(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidelines Friday for U.S. schools to reopen, recommending universal mask wearing and physical distance as key COVID-19 mitigation strategies to get kids back in class quickly to get.
The guidelines here, which also emphasize the need for facility cleaning, personal hygiene and contact tracing, are intended to provide school districts with a roadmap for bringing the country’s 55 million public school students back to the classroom without COVID-19 cause outbreaks.
“We believe that with the strategies we have put forward there will be limited to no broadcast in schools if followed,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky told reporters, noting that the CDC did not require schools to reopen. .
The agency also said that reopening schools should not depend on teachers’ access to COVID-19 vaccines, but strongly recommended that U.S. states give priority to teachers and school staff for vaccination.
President Joe Biden pledged to reopen most K-8 schools within 100 days of taking office Jan. 20. He praised the CDC’s guidelines on Friday, highlighting the problems stemming from the ongoing school closures, including children’s mental health problems and the exodus of parents from the workforce.
“We have sacrificed so much in the past year. But science tells us that if we support our children, educators and communities with the resources they need, we can get children to school safely in more parts of the country sooner, ”Biden said in a statement.
According to the Center for Reinventing Public Education, only 44% of U.S. school districts offered full-on face-to-face education in December, and 31% all operated remotely, according to the Center for Reinventing Public Education, which surveyed 477 of the country’s nearly 13,000 school districts. Other districts have adopted a hybrid learning model, with students attending some school days in person and others virtually.
The reopening of schools has led to industrial disputes between teachers’ unions, who fear for the safety of their members, and school districts in major American cities. In Chicago this week, the teachers’ union and the district agreed on a security plan after months of negotiations, including threats of strike.
On Friday, the American Federation of Teachers, which has approximately 1.7 million members, praised the CDC’s guidelines for relying on “facts and evidence.”
“We urge the CDC to remain flexible as more data comes to light. The guidance is educational for the moment, but this disease is not static, ”AFT president Randi Weingarten said in a statement.
FLEXIBLE APPROACH
The CDC’s staged mitigation strategy is adaptable depending on the level of COVID-19 transmission in a school’s community.
In areas where the COVID-19 positive test rate is less than 5% and there were fewer than nine new cases per 100,000 in the past seven days, schools can fully reopen and safely relax social distance measures, as long as masks are worn, Walensky said. In areas with higher transmission, the agency is pushing for 1.83m separation in classrooms and weekly tests of students, teachers and staff.
Elementary school students should learn in person at least part-time, even in high transfer areas, the guidance says.
Recent studies have shown that personal learning has not been associated with increased community transfer, especially in primary schools.
House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy criticized the reopening guidelines on Friday as not brave enough to get students to return to class quickly.
“Families and students deserve better. They need strong assurances that their children can get back into the class that offers the best educational model, ”McCarthy said in a statement.
US House chairman Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, said on Friday that House committees were in the process of approving Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion US bailout legislation, which includes a $ 130 billion investment that could help schools improve the Follow CDC protocols to help schools enforce CDC guidelines.
“Without strong help from Congress, our schools cannot afford to take the required science-based security measures,” Pelosi said in a statement.
Reporting by Gabriella Borter in Boca Raton, Fla., Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia, and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis