UPDATE: Jan. 4, 9:23 p.m.
92 Philadelphia schools have moved this week to virtual learning through Friday, after a major rise in COVID-19 cases as the omicron variant has quickly spread through the area.
Eight more schools were added to the list Tuesday night:
- Mary McLeod Bethune School.
- William W. Bodine High School.
- Jay Cooke Elementary School.
- John B. Kelly School.
- Olney Elementary School.
- Edward Steel School.
- The U School.
- Vaux Big Picture School.
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UPDATE: Jan. 4, 4:35 p.m.
Three more schools — Wagner Middle, Anne Frank Elem. and Northeast Community Propel Academy — have been added to the list Tuesday afternoon. 84 Philadelphia schools have now moved to virtual learning for the remainder of this week.
UPDATE: Jan. 4, 5 a.m.
Four additional schools — Julia De Burgos Elementary, Dr. Ethel Allen, E.W. Rhodes Elementary and Feltonville Arts & Sciences — were added late Monday night. Currently a total of 81 Philadelphia schools are operating virtually for the rest of the week.
Original story follows:
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The omicron surge is scrapping the in-person return to classrooms for many schools, including one-third of Philadelphia's public schools.
The Philadelphia School District said Monday night that staffing challenges caused by the COVID-19 omicron variant have led 77 of its schools to switch to virtual learning for the rest of this week, starting Tuesday.
“As we’ve always said, our goal is to keep the district open so we can surround our young people with the caring educators and support services they need – as long as we can do so safely,” said Superintendent William Hite in a statement.
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“District leaders have been meeting regularly with local public health officials to monitor the COVID-19 situation, and we’ve also been closely tracking data to determine COVID’s impact on staff coverage in schools. We will continue to do this and make school-by-school decisions based on the latest available data.”
Click here for the full list of schools. Principals were directed to communicate with student families about virtual school days.
Teachers and staff at those schools were expected to work in person unless isolating or quarantined due to COVID-19, have symptoms, are waiting for test results, or are on an approved leave of absence.
The district said all other Philadelphia schools were planning on opening for in-school instruction Tuesday.
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The district initially said Monday, after consulting with the city's Department of Public Health and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, students would return from the holiday break on Tuesday to in-person learning, even after the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has asked for a week of virtual learning instead.
"I asked in the letter that I sent to the superintendent to pause the classroom learning if indeed schools do not have the mitigation strategies in place," PFT President Jerry Jordan said.
Jordan says those strategies include regular COVID-19 screening of students, not just testing those with symptoms, and wearing more protective N95 masks, not cloth masks. Jordan says according to a member survey, 1,100 of his 13,000 members reported having COVID-19 over the winter break.
After the announcement Monday night, PFT criticized the partial shift to virtual as a “piecemeal plan that leaves parents and staff alike scrambling.”
School district spokeswoman Monica Lewis said earlier that the district was confident it had the necessary protections in place. She acknowledged before the announcement Monday night that individual schools would not be able to open classrooms.
"As of now, we look forward to having people in for in-person learning tomorrow. However, we do understand that there will be some situations where that will not be possible, for staff or students.”
The district also plans to get strict about mask-wearing, saying any student or staff member who doesn’t wear a mask will be sent home.
The school district said that it could not staff grab-and-go meal distribution with schools pivoting to virtual classes, but families could go to phila.gov to find food and meal distribution sites in the city.
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Class was canceled Monday in the Central Bucks School District because there aren't enough substitute teachers. There was no school for students in the Lower Merion School District either, though all teachers and staff were expected to report to work while administrators re-assess health and safety considerations.
The Lower Merion superintendent said in a letter to parents that they are having difficulty conducting contact tracing and testing. School will resume in person Tuesday if there is enough staff available.
In South Jersey, the Camden City School District will be remote for the next two weeks. Pennsauken will be remote this week only.
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According to Burbio, which tracks school closures, more than 2,100 U.S. schools are closed or remote to start the new year.
As millions of students in school districts around the country return to classrooms, staff and students have to find a way to get tested. Parents spending hours in line, often confused about school guidance and protocols that vary from district to district and even school to school, reports CBS News' Tom Hanson. Many are worried that their kids are at risk.
"They got to use the same bathroom, you know, the same lunch room, so you're still exposing back everybody to COVID," said one parent.
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CBS's Bradley Blackburn spoke to former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who says that while omicron seems to cause less severe illness in adults, it may hit young children harder than previous variants.
"This is a milder form of the coronavirus. It appears to be more of an upper airway disease than a lower airway disease. That's good for most Americans," Gottlieb said. "The one group that that may be a problem for is very young children, toddlers, who have trouble with upper airway infections."
According to the latest data from the American Academy of Pediatrics, COVID-19 cases among children increased throughout the month of December, with nearly 199,000 reported for the week that ended Dec. 23, which made up more than 20% of all weekly reported cases.
Gottlieb says the national surge in cases is likely to continue into February.
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