upper-income districts said they haven’t noticed much of a change at all. In some communities, families seemed to spend more time outdoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We saw the skyrocketing sale of bicycles, we saw families going for walks,” said Dianne Wilson-Graham, executive director of the California Physical Education and Health Project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in Title I schools like Macdonough, where more than half the students are low-income, some kids didn’t even have access to a safe place to exercise or play during school closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not only are they not in soccer leagues, but sometimes they don’t even have a park,” Amtmanis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amtmanis came up with the idea of doing the Daily Mile after spring fitness tests revealed drops in her students’ strength, flexibility and endurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But many schools still aren’t sure how much physical learning loss their students have experienced as a result of the pandemic. Most schools pressed pause on fitness testing last year, and some elementary-school instructors are reluctant to restart it. They say the tests aren’t valid with young children, even in ordinary times, and argue the time they take could be better spent on Covid catch-up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Andjelka Pavlovic, director of research and education for the Cooper Institute, said its tests are scientifically proven to be valid for students who are 10 and up, or roughly starting in fourth grade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fitness testing requirements vary by state, county or even district. Some states specify how often students must be tested; others leave it largely to the teacher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bragg, the Arizona teacher, said he has put testing “on the backburner” because “right now it’s not at the forefront of what’s important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richardson said she is avoiding testing because she doesn’t want to use up precious instructional time or demoralize her students. “I want my kids to enjoy movement,” she said. If they perform poorly on the tests, “they may not feel as strong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Connecticut, where schools are required to test fourth graders’ fitness annually, Amtmanis approached testing cautiously last year. She didn’t want to embarrass her students, so she made it into a series of games.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of Sit-and-Reach, they had a “flexibility contest,” in which kids broke into teams for tag then had to perform stretches if they were tagged. She measured the distances stretched with curling ribbon, tied the ribbons together, and attached a balloon to the end. The team whose balloon soared the highest won fidget putty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pushups became a Bingo game, with the center space representing pushups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My goal was to get through it without ever using the words ‘fitness” or ‘testing,’” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the pandemic drags on, some instructors are taking a similar approach to fitness remediation and acceleration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bragg likes a warmup called “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86vTR7qc53M\">Touch Spots\u003c/a>,” in which first graders listen as the instructor reads off the name of a color, then run and touch a corresponding dot on the floor. It works on reaction time, cardiovascular endurance, spatial awareness and sequencing — but the kids don’t know that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Students are having so much fun that they don’t realize how much fitness they are doing,” Bragg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Differentiation — tailoring instruction to meet individual students’ needs — has become even more essential, with former remote learners often lagging behind their in-person peers, Bragg said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When playing catch, for example, he offers his students different sized balls — the smaller ones are more challenging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Potter, the California teacher, spent the first two weeks of school teaching his students how to connect with their partners, stressing the importance of eye contact and body language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When you’re on Zoom, you look at the camera to make eye contact,” he said. “It’s a very different environment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bragg reminds his students how to include kids who are standing on the sidelines, modeling excited body language and tone of voice. Lately, he’s noticed that kids who were remote last year are being excluded from groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Social interaction needs to be practiced, just like how to throw a ball,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richardson, the Kentucky PE teacher, is trying to build up her students’ stamina gradually, through progressively longer intervals of exercise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But she works in a school with pods, so she sees each group of kids for five consecutive days, every third week. The two weeks in between, she has to hope that teachers will provide recess and “movement breaks.” She’s trying to get them to give kids breaks “when they get glassy-eyed and frustrated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recently, Richardson was at a staff training session at which depleted teachers were “popping candy in the back.” When she raised her hand and requested a break in the training, her colleagues cheered. She told them to remember how they felt when their students return to the building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I always say, ‘If your bum is numb, your brain is the same,’” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Convincing classroom teachers to set aside more time for movement can be challenging, though. As students return from months of online learning, teachers are under enormous pressure to get them caught up academically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kate Cox, an elementary and middle-school PE teacher in California, wishes schools would “realize what they’re missing when they cut PE because of learning loss in other areas.” Physical education is “readying their minds and bodies to be more successful in other areas,” Cox said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Terri Drain, the president of SHAPE, argued that schools fail students when they treat physical learning loss as less serious than its academic counterpart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the primary grades, children develop fundamental motor skills, such as throwing, catching, running, kicking and jumping,” she said. Unless schools commit to helping kids catch up, “the impacts of this ‘missed learning’ will be lifelong.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58724\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58724 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2560\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-scaled.jpg 1920w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-1020x1360.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-160x213.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-1152x1536.jpg 1152w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/backtope-19-1536x2048.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amtmanis, a 20-year veteran of the Middletown school district in Connecticut, is using running to help her students get back in shape. \u003ccite>(Yunuen Bonaparte for The Hechinger Report)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In Connecticut, Amtmanis hasn’t given up on convincing teachers to carve out time for the Daily Mile. She recently sent them a list of suggestions on how to fit 15 minutes of running into the day, including by incorporating it as an active transition between academic blocks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While it may seem like there aren’t minutes to spare,” she wrote, “the energizing effect of the active transition should result in more on-task behavior and more efficient working.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the meantime, Amtmanis plans to keep using the mileage club to motivate her students to run and to monitor their progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to call attention to the fact that not everyone is fit,” she said. “This is an unobtrusive way to keep the data.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story about \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/how-pe-teachers-are-tackling-physical-learning-loss/\">\u003cem>PE teachers\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> was produced by \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://hechingerreport.org/\">\u003cem>The Hechinger Report\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://eepurl.com/c36ixT\">\u003cem>Hechinger’s newsletter\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Birthday parties and sleepovers are back as parents welcome COVID vaccine for kids",
