In many cases, CDC numbers clash with locally reported vaccination rates, an analysis from 蜜桃影视 reveals, including multiple instances of double-digit gaps between local and federal counts. In some counties, the agency鈥檚 data indicate that the share of 12- to 17-year-olds who have received at least one vaccine dose is impossibly high 鈥� 101 percent in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and 104 percent in San Francisco County, California, for example.

The lack of clarity takes on heightened significance as the country another swath of the K-12 population, with coronavirus shots for children ages 5 to 11 currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and expected as soon as early November.

Inaccuracies in CDC data could have implications for the nationwide understanding of vaccine uptake among young people. The youth COVID immunization rate calculated by the , for example, is based on CDC numbers.

鈥淥ur method is to clearly state the source of our data,鈥� Suk-fong Tang, senior database analyst for the AAP, told 蜜桃影视. But due to time limitations and the vast quantity of information, she said, 鈥渋t is not possible at this time to validate everything that we use.鈥�

鈥淲e work with [CDC] data with the faith that the data really captures the large trends,鈥� the AAP expert continued. 鈥淚t may not be, you know, accurate down to the single-digit counts.鈥�

While the CDC does not publish youth immunization data directly, it releases vaccination rates and raw counts for those over 12 and those over 18 by county. Using those numbers, 蜜桃影视 calculated the rate of inoculation for 12- to 17-year-olds via a method that Tang confirmed produced a 鈥渉ighly similar鈥� youth vaccination figure as the AAP. (Click to see the math.) Those rates frequently deviated from local reports, indicating possible flaws in the federal agency鈥檚 vaccination counts, population counts, or both.

For example, CDC data downloaded by 蜜桃影视 Sept. 30 indicate that in Queens County, New York, 86 percent of teens have received at least one vaccine dose, while NYC Health said the county鈥檚 figure was actually 74 percent. In an especially extreme case, federal data for Coconino County, Arizona, indicate a 93 percent one-dose vaccination rate for 12- to 17-year-olds, while Coconino Health and Human Services reported a 57 percent rate.

Coconino County officials explained the gap in an email to 蜜桃影视, saying they use a 鈥渕ore enhanced data cleaning process鈥� than the state or the CDC.

Other areas such as Fairfax County, Virginia; Marin County, California; and Howard County, Maryland, reported youth vaccination rates that closely aligned with federal counts, differing by under 5 percentage points.

The CDC did not respond to the discrepancies identified by 蜜桃影视, and did not provide comment when asked for the reasons behind them, despite over a half-dozen requests made over more than a two-week span. The agency did send a link to information on its vaccination data reporting protocols, which that their population counts are based on the Census Bureau鈥檚 2019 estimates, meaning that their percentages could be inaccurate if individuals moved counties in the last two years.聽

Population shifts may not completely account for the discrepancies. Outside experts also said issues such as or delays in reporting data upstream to the federal government could contribute to inaccuracies.聽

鈥楩lying blind鈥�

Data woes have plagued the CDC throughout the pandemic, said Ali Mokdad, who, after years monitoring vaccine coverage at the federal agency, is now a professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington.聽

鈥淲e鈥檙e flying blind,鈥� he said, pointing out that U.S. decisions around Pfizer booster shots were based on data from Israel and Qatar, where vaccination numbers are collected in a more standardized fashion, due to a dearth of reliable U.S. data.聽

From the CDC鈥檚 decision to for breakthrough infections to their for vaccinated individuals, the agency has come under fire at multiple points throughout the pandemic.聽

In past months, the epidemiology professor said, many Americans received by crossing state lines or lying about their vaccination status thanks to lax immunization tracking. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 know [exactly how many people are] vaccinated or not, and what types of vaccines they have received and when.鈥�

That can become a life-or-death problem, said Mokdad. 鈥淲hen you know how many people are vaccinated, you know what immunity you have in your community,鈥� he explained. 鈥淸But if you don鈥檛] know how many people are vaccinated 鈥� you can’t get a handle on how many people are susceptible in your own community and then that will sustain a surge.鈥�

In instances where local vaccination numbers are above CDC counts, it鈥檚 possible that states have been slow to report their most recent immunization data, Emily Pond, a researcher for the Johns Hopkins University , told 蜜桃影视 鈥� she calls that glitch 鈥渄ata lag.鈥� Where the CDC count is higher, Pond explained, federal overseers may have access to vaccination counts that local departments of health do not, such as coronavirus immunizations that occurred at army bases or on tribal lands through the Indian Health Service.

