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“Cleaning high-touch areas in schools is very important,” Cogan said. But wearing a mask, physical distancing, vaccinations and other measures are “higher protective factors”.

8. Empower parents and teachers to protect their children.

Last school year, many districts used temperature checks and symptom screenings as an attempt to catch infected students before they could infect others with the coronavirus. But in Austin, Indiana, such formalized screenings have proven to be less helpful than the intuition of teachers and parents. Instructors may determine that a student is not feeling well and may ask that student to go to the nurse even if he or she has had a fever check.

Jetelina said both teachers and parents can act as a layer of protection that prevents a sick child from entering the classroom. “Parents are pretty good at understanding their child’s symptoms and their child’s health,” she said.

in Andrews, TexasCounty administrators briefed parents on their covid symptoms and entrusted them to determine when a child might need to stay home from school. By allowing students to opt out of quarantine and wearing masks, Cogan said the Texas area may have “gone overboard in giving parent agency” – echoing the Andrews County public health department’s concerns.

9. We need more detailed data to guide school policies.

continuously throughout the pandemic. lack of detailed public data on covid-19 cases in schools. The federal government still does not provide such data, and most states provide scattered numbers that do not provide significant context for cases (such as in-person registration or testing figures). Without these numbers, it is difficult to compare school districts and identify success stories.

My research on reopening schools has illuminated another data issue: most states do not provide any By downloading covid-19 metrics to each region, it’s hard for school leaders to know when they need to tighten or loosen their safety protocols. For example, in the small Port Orford-Langlois area in Oregon, administrators had to rely on covid-19 numbers for their overall county. Although the county had zero cases in the fall of 2020, it was unable to bring older students back until spring as outbreaks in another part of the county increased the number of cases. Cogan observed similar problems in New Jersey.

At the local level, school districts can work with local public health departments to get the data they need for more informed decision-making, Jetelina said. But at a larger, systemic level, detailed covid-19 data is more difficult to obtain – it’s a job for the federal government.

10. Invest in school staff and invite their contribution to safety strategies.

School staff described working long hours, familiarizing themselves with the science of covid-19, and demonstrating tremendous determination and creativity to provide a good school experience for their students. Teaching is typically a tough job, but in the last 18 months it has become heroic—although many people outside of school settings take the job lightly, Jetelina said.

Cogan suggested that districts can thank their staff by giving them a say in school safety decisions. “The trainers – they had a terrible time and put so much more on them,” he said. But “every person who works in a school has it too.” This includes parents, cafeteria workers, and – most importantly – school nurses, whom Cogan refers to as the school’s “wellness chiefs.”

11. Leave room for students and staff to handle the challenges of the pandemic.

About 117,000 children in the US have lost one or both parents during the pandemic. According to research by Imperial College London. While thousands of children lost other relatives, mentors and friends, millions of children faced loss of jobs, insecurity of food and shelter, and other hardships in their families. Even if a school district has all the right security logistics, it cannot truly support students unless school staff allow time and space. processing the trauma that they have met.

The PS 705 in Brooklyn could be a model for this application. One parent offered support by reaching out to families preemptively when a student missed a class: “The 705 is just the kind of place where it’s a ‘hug the whole family’ kind of school,” he said.

On the first day of school in September 2021 – the first time many students have returned in person since spring 2020 – the school held a minute’s silence for the lost loved ones of the school community.

New challenges ahead

These lessons are drawn from school communities that were successful before the delta variant arrived in the USA in the 2020-2021 school year. This highly contagious strain of the virus presents new challenges for the fall 2021 period. The data analysis underlying this project has allowed me to profile rural communities that may have been lucky with low covid-19 case numbers in the earlier stages of the pandemic, but are now unable to escape the delta. For example, Oregon county, including Port Orford-Langlois, saw its highest ever case rates in August 2021.

The delta struggle multiplies, increasing the polarization over masks, vaccines, and other safety measures. Still, Jetelina noted there are “a lot of champions”, citing parents, teachers, public health professionals, and others who continue to learn from past school reopening experiences and advocate for their communities to do a better job. .

NS Solution Journalism Network supported this project with a reporting grant, as well as training and other mentoring. Learn more About the five school communities I profiled in this project for the COVID-19 Data Submission.

This is part of the story Pandemic Technology Projectsponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.