CHICAGO – A new roadmap for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the reopening of the country’s schools during the Covid-19 pandemic got a good mark from powerful teacher unions on Friday.
“Today the CDC met the fear of the pandemic with facts and evidence,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in a statement. “For the first time since the start of this pandemic, we have a rigorous roadmap, based on science, that our members can use to fight for a safe reopening.”
Weingarten called the CDC’s proposals “ an informed, tactile plan, ” saying it has “ the potential to help school communities across the country stay safe by defining the mitigation and accommodation measures, and other resources that educators and children need. so that classrooms can once again become vibrant places to learn and engage. “
The Weingarten organization is one of many workgroups that have been highly critical of the Trump administration’s chaotic pandemic response.
“Of course this set of precautions should have happened ten months ago,” Weingarten said, adding that the AFT released recommendations similar to those in the CDC plan in April. “Instead, the previous government interfered with the facts and sparked massive chaos and confusion.”
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers’ union, called the roadmap “a good first step”.
“Schools should be the safest place in any community,” Pringle said in a statement. “Now that we have clearer CDC guidelines, state and local decision-makers should be able to look teachers, students and parents in the eye and ensure that with complete confidence.”
Still, Pringle said, many schools “attended by black, brown, indigenous, and poor white students” lack “the basic protections universally required, according to the CDC.”
“If they are universally applied in every community and resources are deployed fairly for all students, our school buildings will be safe for personal learning,” said Pringle.
The CDC said schools can safely reopen as long as certain precautions are in place, raising hopes that students will soon return to classrooms in school districts that haven’t had a personal education in over a year because of the pandemic.
In its 35-page guide, the CDC reiterated the need for masking, hand washing, contact tracking, and social distancing to prevent the spread of viruses.
It also emphasized that the safest way to open schools is to minimize the occurrence of disease in a community, and it included a color-coded chart to help administrators decide what kind of learning is safest based on the number new cases. per 100,000 people and the percentage of positive coronavirus tests.
“Evidence suggests that many K-12 schools that have rigorously implemented mitigation strategies have been safely opened for in-person instruction and remain open,” the CDC said. “K-12 schools should be the last institutions to close after all other restrictive measures in the community have been taken, and the first to reopen when they can do so safely.”
It also made it clear that while states must prioritize teachers for vaccination, it is not a prerequisite for reopening.
That has been a sticking point in busy, urban school districts such as Chicago, the third largest in the country, and where many teachers have made it clear that they will not return to class until they receive the Covid-19 vaccination.
“I’m glad they are prioritizing teachers, which was not the case under the previous timeline,” said Diana Muhammad, 38, a physical education and dance teacher at the Beasley Academic Center on the south side of town. if it’s not mandatory, at least we’re on the list now. “
Vaccinations remain a concern, according to a recent NEA poll of 3,300 educators. Only one in five had received an injection, it found, and 85 percent of respondents said teachers should be prioritized for vaccines. And 70 percent said they would feel safer working in person if they were vaccinated.
President Joe Biden has set a goal of reopening more than 50 percent of schools in the country by the 100th day of his presidency. And the latest figures from Burbio, a data service that checks school opening information, suggest the goal is achievable.
Forty-one percent of elementary and high school students are back in school and receive traditional personal instruction every day, according to Burbio figuresAbout 25 percent do a combination of personal and virtual education. And 34 percent of K-12 students are currently receiving “virtual only” training.
Unlike its predecessor, Biden has not pressured unwilling school districts to reopen classrooms. Former President Donald Trump harshly criticized earlier CDC guidelines, calling them “impractical” and “expensive,” and threatened to cut federal funding for schools that refused to reopen.
It was an empty threat. Trump had no authority to cut funding that lawmakers had already allocated to schools, the House Appropriations Committee spokesman said at the time.
Samee Ali reported from Chicago and Siemaszko from Montclair, New Jersey.