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.

Los Angeles Unified to Require Vaccines for Eligible Students

• The school board for the nation鈥檚 second-largest district voted Thursday to require vaccinations for students 12 and older, Linda Jacobson reports in 蜜桃影视.
• Students will need to receive their first dose by Nov. 21 and the second by Dec. 19 so they are fully immunized by the start of the second semester. Students participating in sports and other activities need to receive the second shot by Oct. 31.
• Exemptions for documented medical reasons will be allowed, according to the .
• In August, another Los Angeles County district, Culver City, announced a vaccine requirement for eligible students as well.

September 10, 2021 鈥� THE BIG THREE

Why a COVID-19 Vaccine for Children Is Taking So Long: Really great piece by

• “The logistical dance required to make doses safe for children is among the challenges confronting researchers evaluating the vaccines in the youngsters.”
• “Also complicating the trials, researchers said, federal health regulators demanded that more children be enrolled in the studies than originally planned. Enrolling children takes much longer than for adults because it requires parents鈥� consent, and some young volunteers don鈥檛 work out because they recoil at needles.”
• “Then, to assess whether the shots help, researchers said, they must gauge whether a child falls ill, no easy task with little ones who can鈥檛 always verbalize how they are feeling.”

Largest Increase in Pediatric COVID Cases Since Pandemic Began:

• Nearly 252,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 last week, marking the largest increase of pediatric cases in a week since the pandemic began.
• 鈥淚n states reporting, 0.00-0.03 percent of all child COVID-19 cases resulted in death.鈥�
• about 15 percent of all cases reported, but in 13 states, at 18 percent or more cases were in children.

Meet the Overlooked: The movers, the missed, the muted: New with the Walton Family Foundation.

• “11.3 million children lacked access to the learning options they needed during COVID-19,鈥� according to the report. That spurred some families to change schools or disengage from the system, while others will continue to 鈥済rapple with unresponsive systems and limited choices this fall.鈥�
• : 鈥淣ow, the total number of homeschooled kids sits at about 5 million. According to census data, more than 11 percent of U.S. households are now homeschooling.鈥�

Federal Updates

Jill Biden: Op-ed in Time 鈥� 

U.S. Education Department:

• New provides “Evidence-Based Strategies to Address Impact of Lost Instructional Time by Using American Rescue Plan Funding”
• The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights .
  • “OCR is concerned that state mask restrictions on schools and school districts 鈥榤ay be preventing schools 鈥� from meeting their legal obligations not to discriminate based on disability and from providing an equal educational opportunity to students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from COVID-19.鈥�”
  • Read more via 蜜桃影视, and .

Federal Communications Commission: have signed up for the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program.

Two Top FDA Officials Resign:

• 鈥淭wo of the FDA鈥檚 most senior vaccine leaders are exiting from their positions, raising fresh questions about the Biden administration and the way that it鈥檚 sidelined the FDA,鈥�
• : 鈥淭he FDA appears to be increasingly rudderless at a crucial time in the pandemic. The agency still has no permanent commissioner and now is losing two highly regarded vaccine experts all while officials weigh full approval of the COVID-19 vaccines for adults, initial authorization for kids and booster shots for many.鈥�

City & State News

California:

• Quarantines and teacher shortages are .
• Los Angeles County health officials will continue to enforce rigid and have raised concerns among some school leaders and parents about academic disruption after thousands of students and staff members were sent home in the opening days of the school year.

D.C.: How an where most young adults are unvaccinated.

Florida: Florida judge .

Hawaii: as the islands struggle with a surge in COVID-19 cases.

Illinois:

• Governor announces and health care workers with testing opt-out.
• Chicago Public Schools in over vaccine mandate.

Mississippi: .

North Carolina: New law changes .

Ohio: Unvaccinated, unmasked , under potential pilot project.

Texas: There are more than 51,000 student cases 鈥� up from the 18,000 recorded just two weeks ago. There are also more than 13,000 staff cases.

COVID-19 Research

COVID-19 Testing Is Keeping Some Students in School and Out of Quarantine: Via

• “, not yet peer-reviewed, found that daily rapid testing of school-related close contacts didn鈥檛 lead to a substantial increase in COVID-19 transmission compared with quarantine among students at some 160 schools and colleges. Less than 2 percent of close contacts who were exposed eventually tested positive.”
• “Health and education officials in states including Massachusetts and Illinois are leveraging existing testing infrastructure to offer frequent testing as an alternative to quarantine.”

In Britain, Young Children Don鈥檛 Wear Masks in School: Via

• “The British handled the Delta spike in ways that might surprise American parents, educators and lawmakers: Masking was a limited part of the strategy. In fact, for the most part, elementary school students and their teachers did not wear them in classrooms at all.”
• “鈥橳he U.K. has always, from the beginning, emphasized they do not see a place for face coverings for children if it鈥檚 avoidable,鈥� said Dr. Shamez Ladhani, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at St. George鈥檚 Hospital in London and an author of several government studies on the virus and schools.”
• “The potential harms exceed the potential benefits, he said, because seeing faces is 鈥榠mportant for the social development and interaction between people.鈥�”
• More via Chalkbeat:

Unraveling the Mystery of Why Children Are Better Protected from COVID Than Adults:

CDC Study on a School Outbreak: An unvaccinated teacher who unmasked when reading aloud in class caught COVID-19 and spread it to half of the students in the classroom, .

