蜜桃影视

This is our weekly briefing on how the pandemic is shaping schools and education policy, vetted, as always, by AEI Visiting Fellow John Bailey. Click here to see the full archive. Get this weekly roundup, as well as rolling daily updates, delivered straight to your inbox 鈥� sign up for 蜜桃影视 Newsletter.

Long-lasting COVID Symptoms Rarer in Children Than in Adults: by the authors of a UK

• “There have been over 131,000 UK deaths from COVID-19, but early research (still awaiting review by other scientists) suggests that very few children (fewer than 30 in the UK) have died from COVID-19 or related conditions. Consequently, children have been regarded as being at low risk.”
• “Children usually got better quickly: the median length of illness was six days 鈥� slightly shorter (five days) for primary school children and longer (seven days) for teenagers.”
• “As many as 4.4 percent of children reported ongoing symptoms at or beyond 28 days (compared with 13.3 percent of adults, using the same methodology).”
• “Nearly all children (98.4 percent) had recovered by eight weeks, suggesting that long-lasting illness is less common in children than in adults.”
• “Finally, our findings should be broadly reassuring as children return to more ‘normal’ in-person schooling in the UK. Our data show that for most children, COVID-19 is a short-lived illness.”

August 27, 2021 鈥� The Big Three

Why Parents Kept Their Kids Home From School: Via on .

• “Looking at parents whose children had the option of attending school in person (i.e., at a physical school building for at least part of the week), we examined what predicted whether those families chose in-person or remote schooling (i.e., online instruction or homeschooling) and their accounts of the choices they made.”
• “We found 鈥� that the biggest factor for many families was rather concrete: whether a parent or other adult was available during the school day to supervise kids.”
• “And because of racial inequality in America 鈥� and, specifically, because of racial inequalities in the layoffs that came early in the pandemic 鈥� whether such an adult was home varied greatly by race.”
• “Among families in which no parent lost a job and all parents remained employed full-time, 64 percent chose the in-person [option]. … By contrast, among families in which either parent lost a job and did not return to full-time paid work, only 35 percent opted for in-person.”

FDA Approves First COVID-19 Vaccine: Pfizer-BioNTech received

• “The review of the was completed in just 97 days by FDA staff working 鈥榥ight and day,鈥� said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which approves vaccines.”
• It鈥檚 fully approved only for ages 16 and older. The shot is still under emergency use authorization for 12- to 15-year-olds. Pfizer has said it expects to have vaccine trial data on children ages 5 to 11 by the , and the company could apply to have its vaccine authorized for those younger kids later in 2021.
• Why it matters: . Full approval will clear the way for organizations to mandate vaccines.
• Related: New Vaccination Mandates for Teachers as FDA Grants Full Approval to Pfizer; NYC Announces All Education Employees Must Get First Shot By Sept. 27
• The name: The Pfizer shot will be called Comirnaty (koe-mir鈥�-na-tee). Of course,

Maintaining Student Data Privacy and Public Transparency During the Pandemic: New resource from

• “We鈥檙e setting the record straight: Collecting and reporting data on school COVID and vaccination rates is absolutely allowable under federal law 鈥� the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).”
• “When we allow the public conversation to incorrectly cite federal laws as the barrier to transparency, we鈥檙e neither helping communities nor protecting privacy. It鈥檚 time for facts, not myths.”

Federal Updates

Federal Communications Commission: Announced more than in requests to fund 9.1 million connected devices and 5.4 million broadband connections as part of the $7.2 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund Program.

• “The FCC will open a second application filing window for schools and libraries to request funding for connected devices and broadband connections for off-campus use by students, school staff and library patrons for the current 2021-22 school year.”
• and how much schools/libraries requested.

鈥楤uried鈥� CDC Guidance Emphasizes Universal Masking in Schools, Says Properly Protected 鈥楥lose Contacts鈥� Needn鈥檛 Quarantine: Good catch from the folks at 蜜桃影视

U.S. Education Department: , “Meeting the President鈥檚 Call to Support the Safe and Sustained Reopening of Schools”:

• “I am also deeply troubled when I see 鈥� officials that are putting politics ahead of students and blocking their school districts from adopting science-based strategies designed to protect students, aligned with [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidance.”
• Cardona was on Meet the Press, where he was grilled by Chuck Todd on how the department would use civil rights authority on anti-masking bans and whether it would adopt a similar approach with institutions of higher education. ( / )

City & State News

罢别虫补蝉:听

• Texas Education Agency when kids are exposed to COVID.
• .
• Parents of children with disabilities .
• Houston district to offer for students too young to get COVID vaccine who have a compromised immune system.
• Dallas Independent School District brings back .

South Carolina: over state measure meant to ban school mask mandates. .

California: Pandemic paradox: .

Florida: Reported last week, a 141 percent increase from two weeks before. Children 12 and under have a positivity rate of 23 percent, and ages 12 to 19 have a positivity rate of 25 percent.

Illinois: Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union have with just a week to go until students return to classrooms.

Maryland: Gov. Larry Hogan calls for in children under 12.

New Jersey: Gov. Phil Murphy announced for COVID-19 by Oct. 8 or submit to regular testing.

North Carolina: in the classroom.

Oregon: Gov. Kate Brown 鈥渁nnounced that Oregon is to include all teachers, educators, support staff and volunteers in K-12 schools,鈥� the AP reports.