"title": "Birthday parties and sleepovers are back as parents welcome COVID vaccine for kids",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>Sleepovers. Birthday parties. Long-awaited family reunions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are among the activities and gatherings that parents told NPR they hope to make possible for their kids following \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/11/02/1051301705/cdc-advisors-recommend-pfizers-covid-vaccine-for-children-ages-5-through-11\">a formal recommendation of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine\u003c/a> for children ages 5 to 11 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDC Director Rochelle Walensky \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/11/02/1051301705/cdc-advisors-recommend-pfizers-covid-vaccine-for-children-ages-5-through-11\">gave her recommendation\u003c/a> Tuesday evening, just a few hours after a panel advising the CDC voted unanimously to support the vaccine for the age group, and days after the Food and Drug Administration authorized its use for this age group. The latest \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/11/01/1051020063/the-covid-19-pandemic-has-killed-5-million-people-globally\">pandemic milestone\u003c/a> makes around 28 million kids in the U.S. eligible to receive the vaccine in a lower dose than what adults are given.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Living with less fear\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Many parents, including Eric Nichols and Nell Hathaway, expressed relief and hope that this would mark another step in the direction of normalcy. Their daughter Harper is 5, and though Nichols and Hathaway are both vaccinated, they say they're still limited in what they feel safe doing as a family until everyone has had their shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can't eat at restaurants or go to the children's museum ... here because of the risk,\" Hathaway says. \"It just really has limited her life.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes not being able to see family. Nichols says it's been two years since they've seen his side of the family in Ohio. But they're planning to make the trip from Olympia, Wash. this year, and Nichols says it will \"be a very big day when we get to hug them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hathaway says it's been nearly two years of living with constant stress over the pandemic. Not all of that will go away, but she's looking forward to having less fear once Harper is vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Seeing family in Ohio is really important and it's kind of scary,\" they say. \"We're going this November for Thanksgiving, but we're really hoping to at least get the first shot before then, because the relief of our safety is just greatly reduced when she has it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of that relief came Wednesday morning when they were able to secure an appointment for Harper for next Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58716\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58716 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/gettyimages-1236330198-91b44aef5ea035b6739352c029cbf645f94b2f05-scaled-e1636098838918.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Natasha Greaves holds her daughter, Laila Greaves, 5, after Laila received a Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in Shoreline, Wash. \u003ccite>(David Ryder/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Families with kids under 5\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The latest vaccine authorization and CDC guidance means that some families may be completely vaccinated. But in many families, not all children are old enough to receive the vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mabel Cordero Leathem is a mom to a 6-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. She says she and her husband have been following the news leading up to this moment closely, and are excited to soon have one more family member vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cordero Leathem says she's looking forward to giving her daughter the childhood rite of passage that is a sleepover with a friend (whose family is also vaccinated).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know, you can have playdates ... but to me the idea of having another child [from another family] in my home, you know, making them breakfast, sharing our air ... that's like the closest you can get, right? And it's just so joyful,\" she says. \"I'm ready for that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family will remain cautious because of their son who's not yet eligible for a vaccine, Cordero Leathem says. But this current phase will give their daughter \"that little bit of extra freedom\" to enjoy her friendships without as much anxiety.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The parents who plan to wait\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>While some parents are planning to vaccinate their kids as soon as possible, others are \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049923897/parents-covid-19-children-vaccine-fda-cdc\">planning to wait a little\u003c/a> bit before scheduling those shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-october-2021/\">recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey \u003c/a>showed how parents feel about vaccinating the 5-11 age group varies widely. Nearly a third of parents said they were eager to secure a vaccine for their child in this age group upon authorization. Another third said they \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049923897/parents-covid-19-children-vaccine-fda-cdc\">wanted to wait and see\u003c/a> how the vaccine works in this age group before scheduling their own appointments. And the last third of parents said they do not plan on getting their child the vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Greenville, N.C., Heather Gilbert and her husband, who works in family medicine, fall more into the second group of parents who are waiting to see how the vaccine does in a larger group of kids, specifically when it comes to side effects like myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation. The side effect has shown to be rare after COVID vaccinations, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/media/153514/download\">the CDC reporting 877 confirmed cases\u003c/a> in people 30 or younger with no resulting deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We just want to wait until there is more of a population that's been recorded and studied to make sure that the side effects — the adverse side effects — aren't outweighing the benefits for the vaccine,\" Gilbert says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilbert says she is supportive of parents who do want to get their kids vaccinated immediately, but that the risk calculus for her family is slightly different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both she and her husband are fully vaccinated, and the couple's two daughters, ages 6 and 7, are homeschooled. Gilbert says they wear masks when in indoor spaces and all of their playdates are outside. But overall, they're not in environments with large groups of people indoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family does belong to a large church, but because of a lack of masks on parents and kids, they've continued attending worship virtually, Gilbert says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she'd like to get her girls back to in-person church sooner rather than later and hopes to revisit the conversation on COVID vaccinations at the beginning of the new year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We know that vaccines, what they're given, have a pretty quick turnaround for reaction time, so it shouldn't take that long once people start getting their children vaccinated to see whether there are a substantial amount of adverse side effects or not,\" Gilbert says. \"I'm hoping by the beginning of January we can revisit that topic after a couple hundred thousand children have been vaccinated, and there's a larger population that's been looked at.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>For this story, we reached out to our audience and heard from more than 3,000 parents on what they're planning to do when it comes to vaccinating their kids in the 5-11 year-old age group, and from parents who have kids that are not yet eligible for a vaccine.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Birthday+parties+and+sleepovers+are+back+as+parents+welcome+COVID+vaccine+for+kids&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "After months of waiting, many parents of kids ages 5 to 11 expressed relief and joy when the CDC gave its recommendation for Pfizer's vaccine to be made available to that age group.