Student Vaccine Mandates: , Reuters reports. “I believe that mandating vaccines for children to appear in school is a good idea,” . “We’ve done this for decades and decades, requiring polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis [vaccinations].鈥�

Pfizer Timeline for Children Vaccine: . Results for ages 2-5 in November.

Vaccination Rates Among 12-17 Year Olds: The reports that as of July 31, coverage with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine was 42 percent, and 32 percent had completed the series of shots. .

Myocarditis Risk 37 Times Higher for Children with COVID-19 than Uninfected Peers: According to a new

• “Across all ages, the risk of myocarditis was almost 16 times higher for people with COVID-19 compared to those who aren鈥檛 infected.”
• 鈥淭he myocarditis risk is 37 times higher for infected children under 16 years and seven times higher for infected people ages 16-39 compared to their uninfected peers.”

Teachers Not at Increased Risk of Hospitalization: and in the journal BMJ

• “Teachers are about average in terms of their risk of hospitalization with COVID-19, when compared to other working-age adults,” said lead researcher Dr. David McAllister, a professor of clinical epidemiology and medical informatics at the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at the University of Glasgow. “Unlike health care workers, .”
• “In schools where masks and social distancing are mandated, the risk of spreading COVID-19 is cut dramatically.”

Australian Study Finds Children Less Likely to Spread COVID-19 in Schools: A national research center .

• Despite a fivefold increase in the spread of COVID-19 in the schools, only 2 percent of infected children required care in hospital.
• More via . .

Viewpoints

90,000 Students Have Had to Quarantine: .

Why Vaccine Mandates for Teachers Have Been a Harder Sell Than Mask Mandates: . (.)

A Third Disrupted Year Can Only Strain Americans鈥� Ties to Traditional Public Schools: Writes .

Pandemic Windfall for Schools Has Few Strings Attached: Via .

• “Some districts will receive sums amounting to 50 percent or more of the cost to operate their schools for a year.”
• “Detroit received the highest rate among big districts, at more than $25,000 per student. It was followed by Philadelphia, with $13,000 per student, and Cleveland, at more than $12,000.”

How Schools Are Using American Rescue Plan Funding: .

• 75 percent used funding for summer learning and enrichment offerings.
• 62 percent used funds to purchase technology/devices and/or provide students with internet connectivity
• 66 percent plan to use funding to add specialized instructional support staff and other specialists
• 52 percent plan to use funding to implement or advance social-emotional learning practices and systems in their districts and/or on trauma-informed training for their educators.
• 44 percent plan to provide high-intensity tutoring
• Related:

鈥楥ommunity Schools鈥� See Revival in Time of Heightened Need: Via

Best Practices for Data Sharing Between Schools and Afterschool Programs: From the

Push to Reopen Schools Leaves Many Quarantined Students Without Remote Learning Options: Via Linda Jacobson in 蜜桃影视.

• “In many ways, schools in the Tampa area are facing the same remote learning challenges they did when schools first closed in 2020. Some don鈥檛 have internet access. Others only connect on their phones, and some parents can鈥檛 pick up paper copies of lessons at school because they鈥檝e tested positive for COVID-19. Even if a student has a computer, teachers aren鈥檛 required to teach over Zoom due to an agreement with the local teachers union, said spokeswoman Erin Maloney.”
• 鈥溾�楾here was pretty much nothing offered to us 鈥� no Zoom, no live option at all,鈥� said Meredith Copley, whose children, ages 10 and 12, were quarantined last week.”

New COVID learning loss numbers from Ohio:

• “Pandemic-related declines in student achievement (from March 2020 to spring 2021) are roughly equivalent to students missing one-half to one full year鈥檚 worth of learning in math (students in later grades had greater declines) and between one-third and one-half of a year鈥檚 worth of learning in English language arts (depending on the grade).”
• “Districts with fully remote instruction experienced test scores declines up to three times greater than districts that had in-person instruction for the majority of the school year.”
• “In ELA, Black students saw their test scores decrease 2 to 3 times more than white students in most grades, while Hispanic students experienced declines that were typically twice as large as those of white students.”

Student Learning Pods 鈥� From Crisis Response to Sustainable Solution?: CRPE researchers in 蜜桃影视

• “37 percent of all learning pods identified in the database operated through the full 2020-21 school year.”
• “Many of the learning pods that existed before the pandemic as afterschool programs or summer camps switched back to their pre-pandemic programming.”
• “But others continued on. Some, like the Equity Pods network, which supported culturally relevant community-based pods across the country for Black and brown students, finished out the school year even as districts in some locations opened for at least some of the year.”

鈥� And on a Lighter Note

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend: This dog got in

ICYMI @The74

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

• Education Politics: From Tragedy to Triumph to Failure: How 9/11 Helped Pass No Child Left Behind 鈥� And Fueled its Eventual Demise

• California Election: From Reopening Schools to Mask Mandates, Education Policy Expected to Play Key Role In Upcoming Newsom Recall Vote in California

• School Safety: How to Stop a School Shooter

• 74 Interview: NYC Principal Alice Hom Prepares for a Return to School After a Year of Heightened Anti-Asian Sentiment and COVID-19

• Analysis: Learning Pods Were Launched By Schools and Community Groups as a COVID Crisis Response. Could They Evolve Into a Sustainable Solution?

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

Did you use this article in your work?

We鈥檇 love to hear how 蜜桃影视鈥檚 reporting is helping educators, researchers, and policymakers.