In Navajo County, Arizona, for example, Assistant County Manager Bryan Layton said via email, 鈥淲e openly acknowledge the inherent challenges of tracking and reporting case data and vaccine rates in a rural county that is home to 3 different sovereign tribal entities: the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Hopi, and the Navajo Nation 鈥�. The Navajo Nation 鈥� uses a series of service areas that do not necessarily conform to county or state jurisdictions.鈥�

Still, local reports in Navajo County say of residents under 20 years old have received at least one dose of the vaccine, compared to CDC numbers that put the rate for 12- to 17-year-olds at 98 percent 鈥� a gap that likely can鈥檛 be fully explained by Indian Health Service data absent at the local level.

鈥淚 have a red flag when any [vaccination rate] is above, like, 90 percent,鈥� said Pond. Differences between CDC and local figures, she said, can be rather common.聽

鈥楢 lot of moving parts鈥�

To get a better sense of the frequency of discrepancies between local and CDC vaccination rates, 蜜桃影视 queried a random sample of 10 U.S. counties, a small sliver of the over 2,600 in the full dataset and separate from the analysis of the counties with the highest reported rates. Seven returned data for comparison against federal numbers, some using slightly different age boundaries for youth vaccination than 蜜桃影视鈥檚 12- to 17-year-old range.

Out of those seven counties, three had rates that diverged from CDC numbers by more than 5 percentage points. Hood River County, Oregon, reported that 72 percent of youth ages 12 to 17 had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine while the CDC reported an 80 percent figure. Sullivan County, Pennsylvania, reported a 23 percent rate for youth ages 12 to 19 compared to a 30 percent 12- to 17-year-old rate from the CDC. And Schoolcraft County, Michigan, reported that 32 percent of youth ages 12 to 15 and 47 percent of youth ages 16 to 19 had received at least one dose, compared to a 13 percent CDC rate for youth ages 12 to 17. Both Sullivan and Schoolcraft counties have populations under 10,000, meaning small inaccuracies could have an outsized impact on their vaccination percentages.

The inconsistencies don鈥檛 surprise Michael Kurilla, director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. The U.S. has a decentralized health care system, he pointed out, meaning that providers can鈥檛 easily share data. For example, someone sick with COVID who leaves the hospital too early and re-admits to another facility could easily be counted as two cases, said Kurilla.

Further, the reporting systems themselves are often antiquated, the NIH expert explained.

鈥淪ome places are still paper based, some are using fax to transmit information,鈥� he told 蜜桃影视, adding 鈥� only half joking 鈥� that it wouldn鈥檛 surprise him if some local health agencies still used floppy disks.

On top of technological woes, the many different settings offering COVID-19 shots can compound reporting challenges, explained Phil Chan, medical director for the Rhode Island Department of Health. It鈥檚 easy to document doses at state-run vaccination clinics, he said, but vaccinations delivered at doctor鈥檚 offices or pharmacies can be harder to track.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot of moving parts,鈥� he told 蜜桃影视. 鈥淭he devil鈥檚 really in the details.鈥�

When those details are mishandled, inaccuracies in the data arise. In mid-September, the CDC adjusted their report of the share of people 12 and older in West Virginia who had received at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine , after discovering that they had double-counted certain data streams for over three months.

On the flip side, increased data transparency may well translate into increased accuracy. In Maine 鈥� the only U.S. state to publicly report student and staff COVID vaccination data for school districts, according to the University of Washington鈥檚 Center on Reinventing Public Education 鈥� reported by the state for each of its 16 counties align closely with federal numbers.