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Sleepovers. Birthday parties. Long-awaited family reunions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those are among the activities and gatherings that parents told NPR they hope to make possible for their kids following \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/11/02/1051301705/cdc-advisors-recommend-pfizers-covid-vaccine-for-children-ages-5-through-11\">a formal recommendation of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine\u003c/a> for children ages 5 to 11 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDC Director Rochelle Walensky \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/11/02/1051301705/cdc-advisors-recommend-pfizers-covid-vaccine-for-children-ages-5-through-11\">gave her recommendation\u003c/a> Tuesday evening, just a few hours after a panel advising the CDC voted unanimously to support the vaccine for the age group, and days after the Food and Drug Administration authorized its use for this age group. The latest \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/11/01/1051020063/the-covid-19-pandemic-has-killed-5-million-people-globally\">pandemic milestone\u003c/a> makes around 28 million kids in the U.S. eligible to receive the vaccine in a lower dose than what adults are given.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Living with less fear\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Many parents, including Eric Nichols and Nell Hathaway, expressed relief and hope that this would mark another step in the direction of normalcy. Their daughter Harper is 5, and though Nichols and Hathaway are both vaccinated, they say they're still limited in what they feel safe doing as a family until everyone has had their shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You can't eat at restaurants or go to the children's museum ... here because of the risk,\" Hathaway says. \"It just really has limited her life.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That includes not being able to see family. Nichols says it's been two years since they've seen his side of the family in Ohio. But they're planning to make the trip from Olympia, Wash. this year, and Nichols says it will \"be a very big day when we get to hug them.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hathaway says it's been nearly two years of living with constant stress over the pandemic. Not all of that will go away, but she's looking forward to having less fear once Harper is vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Seeing family in Ohio is really important and it's kind of scary,\" they say. \"We're going this November for Thanksgiving, but we're really hoping to at least get the first shot before then, because the relief of our safety is just greatly reduced when she has it.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of that relief came Wednesday morning when they were able to secure an appointment for Harper for next Monday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58716\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"wp-image-58716 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/11/gettyimages-1236330198-91b44aef5ea035b6739352c029cbf645f94b2f05-scaled-e1636098838918.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Natasha Greaves holds her daughter, Laila Greaves, 5, after Laila received a Pfizer-BioNtech COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday in Shoreline, Wash. \u003ccite>(David Ryder/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch3>Families with kids under 5\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The latest vaccine authorization and CDC guidance means that some families may be completely vaccinated. But in many families, not all children are old enough to receive the vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mabel Cordero Leathem is a mom to a 6-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son. She says she and her husband have been following the news leading up to this moment closely, and are excited to soon have one more family member vaccinated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cordero Leathem says she's looking forward to giving her daughter the childhood rite of passage that is a sleepover with a friend (whose family is also vaccinated).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"You know, you can have playdates ... but to me the idea of having another child [from another family] in my home, you know, making them breakfast, sharing our air ... that's like the closest you can get, right? And it's just so joyful,\" she says. \"I'm ready for that.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family will remain cautious because of their son who's not yet eligible for a vaccine, Cordero Leathem says. But this current phase will give their daughter \"that little bit of extra freedom\" to enjoy her friendships without as much anxiety.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The parents who plan to wait\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>While some parents are planning to vaccinate their kids as soon as possible, others are \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049923897/parents-covid-19-children-vaccine-fda-cdc\">planning to wait a little\u003c/a> bit before scheduling those shots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/kff-covid-19-vaccine-monitor-october-2021/\">recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey \u003c/a>showed how parents feel about vaccinating the 5-11 age group varies widely. Nearly a third of parents said they were eager to secure a vaccine for their child in this age group upon authorization. Another third said they \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1049923897/parents-covid-19-children-vaccine-fda-cdc\">wanted to wait and see\u003c/a> how the vaccine works in this age group before scheduling their own appointments. And the last third of parents said they do not plan on getting their child the vaccine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Greenville, N.C., Heather Gilbert and her husband, who works in family medicine, fall more into the second group of parents who are waiting to see how the vaccine does in a larger group of kids, specifically when it comes to side effects like myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation. The side effect has shown to be rare after COVID vaccinations, with \u003ca href=\"https://www.fda.gov/media/153514/download\">the CDC reporting 877 confirmed cases\u003c/a> in people 30 or younger with no resulting deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We just want to wait until there is more of a population that's been recorded and studied to make sure that the side effects — the adverse side effects — aren't outweighing the benefits for the vaccine,\" Gilbert says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gilbert says she is supportive of parents who do want to get their kids vaccinated immediately, but that the risk calculus for her family is slightly different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both she and her husband are fully vaccinated, and the couple's two daughters, ages 6 and 7, are homeschooled. Gilbert says they wear masks when in indoor spaces and all of their playdates are outside. But overall, they're not in environments with large groups of people indoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The family does belong to a large church, but because of a lack of masks on parents and kids, they've continued attending worship virtually, Gilbert says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She says she'd like to get her girls back to in-person church sooner rather than later and hopes to revisit the conversation on COVID vaccinations at the beginning of the new year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"We know that vaccines, what they're given, have a pretty quick turnaround for reaction time, so it shouldn't take that long once people start getting their children vaccinated to see whether there are a substantial amount of adverse side effects or not,\" Gilbert says. \"I'm hoping by the beginning of January we can revisit that topic after a couple hundred thousand children have been vaccinated, and there's a larger population that's been looked at.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>For this story, we reached out to our audience and heard from more than 3,000 parents on what they're planning to do when it comes to vaccinating their kids in the 5-11 year-old age group, and from parents who have kids that are not yet eligible for a vaccine.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Birthday+parties+and+sleepovers+are+back+as+parents+welcome+COVID+vaccine+for+kids&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Kids are losing school days to quarantines. Here's a way to keep them in classrooms",
"title": "Kids are losing school days to quarantines. Here's a way to keep them in classrooms",