Pennsylvania:聽Philadelphia school board for teachers and staff.

COVID-19 Research

Time Estimate for Vaccine for Children: National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins predicted that the

Navigating the Delta Variant and the Future of COVID-19: .

Johnson & Johnson: Reported data showing that recipients who received a booster dose generated virus-fighting antibodies 鈥溾�� than those seen four weeks after a single dose.

Pfizer: .

• “The companies conducted a study of 306 volunteers who received a booster shot about five to eight months after their second shot.”
• “Researchers found that the level of antibodies that block the coronavirus .”

Booster Debate:聽

• CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said we Boosters are needed now in order to “” of the virus.
• : “Many [experts] flat-out challenged the need for booster doses now, while others questioned the morality of Americans getting third shots when most people on the planet haven鈥檛 received one. And some worried about a decision made before the FDA or a key vaccine advisory committee had weighed in.”
• Via Kaiser Health News: “As some scientists see it, and they worry it could undercut confidence in vaccines with no clear benefit of controlling the pandemic. Meanwhile, more information is needed on potential side effects or adverse effects from a booster shot, they say.”

Vaccine Effectiveness: A new found the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines among front-line workers .

Unvaccinated 29 Times More Likely to Be Hospitalized: A new finds that hospitalization rates in late July were 29 times higher among unvaccinated people in Los Angeles County than among the fully vaccinated.

Sharing Strategies and Lessons Learned for School-Located COVID-19 Vaccination: Sign up for this on Sept. 10 with numerous experts and district leaders.

Understanding the Opposition to Masks:聽

• I thought this long essay by Allie Beth Stuckey provided some perspective into parents who are opposing masks: .
• Related: , writes David Zweig

Masks Are a Must-Have to Go Back to School During the Delta Variant Surge: Via .

Children and COVID-19: State-Level Data Report: Latest

Viewpoints

Why America鈥檚 Largest Teachers Union Refuses to Support Vaccine Mandates: Emma Green鈥檚 is worth your time.

The School Kids Are Not Alright:

• “State leaders would be wise to further protect children by requiring teachers to be vaccinated 鈥� without exception. Meanwhile, parents who wish to know what proportion of the teaching staff has been vaccinated are being thwarted by the fact that only a few states are publicly reporting this information.”
• “These findings [about learning loss and the economic effect of school closures] constitute a scalding rebuke of those who have minimized the impact of the school shutdowns. Perhaps the most grotesque of these minimizing arguments holds that concerns about learning loss are being manufactured by educational testing companies with dollar signs in their eyes.”
• On students who went missing from class during COVID-19: “Under the best of circumstances, this means that some of the country鈥檚 most vulnerable children will begin first grade without the benefit of having had a crucial preparatory year. Under a more ominous scenario, some of the children who lost connection to school in the upper grades may not return to class at all unless districts make a concerted effort to bring them back into the fold.”

School Districts Have Expanded Their Nonacademic Services for 2021-22: Via .

• 9 out of 10 district leaders said their district offered summer programming in 2021.
• 7 out of 10 districts will provide mental health programming for students. 5 out of 10 were already doing this pre-pandemic, while 2 in 10 are newly offering this service.
• One-quarter of districts allowed families to choose a “do over” year for 2021-22.

Poll About COVID Safety Measures in Schools by Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research: /

• 6 in 10 Americans say students and teachers should be required to wear face masks while in school.
  • About 3 in 10 Republicans said they favor mask requirements for students and teachers, compared with about 8 in 10 Democrats.
• 59 percent believe teachers should have to get vaccinated; 55 percent believe students 12 and older should be.
  • 聽Again, big partisan gaps: 34 percent of Republicans, compared with 44 percent of Independents and 77 percent of Democrats.

The Latest on School District Fall Reopening: Via

• Two-thirds (67) require masks.
• The Hawaii Department of Education is the only district that has a requirement for student vaccinations, and it applies only to athletes.
• 84 are offering remote learning (up from 41 percent July 29). Of these, the majority (55 of the 84 districts with remote learning) make it available to all students.
• Most quarantine policies are for 10 to 14 days.

LearnLaunch’s Building Blocks Framework: for reopening schools.

This School Year Is Going to Be a Mess 鈥� Again: Sarah Zhang writes in .

How Has the Pandemic Affected Students with Disabilities?: A review of the to date from CRPE.

鈥� And on a Lighter note

Imagine An Episode of ‘The Office’:

Meet a Puppy: .

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ICYMI @The74

Weekend Reads: In case you missed them, our top five stories of the week:

• Summer STEM: A Game of Their Own: Summer Camp Empowers Girls to Design and Play Their Own Digital Works
• Parent Voice: After 18 Lonely Months of COVID, the Kids Are Not Alright. Here鈥檚 Why This Back-to-School Season Must Balance Learning With Healing
• The Big Picture: 鈥榃hat a Distraction鈥�: More Research on Common Core Points to Meager Academic Gains
• 74 Interview: Author Amanda Ripley on the Pandemic, Trust in American Education and the New Film About Why American Schools Aren鈥檛 the Best in the World
• Analysis: From Tracking to Classroom Instruction, Ed Tech Based on Biased Data Can Make Inequities Worse. What Designers and Engineers Can Do

Disclosure: John Bailey is an adviser to the Walton Family Foundation, which provides financial support to 蜜桃影视.

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