鈥淲e need to be transparent, you need to show exactly what you do,鈥� said Mokdad, the UW epidemiologist who spent two decades at the CDC.

He wishes his former employer would be more forthcoming about its raw numbers and any possible shortcomings in its data pipeline. In his own COVID research, Mokdad said, he relies on infection counts from the Johns Hopkins tracker, because he finds it more reliable than the federal numbers.

鈥淭here is a big problem at CDC right now,鈥� said the epidemiologist. Mokdad himself was involved in a high-profile incident in 2004 where he co-authored a CDC paper that the number of annual deaths caused by obesity. The health expert said he left the centers in 2008 for unrelated reasons and on good terms with all his co-workers.

鈥淚 criticize CDC because I love CDC,鈥� he said.

In a key step toward coronavirus vaccine access for over 28 million U.S. children, Pfizer-BioNTech Thursday morning that they have submitted their formal request to federal regulators for authorization to deliver shots to youth ages 5 to 11.

The move comes after the pharmaceutical companies announced positive topline results among that age group in clinical trials in late September. The testing regimen delivered two reduced-potency doses to more than 2,000 youngsters, producing a 鈥渞obust鈥� antibody response, including immunity and side effects comparable to that produced by the larger dose in 16- to 25-year-old patients.聽

鈥淲ith new cases in children in the U.S. continuing to be at a high level, this submission is an important step in our ongoing effort against COVID-19,鈥� Pfizer Thursday.

The Food and Drug Administration has an Oct. 26 advisory committee meeting to review Pfizer-BioNTech鈥檚 request to expand authorization to younger children.聽

Pressed on what issues will be on the table during that meeting and how soon afterward authorization might be granted, a spokesperson responded to 蜜桃影视 that the 鈥淔DA cannot comment on its interactions with manufacturers about their investigational products.鈥�

Should the review process follow a similar timeline as it did for 12- to 15-year olds, which stretched just over a month from an April 9 submission to a May 10 authorization, children ages 5 to 11 could receive the greenlight for COVID immunizations by early- to mid-November, sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, schools are facing a third straight school year disrupted by the virus, which as of last week had even as cases overall have begun to fall. As of Sunday, outbreaks had triggered some across 561 districts since buildings opened their doors for the 2021-22 school year, according to the website Burbio, which has tracked school policies and schedules through the pandemic.

Although children rarely fall seriously ill from the virus, the Delta variant has driven up caseloads among unvaccinated Americans, including youth. Last week, over 173,000 pediatric cases were reported, accounting for nationwide, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Vaccines are currently authorized for youth ages 12 to 15, and fully approved for those 16 and up. As of Sept. 29, of 12- to 17-year olds in the U.S. had received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the pediatrics academy, while of adults 18 and older are fully vaccinated.

Youth immunization rates, however, vary greatly by locale. In 10 states, ages 12 to 17 have received at least one dose of the vaccine, while in 21 states, the same is true for less than half of youth that age.

Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that for all eligible students in the state, though the rule will likely not go into effect until July 2022.

Some districts have moved to implement more immediate mandates for children ages 12 and up including Los Angeles, Oakland and Culver City, all in California; and Hoboken, New Jersey. Washington D.C. is also that would require all students to be fully immunized against the virus by Dec. 15.

Though it may prove a challenge to persuade the parents of K-12 students to receive vaccinations in some districts, COVID shots are the most effective way to defend children against the virus, Benjamin Linas, professor of medicine at Boston University, told 蜜桃影视 last month.

鈥淲ith the vaccine, you鈥檙e very well protected from the bad outcomes.鈥�

And then came the Delta variant.

Pediatric coronavirus cases have now surged above 250,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic, according to . Hospitalizations of children stricken by the highly transmissible strain are reaching and some of students across the country last week were quarantining away from schools that had just barely begun. With a swiftness that surprised even health experts, the virus has across some 278 districts in 35 states, according to the website Burbio, a data service that tracks school calendars.