"headTitle": "MindShift | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cp>Brayan has spent only one uninterrupted week in fifth grade since classes started in early August. His charter school has sent him home six separate times to quarantine because of exposure to COVID-19, though he has never tested positive. He's struggling to keep up with his lessons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Yesterday he was crying. He says he wants to go to school, he wants to be smart, he wants to learn, but he can't,\" says his father, José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brayan is the second of five siblings. His family emigrated from Mexico, and his parents run a restaurant in Nashville, Tenn. NPR isn't using his family's last name to protect his privacy as a minor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brayan's is an extreme case, but quarantines are keeping many children home this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a student tests positive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-contact-tracing/about-quarantine.html\">recommends\u003c/a> sending the infected student and all unvaccinated close contacts home from school for 14 days. In communities with lots of cases, that can quickly add up to thousands or even millions of lost in-person school days combined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization Burbio, which \u003ca href=\"https://info.burbio.com/school-tracker-update-latest/\">has been tracking this\u003c/a>, estimates at least 2,200 schools have closed entirely since the beginning of the school year. In late August, the state of Mississippi reported it had \u003ca href=\"https://www.mississippifreepress.org/15173/mississippi-has-quarantined-15-of-all-k-12-students-for-covid-cases-or-exposures/\">already quarantined 15% of its students\u003c/a>. And reports from around the country suggest tens of thousands of students have been out on quarantine at various points in the still-new school year: \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/over-23000-metro-atlanta-students-quarantine-weeks-into-school-year/6FP3J5IHTBBAJMOTQDBWCGE65U/\">more than 23,000\u003c/a> students and school staff in the Atlanta metro area; \u003ca href=\"https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/569565-at-least-90-thousand-students-have-had-to-quarantine-because-of-covid-19-so\">at least 7,500\u003c/a> students and staff members in the New Orleans area, \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2021/9/14/22674471/cps-students-quarantine-covid-exposure-public-schools\">more than 5,600\u003c/a> students in Chicago; and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rock-hill-students-quarantined-school-year/275-850446ef-74e2-4969-9306-ae126805eabc\">4,790 students\u003c/a> in Rock Hill, S.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is a safe alternative to all these disruptions that could reduce quarantines without increasing spread: more testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Test-to-stay could dramatically reduce close contact quarantines\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Community spread of COVID-19 is still \u003ca href=\"https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_community\">considered high in every U.S. state\u003c/a> but California and Connecticut. Schools have been gradually softening their quarantine rules as they face the reality of sending home hundreds or thousands of students for weeks at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the few weeks since their school years started, New York City; Philadelphia; Montgomery County, Md.; Anchorage, Alaska; and several other locations around the country have loosened quarantine restrictions, \u003ca href=\"https://info.burbio.com/school-tracker-update-sept-27-21/\">according to Burbio\u003c/a>. In Florida, for example, schools may notify close contacts but \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/22/1039907024/florida-quarantine-optional-for-students-exposed-covid\">quarantine is optional\u003c/a> for families as of Sept. 22. In Utah, instead of staying home to quarantine, close contacts can attend school as long as they wear a mask. (Masking in Utah is optional for other students and for staff members.) But there is a fear that these policies could allow cases to spread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDC guidance does provide \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/scientific-brief-options-to-reduce-quarantine.html\">an alternative to 14-day quarantines\u003c/a> in its general population guidance: It says that if there's sufficient testing available, it's permissible to shorten quarantines of close contacts to seven days, as long as there are no symptoms and a COVID-19 test taken within 48 hours of the seventh day comes back negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some places are trying to reduce quarantines even further by swabbing more noses. The state of Massachusetts has a\u003ca href=\"https://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/testing/\"> \"Test and Stay\" program\u003c/a> in which close contacts come to school and take a rapid test every day for five school days. They can stay at school as long as they remain negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's research to back what Massachusetts is doing. A peer-reviewed, randomized controlled trial \u003ca href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01908-5/fulltext\">conducted in the U.K.\u003c/a> last spring found that a similar test-to-stay policy with daily testing for seven days was just as effective as a 10-day quarantine in preventing COVID-19 spread in high schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If used widely, test-to-stay could prevent millions of students from missing school days by the end of the year. But access to rapid tests, and in particular the nurses or other staff to administer them, is not equal everywhere in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's an incredibly difficult lift,\" says Maggie Graul, the K-12 COVID-19 testing program manager for the Utah Department of Health. Students in her state are allowed to take a test at day seven either to come back from quarantine or to take off their masks, but few are doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How quarantines can hurt student progress\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As in Brayan's case, repeated quarantines can mean a lot of lost learning time. Schools don't always have remote learning plans that can snap into place instantly when individual students are sent home unexpectedly. And parents lose child care, again unexpectedly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quarantines make it harder for students to settle into the routines of in-person learning and make up for lost time, says Bree Dusseault. She's been tracking school reopening plans for the Center on Reinventing Public Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you imagine some number of students, possibly each day, having to go home due to new exposures, it makes it really, really hard for teachers and staff to apply the learning strategies that we know are necessary to help catch kids up from the last two school years of losses.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She points out that \"chronic absenteeism\" is typically defined as missing 10% of school days in a year, or 18 days of school. It's considered an important risk factor for failing school and dropping out. A student sent home repeatedly on quarantine with no live teaching may be similarly at risk of disengaging from school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, test-to-return policies may be an inequitable solution if districts don't have easy access to tests. Dusseault says students from high-income families may be able to afford to take a test privately to return to class earlier, while those from low-income families in the same district have to stay home for the full 10 days or two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brayan's parents have had trouble taking him to be tested, not only because of the expense but because they work such long hours and have younger children to take care of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Brayan did fine in virtual learning over Zoom. But during these repeated quarantines, he's only gotten homework assignments to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They don't call on the phone to explain it, nothing,\" says his father, José. \"How is he going to learn if there's no one to teach him?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>José doesn't feel able to help Brayan because he completed only six years of education in Mexico. The school has already sent a letter home for Brayan's parents to sign saying that he is in danger of failing two of his classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Kids+are+losing+school+days+to+quarantines.+Here%27s+a+way+to+keep+them+in+classrooms&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Test-to-stay policies could help keep students in in-person school. But amid a national shortage, rapid tests can be hard to come by, and the practice isn't common. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Brayan has spent only one uninterrupted week in fifth grade since classes started in early August. His charter school has sent him home six separate times to quarantine because of exposure to COVID-19, though he has never tested positive. He's struggling to keep up with his lessons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Yesterday he was crying. He says he wants to go to school, he wants to be smart, he wants to learn, but he can't,\" says his father, José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brayan is the second of five siblings. His family emigrated from Mexico, and his parents run a restaurant in Nashville, Tenn. NPR isn't using his family's last name to protect his privacy as a minor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brayan's is an extreme case, but quarantines are keeping many children home this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When a student tests positive, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-contact-tracing/about-quarantine.html\">recommends\u003c/a> sending the infected student and all unvaccinated close contacts home from school for 14 days. In communities with lots of cases, that can quickly add up to thousands or even millions of lost in-person school days combined.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The organization Burbio, which \u003ca href=\"https://info.burbio.com/school-tracker-update-latest/\">has been tracking this\u003c/a>, estimates at least 2,200 schools have closed entirely since the beginning of the school year. In late August, the state of Mississippi reported it had \u003ca href=\"https://www.mississippifreepress.org/15173/mississippi-has-quarantined-15-of-all-k-12-students-for-covid-cases-or-exposures/\">already quarantined 15% of its students\u003c/a>. And reports from around the country suggest tens of thousands of students have been out on quarantine at various points in the still-new school year: \u003ca href=\"https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/over-23000-metro-atlanta-students-quarantine-weeks-into-school-year/6FP3J5IHTBBAJMOTQDBWCGE65U/\">more than 23,000\u003c/a> students and school staff in the Atlanta metro area; \u003ca href=\"https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/569565-at-least-90-thousand-students-have-had-to-quarantine-because-of-covid-19-so\">at least 7,500\u003c/a> students and staff members in the New Orleans area, \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2021/9/14/22674471/cps-students-quarantine-covid-exposure-public-schools\">more than 5,600\u003c/a> students in Chicago; and \u003ca href=\"https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/rock-hill-students-quarantined-school-year/275-850446ef-74e2-4969-9306-ae126805eabc\">4,790 students\u003c/a> in Rock Hill, S.C.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is a safe alternative to all these disruptions that could reduce quarantines without increasing spread: more testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Test-to-stay could dramatically reduce close contact quarantines\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Community spread of COVID-19 is still \u003ca href=\"https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_community\">considered high in every U.S. state\u003c/a> but California and Connecticut. Schools have been gradually softening their quarantine rules as they face the reality of sending home hundreds or thousands of students for weeks at a time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the few weeks since their school years started, New York City; Philadelphia; Montgomery County, Md.; Anchorage, Alaska; and several other locations around the country have loosened quarantine restrictions, \u003ca href=\"https://info.burbio.com/school-tracker-update-sept-27-21/\">according to Burbio\u003c/a>. In Florida, for example, schools may notify close contacts but \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/22/1039907024/florida-quarantine-optional-for-students-exposed-covid\">quarantine is optional\u003c/a> for families as of Sept. 22. In Utah, instead of staying home to quarantine, close contacts can attend school as long as they wear a mask. (Masking in Utah is optional for other students and for staff members.) But there is a fear that these policies could allow cases to spread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDC guidance does provide \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/scientific-brief-options-to-reduce-quarantine.html\">an alternative to 14-day quarantines\u003c/a> in its general population guidance: It says that if there's sufficient testing available, it's permissible to shorten quarantines of close contacts to seven days, as long as there are no symptoms and a COVID-19 test taken within 48 hours of the seventh day comes back negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some places are trying to reduce quarantines even further by swabbing more noses. The state of Massachusetts has a\u003ca href=\"https://www.doe.mass.edu/covid19/testing/\"> \"Test and Stay\" program\u003c/a> in which close contacts come to school and take a rapid test every day for five school days. They can stay at school as long as they remain negative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There's research to back what Massachusetts is doing. A peer-reviewed, randomized controlled trial \u003ca href=\"https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01908-5/fulltext\">conducted in the U.K.\u003c/a> last spring found that a similar test-to-stay policy with daily testing for seven days was just as effective as a 10-day quarantine in preventing COVID-19 spread in high schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If used widely, test-to-stay could prevent millions of students from missing school days by the end of the year. But access to rapid tests, and in particular the nurses or other staff to administer them, is not equal everywhere in the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"It's an incredibly difficult lift,\" says Maggie Graul, the K-12 COVID-19 testing program manager for the Utah Department of Health. Students in her state are allowed to take a test at day seven either to come back from quarantine or to take off their masks, but few are doing so.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>How quarantines can hurt student progress\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>As in Brayan's case, repeated quarantines can mean a lot of lost learning time. Schools don't always have remote learning plans that can snap into place instantly when individual students are sent home unexpectedly. And parents lose child care, again unexpectedly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Quarantines make it harder for students to settle into the routines of in-person learning and make up for lost time, says Bree Dusseault. She's been tracking school reopening plans for the Center on Reinventing Public Education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"If you imagine some number of students, possibly each day, having to go home due to new exposures, it makes it really, really hard for teachers and staff to apply the learning strategies that we know are necessary to help catch kids up from the last two school years of losses.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She points out that \"chronic absenteeism\" is typically defined as missing 10% of school days in a year, or 18 days of school. It's considered an important risk factor for failing school and dropping out. A student sent home repeatedly on quarantine with no live teaching may be similarly at risk of disengaging from school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, test-to-return policies may be an inequitable solution if districts don't have easy access to tests. Dusseault says students from high-income families may be able to afford to take a test privately to return to class earlier, while those from low-income families in the same district have to stay home for the full 10 days or two weeks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brayan's parents have had trouble taking him to be tested, not only because of the expense but because they work such long hours and have younger children to take care of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, Brayan did fine in virtual learning over Zoom. But during these repeated quarantines, he's only gotten homework assignments to complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"They don't call on the phone to explain it, nothing,\" says his father, José. \"How is he going to learn if there's no one to teach him?\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>José doesn't feel able to help Brayan because he completed only six years of education in Mexico. The school has already sent a letter home for Brayan's parents to sign saying that he is in danger of failing two of his classes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Kids+are+losing+school+days+to+quarantines.+Here%27s+a+way+to+keep+them+in+classrooms&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Of all the sad statistics the U.S. has dealt with this past year and a half, here is a particularly difficult one: A new study estimates that more than 140,000 children in the U.S. have lost a parent or a grandparent caregiver to COVID-19. The majority of these children come from racial and ethnic minority groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This means that for every four COVID-19 deaths, one child was left behind without a mother, father and/or a grandparent who provided for that child's home needs and nurture — needs such as love, security and daily care,\" says Susan Hillis, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and lead author of the new study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study, which was published Thursday in t\u003ca href=\"https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2021/10/06/peds.2021-053760\">he journal \u003cem>Pediatrics\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, estimated the number of losses from April 1, 2020, through the end of June 2021 at 140,000. And that number has risen in the past three months: Hillis estimates it is around 175,000 today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This number will continue to grow as long as our pandemic deaths increase,\" Hillis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>These children are going to need support\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Once a child loses their parent or primary caregiver, Hillis says, the tragedy is something they live with for \"the entire duration of their childhoods.