As Concern for Reopening Grows, How Many Missouri Students are in COVID-19 Hotspots?
By: Kristi donaldson & Andrew Diemer
Missouri School District Reopening:
There are growing concerns from teachers and families about school reopening. Yet as school districts are finalizing their reopening plans to ease the stress of the community, they are doing so without straightforward recommendations from the state or the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
Missouri is one of many states without clear guidelines for school districts. Specific recommendations from the state on how to open schools would be key to help districts create and respond with the best plan for their community. Recently, PRiME has begun an analysis of district reopenings using the risk levels from the Harvard Global Health Initiative to look at overlaps between district reopening plans and nearby COVID spread.
As of August 6, 75 percent of Missouri students live in counties with the highest COVID risk levels, and only one percent are in a county tracked to contain the spread of the virus. When schools reopen, the majority of students will have the option to return to their school building in-person and most of those same students live in orange or red areas where there is an accelerated spread of the virus, or worse.
Some district plans have been in development since April and, in some cases, the outlined reopening strategies were made in reaction to the situation weeks or months ago. But cases continue to rise. Across Missouri, most students find themselves in counties where stay-at-home orders are highly recommended if not outright needed. We believe that school reopenings should be prioritized - particularly so that all students are able to return to in-person instruction. However, we cannot ignore the health and safety risks for teachers, students, and families. To return to in-person instruction quickly, health and safety precautions must be taken; delaying the school year or providing virtual instruction are just a few measures a district might use to help contain the virus. Without these precautions, the school year (and student learning) could be delayed even more.
COVID source data and recommendations from Harvard Global Health Initiative
How Districts Decide:
DESE issued its first reopening recommendations in July, which included guidance for student screening, physical distancing, and face coverings. Since then, that guidance has been updated with reactive strategies to handle COVID-19 cases within school. Though, as Missouri draws closer to being fully reopened, there still are no clear definitions from the state on when a school should open (or close) based on COVID levels, only how to prevent cases from coming in, and how to handle cases once they’re inevitably in schools.
Schools must consider much more than the education of a child when thinking about reopening, as they are crucial systems of support for many families across Missouri, particularly in low-income areas. During a time when applications for unemployment and SNAP benefits have soared, parents and families may be hoping to send their child back to school, so they, as parents, can continue to work, or even, to send their child to school to guarantee them a meal. During the course of the pandemic, the impacts of school closure have hit communities of color and low-income communities particularly hard and continued online learning may increase existing achievement gaps even further.
Children’s education and health are at risk. A recent report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that children are at risk of developing “severe” symptoms of COVID-19, especially Black and Hispanic children. Right now, districts are putting together the final touches on their reopening plans, and Missouri students are weeks away from finding their way back to socially distant desks in schools. But how safe is it to be in school buildings? Do districts have all the information they need to ask if that child should even be in the building in the first place?
What Districts Need:
Missouri districts need local control to thrive and address issues specific to their community contexts. However, COVID is not a local issue. Districts would benefit from clear reopening (and closing) recommendations from the state that explicitly takes into consideration the current COVID spread in the local area. Specific, proactive guidance about how to open safely in addition to reactive guidelines after COVID enters a school building is needed so districts will be able to make the best decisions for their communities.