As for the adults in schools, at least have died of the virus since mid-August and shut down all its schools earlier this month after two teachers perished in the same week.

The Delta drumbeat of distress is one of the main reasons that President Joe Biden came out Thursday with a new plan of attack, including mandatory vaccinations for some 300,000 school staff members working for federal programs, such as Head Start or schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education, and grants for districts confronting loss of funding for implementing mask mandates.

It will take some time to tell if Biden鈥檚 new strategy will be successful in beating back this latest surge. Right now, many parents and school officials are in a state of anxiety about how to keep their K-12 communities safe and perhaps questioning whether they miscalculated the strength of the COVID-19 enemy.

Complicating the matter further, decisions to implement basic virus mitigation measures in school have in some cases exploded into or even .

Amid the uncertainty and high tensions, and with , 蜜桃影视 spoke directly to health experts for clarity on how to understand the virus in this critical stage and tips on how to safely navigate the back-to-school season.

Here鈥檚 what they had to say:

1 We鈥檝e seen a surge in pediatric coronavirus cases. Should we abandon the prior wisdom that kids rarely catch COVID, and when they do, it鈥檚 not too serious?

Not exactly.

鈥淸The Delta variant] is more infectious, but it鈥檚 not a whole new game,鈥� explained Benjamin Linas, professor of medicine at Boston University.

The variant鈥檚 high transmissibility has pushed up case counts, including among children, he told 蜜桃影视. But serious illness among young people remains 鈥渧anishingly rare,鈥� he said 鈥� citing a case fatality rate of .00003 for those under 20.

鈥淭his underlying reality that kids are at far less risk of severe COVID-19 than adults remains true, even with Delta.鈥�

Young people do represent a larger share of infections nationwide now than they did at the outset of the pandemic. But that鈥檚 likely because far fewer minors than adults are vaccinated, and many remain ineligible for shots, said Kristina Deeter, professor of pediatric medicine at University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine.

In most cases, 鈥淸kids] are not as sick as the adults,鈥� she agreed.

Still, Rebecca Wurtz, professor of health policy at the University of Minnesota, cautions that the risk of infection remains high, particularly for the unvaccinated. The idea that young people couldn鈥檛 catch or spread COVID was always silly, she told 蜜桃影视, and the Delta variant means that transmission is now easier than ever before.

鈥淒elta will find you if you are not thoughtfully masking and social distancing,鈥� she said.

2 Does the Delta variant make kids sicker than previous strains?

There is no conclusive evidence that it does, according to the experts.

鈥淭he jury鈥檚 still out,鈥� said Deeter.

Studies from Canada and Scotland have found that than those infected with previous mutations of the virus.

And while those papers don鈥檛 examine virulence specifically among young people, Wurtz believes it could still be 鈥渞easonable to extrapolate that to kids.鈥�

Evidence from the U.S., however, seems to contradict the idea that Delta causes more severe infections among youth. Even as pediatric COVID cases have surged, the proportion of children and adolescents hospitalized with severe disease has , points out Amruta Padhye, pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of Missouri.

The hospitalization rate among unvaccinated adolescents was , recent CDC data reveal.

3 After the Pfizer vaccine鈥檚 full approval from the FDA, parents may now theoretically seek 鈥渙ff-label鈥� vaccines for children under 12. Should they do so?

In short, no.

Although the FDA鈥檚 full approval of the Pfizer vaccine for those 16 and up means that doctors now have the power to prescribe the shot 鈥溾�� to any individual regardless of age, it would be irresponsible to do so, said Deeter.

The biggest unknown, she explained, is dosage. She prescribes drugs off label every day as a pediatrician, but explained that the COVID vaccine is different because it鈥檚 still so new.

鈥淚 don’t feel safe even deciding on what dose I might want to prescribe for a child. I have no idea what’s going to work,鈥� she said, explaining that too much vaccine could elevate risks such as myocarditis, already more prevalent in young vaccine recipients than adults, and too little vaccine might not provide adequate protection against the coronavirus.