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's a situation that calls for urgent action, Hillis notes. These children need \"understanding, help, support,\" she says. And it's important \"to ensure that they have a safe and loving family to continue to support their needs and nurture.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, just as COVID-19 has killed more people in communities of color, children in these communities are the most impacted by the loss of parents and primary caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Sixty-five percent of all children experiencing COVID-associated orphanhood or death of their primary caregiver are of racial and ethnic minority,\" says Hillis. \"That is such an extreme disparity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study defines orphanhood as the death of one or both parents. The study also tracked the loss of caregiving grandparents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you look more closely at individual groups, American Indian and Alaska Native children were 4.5 times more likely to have lost a primary caregiver compared with white children. Black children were 2.4 times more likely and Hispanic children almost twice as likely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Losing a parent or caregiver in childhood is a significant trauma. The study notes that this type of adverse childhood experience \"may result in profound long-term impact on health and well-being for children.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Adverse childhood experiences are associated with increased risks of every major cause of death in adulthood,\" says Hillis.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Losing a parent has other long-term effects\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>And in the short term, the impact of losing a parent or primary caregiver can lead to mental health crises for kids, including increased suicide risk, Hillis says, and \"increased exposure to sexual, physical and emotional violence and exploitation.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in terms of life outcomes, a body of earlier research shows that losing a parent can put kids at a higher risk of economic, food and housing insecurity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This adds a new layer of risk to kids in communities of color, which are already disadvantaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These communities experience inequities in access to health care, housing, education, and other factors that contribute to children's well-being, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/warren-y-ng-md\">Dr. Warren Ng\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who primarily works with kids in communities of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The numbers don't tell the full stories,\" he says. \"The full story is really in the lives and the affected future of these children and adolescents and their families.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Many children didn't even get to say goodbye\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Mental health care providers who are seeing the mental health effects of the pandemic on kids say these losses are particularly traumatic. Ng says even grieving has been difficult for them — many didn't even get to see their parents or grandparents in the hospital, or say goodbye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One of the things that's unique about the pandemic is that it's also not only deprived us of a loved one, but it's also deprived us of our opportunities that come together, so that families can heal, [and] support one another in order to really get through the most difficult times of life,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study authors also call for policy action. \"What we are proposing is that there be serious consideration to adding a fourth pillar to our COVID response, and that fourth pillar would be called care for children,\" says Hillis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This would involve finding resources and coming up with systems for \"finding the children, assessing how they are doing and linking them to appropriate care,\" she says, and strengthening economic support for families who care for the children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data highlighted here, especially the racial and ethnic inequities, \"really does demand an urgent and effective response for all children,\" Hillis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=COVID+deaths+leave+thousands+of+U.S.+kids+grieving+parents+or+primary+caregivers&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Of all the sad statistics the U.S. has dealt with this past year and a half, here is a particularly difficult one: A new study estimates that more than 140,000 children in the U.S. have lost a parent or a grandparent caregiver to COVID-19. The majority of these children come from racial and ethnic minority groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This means that for every four COVID-19 deaths, one child was left behind without a mother, father and/or a grandparent who provided for that child's home needs and nurture — needs such as love, security and daily care,\" says Susan Hillis, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and lead author of the new study.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study, which was published Thursday in t\u003ca href=\"https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2021/10/06/peds.2021-053760\">he journal \u003cem>Pediatrics\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, estimated the number of losses from April 1, 2020, through the end of June 2021 at 140,000. And that number has risen in the past three months: Hillis estimates it is around 175,000 today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"This number will continue to grow as long as our pandemic deaths increase,\" Hillis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>These children are going to need support\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Once a child loses their parent or primary caregiver, Hillis says, the tragedy is something they live with for \"the entire duration of their childhoods.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It's a situation that calls for urgent action, Hillis notes. These children need \"understanding, help, support,\" she says. And it's important \"to ensure that they have a safe and loving family to continue to support their needs and nurture.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And, just as COVID-19 has killed more people in communities of color, children in these communities are the most impacted by the loss of parents and primary caregivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Sixty-five percent of all children experiencing COVID-associated orphanhood or death of their primary caregiver are of racial and ethnic minority,\" says Hillis. \"That is such an extreme disparity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study defines orphanhood as the death of one or both parents. The study also tracked the loss of caregiving grandparents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And if you look more closely at individual groups, American Indian and Alaska Native children were 4.5 times more likely to have lost a primary caregiver compared with white children. Black children were 2.4 times more likely and Hispanic children almost twice as likely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Losing a parent or caregiver in childhood is a significant trauma. The study notes that this type of adverse childhood experience \"may result in profound long-term impact on health and well-being for children.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"Adverse childhood experiences are associated with increased risks of every major cause of death in adulthood,\" says Hillis.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Losing a parent has other long-term effects\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>And in the short term, the impact of losing a parent or primary caregiver can lead to mental health crises for kids, including increased suicide risk, Hillis says, and \"increased exposure to sexual, physical and emotional violence and exploitation.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in terms of life outcomes, a body of earlier research shows that losing a parent can put kids at a higher risk of economic, food and housing insecurity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This adds a new layer of risk to kids in communities of color, which are already disadvantaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These communities experience inequities in access to health care, housing, education, and other factors that contribute to children's well-being, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/profile/warren-y-ng-md\">Dr. Warren Ng\u003c/a>, a psychiatrist at Columbia University who primarily works with kids in communities of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The numbers don't tell the full stories,\" he says. \"The full story is really in the lives and the affected future of these children and adolescents and their families.