HARTFORD, Conn. — New guidance from the CDC says most evidence indicates schools can be safe during the COVID-19 pandemic if precautions are taken in the classroom and in the community.
CDC guidance includes the enforcement of mask-wearing, social distancing, and an increase in testing for students and staff. Testing is a task the Connecticut Education Association said it has been pushing since many schools in the state resumed in-person learning.
“On the face of it it’s good, they have not documented tremendous surges of cases in schools, the flip side of that is they haven’t really tested in schools either,” CEA Executive Director Don Williams said. “These are very important steps in order to know what the infection rate is in our schools which we don't know because we haven't been testing."
“Middletown public schools are doing a pilot program in that realm,” CT Association of Boards of Education Deputy Director Patrice McCarthy said. “The real issue it seems is the access to testing, the long lines, waiting for testing, there still is the turnaround time, unless it's the rapid test which is not that accurate.”
The question of when to keep schools open and how has been an issue since the pandemic began. Several Connecticut school districts --such as Hartford--have allowed in-person learning since September.
“Most of our schools have hybrid or pretty close to full time but we have to be effective in terms of the safety precautions and that includes not only the masking and social distancing but more testing of students,” Williams said.
Other districts are basing the decision on an increase in COVID-19 cases, such as New Haven where students in grades pre-k to five returned to the classroom last Tuesday for the first time since the spring.
Education leaders in Connecticut agree the new CDC guidance is what many teachers, staff and parents have been advocating for all along.
“It reinforces all of the protocols that Connecticut has been put in place, we have been a leader in the country to provide at least some in-person instruction for schools,” McCarthy said.
President Joe Biden said his goal is to reopen the majority of K through 8th-grade schools over the next 100 days, although specific safety standards from the White House have not been released.