鈥淭here’s a reason that we have the approval process, even in the middle of a crisis,鈥� added Linas. 鈥淚 don’t recommend going out to get your child vaccinated before the vaccine has actually been approved or emergency authorized for kids.鈥�

Youngsters aged 5 to 11 are expected to become eligible for coronavirus shots , experts say. The process has stretched out over months in part due to federal health regulators efforts to bolster confidence in the shots by in clinical trials.

Once shots are approved for that age group, they will be the most effective way to keep children healthy, said Linas.

鈥淲ith the vaccine, you鈥檙e very well protected from the bad outcomes.鈥�

4 Should schools implement vaccine mandates for staff?

Immunization requirements for school staff have multiplied since the FDA issued full approval for the Pfizer vaccine. 鈥�, , and multiple other states have enacted rules requiring educators to receive the COVID shot or be regularly tested for the virus.

In his Thursday address, which unveiled new vaccination rules covering two-thirds of all U.S. workers, President Biden to help move the needle on teacher immunization from its reported 90 percent level up to 100 percent.

鈥淰accination requirements in schools are nothing new,鈥� said the president.

Expecting teachers to be immunized against COVID represents a sound public health policy, says Linas.

鈥淚t’s reasonable for school districts 鈥� to say to their educators and staff鈥� 鈥榃e have an expectation that if you鈥檙e going to come into our buildings where we have our unvaccinated children, we expect you to be vaccinated. And if you won’t do that, then I’m sorry, you can’t teach.鈥欌��

That strategy also minimizes learning disruptions, pointed out Janet Englund, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

鈥淲hen a teacher gets sick, he or she is unable to perform his or her job,鈥� she told 蜜桃影视.

5 What about vaccine mandates for students?

Very few school districts have extended vaccine mandates to students, as 12- to 15-year-olds remain eligible for shots only on an emergency authorization basis, and those under 12 are still ineligible.

On Thursday, however, Los Angeles Unified School District, which serves 600,000 students, became the first major U.S. school district to require that eligible students attending school in person be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Students 12 and older in the nation鈥檚 second-largest school system will have to receive their second dose of the shot by Dec. 19, officials announced.

Culver City, California and also instituted similar requirements for students in late August. Experts told 蜜桃影视 that they expect the vaccination rules to face legal challenges.

Although Englund said she is a believer in many student vaccine mandates 鈥� they helped control diseases such as measles and polio, she pointed out 鈥� requiring a vaccine that is approved only on an emergency use authorization may be premature.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not quite time,鈥� she said.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, however, expressed his while speaking on CNN in late August, and the University of Minnesota鈥檚 Wurtz told 蜜桃影视 that she is 鈥渁bsolutely in favor of mandatory vaccinations for students,鈥� due to the high safety and efficacy of COVID shots.

6 How effective are masks and other safety mitigation measures at slowing the spread of COVID in school?

Experts agree that safety measures to slow the spread of COVID are more effective when implemented in tandem with multiple others than on their own.

鈥淸Masking] has to be a part of a layered protection strategy,鈥� UCLA professor of pediatrics Ishminder Kaur told 蜜桃影视.

That means that classrooms should employ all strategies available to them, she said: universal masking, ventilation, distancing, outdoor activities and rigorous testing to keep infected students out of the classroom.

Doing so can result in schools effectively containing the virus and keeping case rates below those of surrounding communities, academic studies show.

Although quarantining students exposed to the virus can disrupt academics, experts said it is a necessary step to contain transmission. They pointed out that with widespread access to testing, a negative result after five days may allow students to return to the classroom more quickly. On Thursday, Biden announced that the White House will move to make 280 million rapid and at-home tests available using the Defense Production Act and lower the cost of over-the-counter tests from Walmart, Kroger and Amazon.

Some districts鈥� quarantine protocols are more stringent than those recommended by the CDC, according to a recent survey of 100 districts from the University of Washington鈥檚 Center for Reinventing Public Education.

Some observers have recently made the case that the , but Kaur points out that a recent study from Bangladesh with a randomized design 鈥� considered the 鈥済old standard鈥� in causal research 鈥� finds that , though it cautions that cloth masks may be less effective.