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Many children didn't even get to say goodbye\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Mental health care providers who are seeing the mental health effects of the pandemic on kids say these losses are particularly traumatic. Ng says even grieving has been difficult for them — many didn't even get to see their parents or grandparents in the hospital, or say goodbye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"One of the things that's unique about the pandemic is that it's also not only deprived us of a loved one, but it's also deprived us of our opportunities that come together, so that families can heal, [and] support one another in order to really get through the most difficult times of life,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The study authors also call for policy action. \"What we are proposing is that there be serious consideration to adding a fourth pillar to our COVID response, and that fourth pillar would be called care for children,\" says Hillis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This would involve finding resources and coming up with systems for \"finding the children, assessing how they are doing and linking them to appropriate care,\" she says, and strengthening economic support for families who care for the children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data highlighted here, especially the racial and ethnic inequities, \"really does demand an urgent and effective response for all children,\" Hillis says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=COVID+deaths+leave+thousands+of+U.S.+kids+grieving+parents+or+primary+caregivers&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It's the kind of news story that keeps parents of school-age children up at night: Kids go to school, dutifully wear masks, and still half the class ends up infected with the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's what happened this past spring at an elementary school in Marin County, Calif. The school seemed to be taking all the right precautions against COVID-19 transmission. Teachers and students were required to be masked while indoors. Student desks were spaced 6 feet apart. Doors and windows were left open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, when an unvaccinated teacher who had mild allergy-like symptoms briefly removed their mask to read out loud to the class, the result was a classroom outbreak. All told, 27 cases were identified, including infections in other classrooms. None of the infections resulted in severe cases, and no kids were hospitalized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"For me, the takeaway of this story really is that even just momentary short, brief lapses in, you know, taking off a mask can open up an opportunity for delta to escape through,\" says Tracy Lam-Hine, the Marin County epidemiologist who authored \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e2.htm\">the report\u003c/a> on the outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And because delta is so contagious, more than twice as contagious as the original strain of the virus, according to studies, experts say it's more critical than ever that schools deploy multiple layers of precautions to curb the spread of the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the strategies experts recommend for safer classrooms:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1.\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Create a protective cocoon around children - with vaccines: \u003c/strong>Because children younger than 12 are still not eligible to get a covid vaccine, public health experts say it's essential that anybody who spends time indoors with kids in this age group get vaccinated. That includes adults and vaccine eligible children age 12 and up. This creates a kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/07/09/1014543918/coronavirus-faq-whats-the-latest-advice-to-protect-kids-in-school-and-on-vacatio\">protective cocoon \u003c/a>around unvaccinated kids. Lam-Hine says the California elementary school outbreak underscores why this is so important. The teacher at the center of the outbreak was not vaccinated. If they had been, \"that potentially could have prevented some of this,\" says Lam-Hine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://pediatrics.wustl.edu/faculty/Newland_J\">Dr. Jason Newland\u003c/a>, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Washington University in St. Louis, points to\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01407-5\"> data from Israel\u003c/a> showing that the more adults got vaccinated, the fewer kids got the virus. \"They actually drove down their rates [of infections] in kids, which I think just goes to show the cocooning thing works,\" Newland says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2\u003c/strong>. \u003cstrong> Enforce mask wearing – and wear good masks: \u003c/strong>When schools enforce universal masking, studies show they can successfully curb the spread of the virus. Unpublished data from summer schools in North Carolina found that good masking helped keep transmission of the delta variant down to below 3%, according to \u003ca href=\"https://dcasip.medicine.duke.edu/staff/ibukun-c-kalu-md\">Dr. Ibukun Kalu \u003c/a>of Duke University, one of the researchers on \u003ca href=\"https://abcsciencecollaborative.org/\">that project\u003c/a>. Because the delta variant spreads much more easily, experts say it's more important than ever that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/24/1029503990/best-face-masks-for-kids-focus-on-comfort-and-a-snug-fit\">kids wear good masks\u003c/a> – ones that are comfortable, fit properly (without big gaps around the face) and do a good job of filtration. Here's a list of some kids \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tbFFi-mKyDCKkqlqLza28hMVJb7-U3cBwkeOAHhQlHI/edit#gid=697284395\">masks recommended by aerosols experts\u003c/a> at Virginia Tech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58453\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58453\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/09/windows_wide-0bc8adaa92242c7559fe8b4d96ba0d7a77062c04-scaled-e1630685199569.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keeping doors and windows open to create cross ventilation is important in dispersing viral particles. \u003ccite>(Sonja Jordan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3.\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Improve indoor ventilation: \u003c/strong>The coronavirus spreads primarily through the air. Viral particles can accumulate indoors and linger, sometimes for hours — think of it like cigarette smoke, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.colorado.edu/chemistry/jose-luis-jimenez\">Jose-Luis Jimenez,\u003c/a> a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and aerosols scientist. When a smoker lights up, at first the smoke just hovers around them. \"But after half an hour ... the whole room is filled with smoke,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to clear smoke from a room, you open the windows and doors. The same thing holds true when it comes to dispersing infectious particles – opening windows and doors creates cross ventilation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jimenez recommends that every school test how well each room is ventilated by using a portable nondispersive infrared (NDIR) carbon dioxide meter. That's because CO2 is a useful proxy for infectious aerosols. People are constantly exhaling CO2, and, like aerosols, the gas can get trapped inside a room. So if the CO2 levels are too high, that means not enough air is flowing in and out of the room. You want to keep indoor CO2 levels under 700 parts per million, Jimenez says. If the levels are much higher, turn to other strategies to improve the room's ventilation, like keeping windows and doors open whenever students are in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost of a good NDIR CO2 meter starts at roughly $90, Jimenez says. Cheaper CO2 monitors that don't use NDIR technology are available, but he warns that they don't really work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. \u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Use portable air filters: \u003c/strong>Portable HEPA filters are effective at removing virus particles from a room, Jimenez says. Make sure the air filter you buy is large enough for the classroom, keep it at the highest setting and, he says, place it in the center of the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also buy several smaller air filters and put them around the classroom, he says. (For more on buying high-quality air filters and improving classroom ventilation and filtration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpr.org/2021/08/27/colorado-schools-covid-air-filtration/\">check out this in-depth post from Colorado Public Radio.)\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5.\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Take things outdoors whenever possible – especially during lunch\u003c/strong>: Jimenez and many other experts urge schools to have activities outdoors as much as they can — especially during lunch, a vulnerable time when kids are unmasked en masse. If kids must eat indoors, open windows, use portable air filters, reduce eating time and space students out as much as possible. Also, try to keep them from talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Physical distancing still matters: \u003c/strong>Experts say that schools should continue to keep three feet of distance between students. But, they note, in many public schools that have reopened at full capacity, that's just not happening. Which is one more reason why schools should focus their energy on these other strategies, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think our foundational protective element here is vaccination,\" Kalu says, \"and we're layering other things on top of it in schools.