As coronavirus outbreaks driven by the delta variant lead school districts around the U.S. to abruptly shut down or send large numbers of children into quarantine at home, some students are getting minimal schooling.
Despite billions of dollars in federal money at their disposal to prepare for new outbreaks and develop contingency plans, some governors, education departments and local school boards have been caught flat-footed.
Also, some school systems have been handcuffed by state laws or policies aimed at keeping students in classrooms and strongly discouraging or restricting a return to remote learning.
The disruptions — and the risk that youngsters will fall further behind academically — have been unsettling for parents and educators alike.
In the rural district of Wellington, Kansas, students got a week off from schoolwork when a COVID-19 outbreak struck. Instead of going online, the district decided to add 10 minutes to each day to make up for the lost time when it reopened on Tuesday. Masks also are required now.
Districts in Kansas risk losing funding if they offer online or hybrid learning for more than 40 hours per student per year.
In Missouri, the Board of Education rescinded a rule in July that allowed school districts to offer hybrid and remote instruction for months at a time. Districts that close entirely because of COVID-19 outbreaks, as eight small rural school systems have done this year, now are limited to 36 hours of alternative instruction, such as Zoom classes. After that, they have to make up the time later.
In Georgia, Ware County's 6,000-student district halted schooling altogether for three weeks in mid-August. The district said it was unreasonable for teachers to have to offer virtual and in-person instruction at the same time. It also cited a lack of internet service in some rural areas.
The U.S. Education Department said Tuesday that states and school districts should have policies to ensure continued access to “high-quality and rigorous learning” in the event COVID-19 cases keep students from attending school.
The Illinois State Board of Education recently passed a resolution forcing districts to make remote instruction available to quarantined students.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said laws restricting virtual instruction are short-sighted. She noted that some of these states have no mask or vaccine requirements either.
In North Carolina, state health officials in July eliminated the requirement that districts provide remote learning for quarantining students, saying virtual options are “not supported by current evidence or are no longer needed due to the lower rates of community transmission and increased rates of vaccination.”
By BRYAN ANDERSON and HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press/Report for America