And while masking controversy has turned many school board meetings ugly, including in Broward County, Florida where the board chair said 鈥�all hell broke loose鈥� when they required face coverings in defiance of Gov. Ron DeSantis鈥檚 order, kids don鈥檛 actually seem to mind wearing masks, said Kaur.

鈥淭hey鈥檙e not fidgeting, they鈥檙e not touching it,鈥� she said of the youngsters who come into her clinic. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the new normal for them.鈥�

Deeter, who works in a sedation clinic and has to ask kids to remove their masks, has observed the same.

鈥淭hey get so upset when I try to take it off of them. It’s their buddy,鈥� she said.

7 Outside of school, what鈥檚 the best way to navigate playdates and other social activities?

The number one tip, experts say, is to stay outside as much as possible.

鈥淥utdoor activities were not the ones that were spreading these infections, which remains true even for Delta,鈥� said Kaur, although she recommended avoiding overcrowded locations even outside. For example, coaches calling players into a huddle might ask everyone to momentarily mask up.

Even when the weather gets cold, Wurtz recommends limiting indoor hangouts. She suggests some compromises: building a snowman outside then coming indoors for hot chocolate at the end, perhaps.

8 What鈥檚 the COVID end-game for schools?

Once all students have had the opportunity to receive COVID vaccinations, it could be time to consider rolling back virus mitigation protocols, Linas said, and beginning the conversation about how to live with a virus that within the global population. But that鈥檚 still a long way out.

鈥淲e鈥檙e not there yet,鈥� he said.

As COVID cases surged across the country this summer, fueled by spread of the highly infectious Delta variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention joined the American Academy of Pediatrics in recommending that all students and staff wear masks in school. But in Texas, as in a handful of other conservative states, an executive order banning mask mandates forbade school districts from following that guidance.

In Dallas, Superintendent Michael Hinojosa felt that he was faced with a choice: risk over 153,000 students鈥� safety or risk legal challenges. The superintendent chose the latter, defying Gov. Greg Abbott鈥檚 ban and paving the way for dozens of other districts in the state to follow the same path.

Now nearly a month into the school year, and as COVID rages through the Dallas community, the struggle is making its way through state courts. And all the while, Hinojosa is contending with the urgent question of how to bring students back up to speed after a year of disrupted learning.

This year, Dallas is rolling out discipline reforms to end racial disparities in suspension, new social-emotional supports and revamped school calendars to boost students鈥� learning time.

蜜桃影视 caught up with Hinojosa over the phone to hear how those efforts are unfolding and get the latest on the district鈥檚 legal showdown over masks.

This conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

蜜桃影视: It鈥檚 been a pretty surreal back-to-school season and Dallas has been in the news a lot. What’s top of mind for you right now?

Hinojosa: Last year was a year like no other, and this August has been an August like no other. Even as surreal as last year was, this August has been even crazier.

On Aug. 3, our county went to code red (representing high COVID transmission). The very next day, I鈥檓 attending a meeting of some superintendents 鈥� and we heard from a very prominent attorney that maybe the governor can鈥檛 enforce this (ban on mask mandates). So the Houston superintendent calls me and is telling me they’re thinking about implementing a mask mandate protocol and so I said, 鈥淚鈥檓 with you.鈥� I really felt it was under my authority, since I have the authority to run the day-to-day operations of the school district.

Aug. 9 we announced our mask protocols, and then everything breaks loose.

I’ve been following along with the legal developments. Dallas ISD鈥檚 mask mandate was challenged, and then a judge ruled in your favor. But now the state attorney general has appealed. Can you give me a sense of where you think this whole thing is headed?

Well, it changes almost on a daily basis.

We prevailed at the district court. But the governor (Greg Abbott) and attorney general (Ken Paxton) can appeal to an appeals court and we think we鈥檒l win there. But we think eventually we’re going to lose at the (Texas) Supreme Court 鈥� because they鈥檙e all conservative members.

It’s very interesting that the attorney general and the governor have both said publicly that they’re going to prosecute anybody who implements a mask protocol. But in the court pleadings, they said that they had no authority to do that. Then the commissioner of education (Mike Morath) has come out and said that they鈥檙e not going to enforce anything until all of these court proceedings are over.

So what I predict is that eventually this will go to the Supreme Court and we will be told at some point that we cannot have our mask protocol as we want it. But there’s going to be no enforcement, because I don’t see the local district attorneys coming after all 60 superintendents in Texas that are defying the governor’s executive order.

We’ve said all along, this was temporary. Come November, if we get back under 500 COVID cases in the county and we鈥檝e stopped the spread on campuses, then I’ll be glad to lift the mask mandate. I don’t really like it myself, but we’re trying to protect the health and safety of our students.

As I’m sure you know, the federal government is opening civil rights probes into five states over their ban on mask mandates in schools. Texas isn鈥檛 on that list because the issue is already in the hands of the courts. But more broadly, what type of federal involvement might be useful in Texas? And do you see bans on mask mandates as a civil rights issue?

One of the reasons [the U.S. Department of Education] didn’t go after Texas is that they now have the understanding that what the governor has done is unenforceable. So that’s why we weren’t included in that order.

But it could be a civil rights issue. We’ll have to see how that plays out. We do get federal dollars for special education and economically disadvantaged students and, of course, they have given us significant dollars for the Recovery Act. So the feds do have some skin in this game and they’re not just sitting on the sidelines.

Seems like the federal government is trying to find out whether bans on mask mandates systematically exclude specific students, perhaps immunocompromised students from the classroom.

Yeah, that’s the focus of their inquiry, which gives them standing on this matter and, of course, those students are all over the country, so it does give them an entr茅e, I believe. But I’m not an attorney.

Over the weekend, Dr. Fauci told CNN that school [COVID] vaccine mandates for eligible students are a good idea based on the benefit-to-risk ratio. Schools already require a number of other vaccinations for enrollment and the FDA recently gave full approval to the Pfizer shot for folks 16 and up. What are your thoughts on the topic of mandating student vaccinations?

I’m supportive. I’m not ready to litigate at this time yet. What we’ve done instead to start with is we’re giving a $25 gift card for any student who provides his or her proof of vaccination. So we’re going down that path, we’re going a little bit more slowly (than we did with our mask policy).

But we would be supportive, especially when our younger students can take the vaccine, and we’re now hearing late November, early December when that vaccination will be available. I would be in favor of [a student immunization requirement]. You’re exactly right. We require other vaccines and so I would be very supportive of that, although I’m not going to be as assertive on that one as we have been on the mask protocol.

So just to clarify, when students under 12 do become eligible for shots that might open the door for Dallas to move toward mandating student vaccines?聽

Yes, I would definitely consider it at that point because it’d be much more universal.

And for staff vaccine mandates, they鈥檙e banned in Texas but have been implemented in a number of states. Do you think making COVID shots mandatory for teachers might be an appropriate public health measure? And how do politics play in?

We have 22,000 employees and so we told them that we would give them a $500 stipend if they prove that they were vaccinated. Within three hours, we had 6,000 staff turn in their documentation. We are now up to around 11,000 and then the ones that just went out and took the vaccine, it takes them a while to get their documentation. So we anticipate we’ll get probably three-quarters on a voluntary basis.

But to answer your question, yes, I would be very supportive, especially for campus employees who deal with children to be required to have a vaccination. But even our county hospital can’t require vaccination in Texas for their nurses because of the state laws that are in place. When San Antonio ISD tried to do that, they got halted by the attorney general.

And in a sentence or two, what’s at stake in these safety decisions for students, families and teachers?

Everything’s at stake here.

Not only their safety, but the data is overwhelming that in-person instruction is by far the best. A few, maybe five percent of the students, do better virtually. But can you imagine if we have to have students at home because [COVID] spread got so bad that they lose another year of instruction? A whole generation could be at risk of falling so far behind that they can’t catch up. So there’s a lot at stake.