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=6+Strategies+To+Make+Classrooms+Safer+As+The+Delta+Variant+Spreads+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It's the kind of news story that keeps parents of school-age children up at night: Kids go to school, dutifully wear masks, and still half the class ends up infected with the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That's what happened this past spring at an elementary school in Marin County, Calif. The school seemed to be taking all the right precautions against COVID-19 transmission. Teachers and students were required to be masked while indoors. Student desks were spaced 6 feet apart. Doors and windows were left open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, when an unvaccinated teacher who had mild allergy-like symptoms briefly removed their mask to read out loud to the class, the result was a classroom outbreak. All told, 27 cases were identified, including infections in other classrooms. None of the infections resulted in severe cases, and no kids were hospitalized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"For me, the takeaway of this story really is that even just momentary short, brief lapses in, you know, taking off a mask can open up an opportunity for delta to escape through,\" says Tracy Lam-Hine, the Marin County epidemiologist who authored \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e2.htm\">the report\u003c/a> on the outbreak.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And because delta is so contagious, more than twice as contagious as the original strain of the virus, according to studies, experts say it's more critical than ever that schools deploy multiple layers of precautions to curb the spread of the virus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the strategies experts recommend for safer classrooms:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1.\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Create a protective cocoon around children - with vaccines: \u003c/strong>Because children younger than 12 are still not eligible to get a covid vaccine, public health experts say it's essential that anybody who spends time indoors with kids in this age group get vaccinated. That includes adults and vaccine eligible children age 12 and up. This creates a kind of \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/07/09/1014543918/coronavirus-faq-whats-the-latest-advice-to-protect-kids-in-school-and-on-vacatio\">protective cocoon \u003c/a>around unvaccinated kids. Lam-Hine says the California elementary school outbreak underscores why this is so important. The teacher at the center of the outbreak was not vaccinated. If they had been, \"that potentially could have prevented some of this,\" says Lam-Hine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://pediatrics.wustl.edu/faculty/Newland_J\">Dr. Jason Newland\u003c/a>, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Washington University in St. Louis, points to\u003ca href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01407-5\"> data from Israel\u003c/a> showing that the more adults got vaccinated, the fewer kids got the virus. \"They actually drove down their rates [of infections] in kids, which I think just goes to show the cocooning thing works,\" Newland says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2\u003c/strong>. \u003cstrong> Enforce mask wearing – and wear good masks: \u003c/strong>When schools enforce universal masking, studies show they can successfully curb the spread of the virus. Unpublished data from summer schools in North Carolina found that good masking helped keep transmission of the delta variant down to below 3%, according to \u003ca href=\"https://dcasip.medicine.duke.edu/staff/ibukun-c-kalu-md\">Dr. Ibukun Kalu \u003c/a>of Duke University, one of the researchers on \u003ca href=\"https://abcsciencecollaborative.org/\">that project\u003c/a>. Because the delta variant spreads much more easily, experts say it's more important than ever that \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/24/1029503990/best-face-masks-for-kids-focus-on-comfort-and-a-snug-fit\">kids wear good masks\u003c/a> – ones that are comfortable, fit properly (without big gaps around the face) and do a good job of filtration. Here's a list of some kids \u003ca href=\"https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tbFFi-mKyDCKkqlqLza28hMVJb7-U3cBwkeOAHhQlHI/edit#gid=697284395\">masks recommended by aerosols experts\u003c/a> at Virginia Tech.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_58453\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-full wp-image-58453\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/23/2021/09/windows_wide-0bc8adaa92242c7559fe8b4d96ba0d7a77062c04-scaled-e1630685199569.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keeping doors and windows open to create cross ventilation is important in dispersing viral particles. \u003ccite>(Sonja Jordan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3.\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Improve indoor ventilation: \u003c/strong>The coronavirus spreads primarily through the air. Viral particles can accumulate indoors and linger, sometimes for hours — think of it like cigarette smoke, says \u003ca href=\"https://www.colorado.edu/chemistry/jose-luis-jimenez\">Jose-Luis Jimenez,\u003c/a> a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and aerosols scientist. When a smoker lights up, at first the smoke just hovers around them. \"But after half an hour ... the whole room is filled with smoke,\" he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want to clear smoke from a room, you open the windows and doors. The same thing holds true when it comes to dispersing infectious particles – opening windows and doors creates cross ventilation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jimenez recommends that every school test how well each room is ventilated by using a portable nondispersive infrared (NDIR) carbon dioxide meter. That's because CO2 is a useful proxy for infectious aerosols. People are constantly exhaling CO2, and, like aerosols, the gas can get trapped inside a room. So if the CO2 levels are too high, that means not enough air is flowing in and out of the room. You want to keep indoor CO2 levels under 700 parts per million, Jimenez says. If the levels are much higher, turn to other strategies to improve the room's ventilation, like keeping windows and doors open whenever students are in the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cost of a good NDIR CO2 meter starts at roughly $90, Jimenez says. Cheaper CO2 monitors that don't use NDIR technology are available, but he warns that they don't really work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. \u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Use portable air filters: \u003c/strong>Portable HEPA filters are effective at removing virus particles from a room, Jimenez says. Make sure the air filter you buy is large enough for the classroom, keep it at the highest setting and, he says, place it in the center of the classroom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can also buy several smaller air filters and put them around the classroom, he says. (For more on buying high-quality air filters and improving classroom ventilation and filtration, \u003ca href=\"https://www.cpr.org/2021/08/27/colorado-schools-covid-air-filtration/\">check out this in-depth post from Colorado Public Radio.)\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5.\u003c/strong> \u003cstrong>Take things outdoors whenever possible – especially during lunch\u003c/strong>: Jimenez and many other experts urge schools to have activities outdoors as much as they can — especially during lunch, a vulnerable time when kids are unmasked en masse. If kids must eat indoors, open windows, use portable air filters, reduce eating time and space students out as much as possible. Also, try to keep them from talking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Physical distancing still matters: \u003c/strong>Experts say that schools should continue to keep three feet of distance between students. But, they note, in many public schools that have reopened at full capacity, that's just not happening. Which is one more reason why schools should focus their energy on these other strategies, they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I think our foundational protective element here is vaccination,\" Kalu says, \"and we're layering other things on top of it in schools.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=6+Strategies+To+Make+Classrooms+Safer+As+The+Delta+Variant+Spreads+&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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},
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"id": "baycurious",
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
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"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"meta": {
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"source": "WNYC"
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
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