Search Results for « School Reopening »

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries opted for strict public health measures, including closing schools. They have now started relaxing some of those restrictions. To avoid overwhelming health systems, predictions for the number of new COVID-19 cases need to be considered when choosing a school reopening strategy. Using computer simulation, we analyze different strategies to reopen schools in the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area, including the official reopening plan. Our results indicate that reopening schools with all students at once has a big impact on the number of new COVID-19 cases, which could cause a collapse of the health system. On the other hand, a controlled school reopening avoids the collapse of the health system, with a maximum ICU occupancy between 48.8% and 97.8%, depending on how people attending school follow sanitary measures. Postponing the schools' return date for after a vaccine becomes available can save up to 37,753 lives just in the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area.

Abstract The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to understand the types of mental health supports described in school district reopening plans in one southeastern state, and to understand school social workers’ involvement in developing these plans during the first full academic year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Publicly accessible school district reopening plans were collected from the 80 school districts in South Carolina, and 15 school social workers participated in virtual interviews. Out of the 80 school districts, 67 had reopening plans, and of those, only 43 percent mentioned mental health services and supports. Most school district reopening plans described Tier 1 universal prevention services and supports and a process for mental health assessment, identification, and referral. Fewer included Tier 2 early intervention and Tier 3 targeted and intensive services. Of the school social workers interviewed, only four were involved in helping to develop their school district reopening plans, and when involved, advocated for mental health services and supports for their students. The article concludes with a discussion of the study's implications for school social work practice.

During Covid-19 outbreaks, school closures are employed as part of governments' non-pharmaceutical interventions around the world to reduce the number of contacts and keep the reproduction number below 1. Yet, prolonged school closures have profound negative impact on the future opportunities of pupils, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as additional economic and social impacts by preventing their parents from returning to work. Data on Covid-19 in children are sparse and policy frameworks are evolving quickly. We compare a set of potential policies to accompany the reopening of schools by means of an agent-based simulation tool. The policies and scenarios we model reflect the public discussion and government guidelines in early March 2021 in England before the planned nationwide reopening of schools on the 8th of March. A point of particular interest is the potential contribution of a more wide-spread use of screening tests based on lateral flow devices. We compare policies both with respect to their potential to contain new outbreaks of Covid-19 in schools and the proportion of schooldays lost due to isolation of pupils. We find that regular asymptomatic screening of the whole school as an addition to a policy built around isolation of symptomatic pupils and their closest contacts is beneficial across a wide range of scenarios, including when screening tests with relatively low test sensitivity are used. Multiple screening tests per week bring only small additional benefits in some scenarios. These findings remain valid when test compliance is not enforced although the effectiveness of outbreak control is reduced.

During the Coronavirus 2019 (the covid-19) pandemic, schools continuously strive to provide consistent education to their students. Teachers and education policymakers are seeking ways to re-open schools, as it is necessary for community and economic development. However, in light of the pandemic, schools require customized schedules that can address the health concerns and safety of the students considering classroom sizes, air conditioning equipment, classroom systems, e.g., self-contained or compartmentalized. To solve this issue, we developed the School-Virus-Infection-Simulator (SVIS) for teachers and education policymakers. SVIS simulates the spread of infection at a school considering the students' lesson schedules, classroom volume, air circulation rates in classrooms, and infectability of the students. Thus, teachers and education policymakers can simulate how their school schedules can impact current health concerns. We then demonstrate the impact of several school schedules in self-contained and departmentalized classrooms and evaluate them in terms of the maximum number of students infected simultaneously and the percentage of face-to-face lessons. The results show that increasing classroom ventilation rate is effective, however, the impact is not stable compared to customizing school schedules, in addition, school schedules can differently impact the maximum number of students infected depending on whether classrooms are self-contained or compartmentalized. It was found that one of school schedules had a higher maximum number of students infected, compared to schedules with a higher percentage of face-to-face lessons. SVIS and the simulation results can help teachers and education policymakers plan school schedules appropriately in order to reduce the maximum number of students infected, while also maintaining a certain percentage of face-to-face lessons.

Ongoing school closures and gradual reopenings have been occurring since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. One substantial cost of school closure is breakdown in channels of reporting of violence against children, in which schools play a considerable role. There is, however, little evidence documenting how widespread such a breakdown in reporting of violence against children has been, and scant evidence exists about potential recovery in reporting as schools re-open. We study all formal criminal reports of violence against children occurring in Chile up to December 2021, covering physical, psychological, and sexual violence. This is combined with administrative records of school re-opening, attendance, and epidemiological and public health measures. We observe sharp declines in violence reporting at the moment of school closure across all classes of violence studied. Estimated reporting declines range from -17% (rape), to -43% (sexual abuse). While reports rise with school re-opening, recovery of reporting rates is slow. Conservative projections suggest that reporting gaps remained into the final quarter of 2021, nearly two years after initial school closures. Our estimates suggest that school closure and incomplete re-opening resulted in around 2,800 `missing' reports of intra-family violence, 2,000 missing reports of sexual assault, and 230 missing reports of rape against children, equivalent to between 10-25 weeks of reporting in baseline periods. The immediate and longer term impacts of school closures account for between 40-70% of `missing' reports in the post-COVID period.

This study examines competing justice claims that stakeholders—including district leaders, families, and educators—evoked during the 2020 COVID-19 New York City school reopening debates. Drawing on frameworks by Fraser (1997, 2000, 2005) and Abu El-Haj (2006) and thematic analysis of 300 news and opinion articles, we examine stakeholders’ overlapping and contested understandings of justice in public education, including claims related to how school resources are distributed; whom district policies recognize; and who is represented in policymaking. In addition to deepening our understanding of the educational politics of the COVID-19 pandemic –an event with field-changing consequences –our analysis offers researchers and policymakers a more robust basis for advancing equity and conceptualizing just educational policy for multiple stakeholders.

Situations in which no scientific consensus has been reached due to either insufficient, inconclusive or contradicting findings place strain on governments and public organizations which are forced to take action under circumstances of uncertainty. In this chapter, we focus on the case of COVID-19, its effects on children and the public debate around the reopening of schools. The aim is to better understand the relationship between policy interventions in the face of an uncertain and rapidly changing knowledge landscape and the subsequent use of scientific information in public debates related to the policy interventions. Our approach is to combine scientific information from journal articles and preprints with their appearance in the popular media, including social media. First, we provide a picture of the different scientific areas and approaches, by which the effects of COVID-19 on children are being studied. Second, we identify news media and social media attention around the COVID-19 scientific output related to children and schools. We focus on policies and media responses in three countries: Spain, South Africa and the Netherlands. These countries have followed very different policy actions with regard to the reopening of schools and represent very different policy approaches to the same problem. We analyse the activity in (social) media around the debate between COVID-19, children and school closures by focusing on the use of references to scientific information in the debate. Finally, we analyse the dominant topics that emerge in the news outlets and the online debates. We draw attention to illustrative cases of miscommunication related to scientific output and conclude the chapter by discussing how information from scientific publication, the media and policy actions shape the public discussion in the context of a global health pandemic.

Abstract Background: Thousands of school systems have been struggling with the decisions about how to safely and effectively deliver education during the fall semester of 2020, amid the COVID19 pandemic. This study evaluates the public health impact of various school reopening scenarios (when, and how to return in-person instruction) on the spread of COVID19. Methods: An agent-based simulation model was adapted and used to project the number of infections and deaths under multiple school reopening dates and scenarios, including different cohorts receiving in-person instruction on alternating days, only younger children returning to in-person instruction, regular schedule (all students receiving in-person instruction), and school closure (all students receiving online instruction). The study period was February 18 th -November 24 th , 2020 and the state of Georgia was used as a case study. Results: Across all scenarios, the number of COVID19-related deaths ranged from approximately 17 to 22 thousand during the study period, and on the peak day, the number of new infections ranged from 43 to 68 thousand. An alternating school day schedule performed: (i) almost as well as keeping schools closed, with the infection attack rate ranging from 38.5% to 39.8% compared to that of 37.7% under school closure; (ii) slightly better than only allowing children 10 years or younger to return to in-person instruction. Delaying the reopening of schools had a minimal impact on reducing infections and deaths under most scenarios. Conclusions: Reopening schools following a regular schedule, i.e., all children returning to school without strict public health measures, would have serious negative public health consequences. The alternating school day schedule, especially if offered as an option to families and teachers who prefer to opt in, provides a good balance in reducing the infection spread compared to the regular schedule, while ensuring access to in-person education.