We’re very proud that we got to 97 percent of our projected enrollment and out of that, 96 percent of it is in person. So our students are glad to be back. Our families are glad to be back, but boy, we’ve got a big hill to climb academically.

On that topic of catching students up, especially given the fact that more often than not, some of those students who fell furthest behind last year were those who perhaps had fewer supports or financial resources at home, what efforts are underway in Dallas to help kids get back up to speed? I read about a tutoring program, for instance.

Well, we had 36,000 households without connectivity, so we put together a program called Operation Connectivity to connect our families and we executed on that plan. [At first] we did hotspots, but now we put up towers so that at least they can have access if they’re having to learn from home.

We鈥檙e also going to have tutoring during the school day, afterschool and in the summer.

But we now have three different calendars. One of them is a year-round calendar, where you get more time. Another one is what we call an intersession calendar, where you go five weeks, and then you’re off a week, go another five weeks, and you go off a week. We catch students up [who are behind during that week off]. For our most challenging schools 鈥� we have 60 that we call 鈥渉igh-priority campuses鈥� 鈥� we have a very robust afterschool program from 3 to 6 p.m. for enrichment activities and strong academic activities to try to get them caught up.

And we’ve completely reinvented our summer school. So we’re doing all of those things all at the same time to accelerate learning.

Can you tell me a bit more about those different calendars? Where did the idea come from, what鈥檚 the goal, and do you know of other districts using that same model?

There’s a school district in the El Paso area called Socorro that has had this intersession calendar ever since the 鈥�90s and they’ve had good academic results where they bring in the students that are behind during the week that they鈥檙e off. Garland ISD, which is one of our neighbors, went to that calendar last year, but there is no other district that has the multiple options that we have.

To be one of the five schools using the year-round calendar or [one of the] 41 schools that are in intersession calendars, each had 80 percent of the teachers and 80 percent of the parents opt into those calendar options. 鈥� We didn’t want to force families to take one of those calendars.

At scale, nobody else is doing it like we are, other than the two that I mentioned, Garland and Socorro. So we think that students in those schools they’re going to have a better opportunity to catch up than if you just went with a traditional calendar.

We’re using a lot of our federal ESSA dollars to pay for this extra time. We know who our best teachers are, and our best teachers get more money to teach those intersession opportunities. Instead of working 180 days, they’ll be working 210 days. So there’s significant dollars that will be going into the pockets of our teachers, and especially our best teachers, because they’ll get the opportunity to do a lot of those enrichment and intervention opportunities.

I know last year Dallas moved to end suspensions. Where does that effort now stand?

We’re pulling forward with it. Ten percent of our students are African-American males, yet 51 percent of our suspensions were African-American male, until now. If you [engage in severe misbehavior] you will still be suspended, but we’re talking about the discretionary suspension and the discretionary suspensions were 75 percent of our suspensions. We鈥檙e going to have a different alternative on how to redirect their behavior.

We’ll have some data sets at the end of the first nine weeks about where we are and we’ll also have data in a year about how this journey to redirect behavior through these reset centers went. So stay tuned.

We鈥檒l be following those results. Turning to the social-emotional well-being of the wider student population, I know that last fall Dallas ISD teachers were trained in trauma-informed care. What results did you see from that training? How do you see Dallas ISD鈥檚 commitment to social-emotional learning changing in response to COVID-19 traumas?聽

We got $7 million from the Wallace Foundation to implement social-emotional learning districtwide. They hired the RAND Corporation to do a research study. But we ran into a problem because we couldn’t have a treatment group and a control group. All of our campuses wanted to have that training and so we kind of threw the research out the window.

We trained the teachers first so they could help deal with the students and we also hired 58 mental health and social work professionals last year, knowing that we were going to need them this year. 鈥� We just went all in, as many as we could afford.

Last question, what鈥檚 sustaining you through the pandemic? Where are you finding positive stories to counterbalance all the tense circumstances?

People don’t want a whiner. They want a problem solver. So if you lose hope and aspiration, then that gives other people permission to lose hope. I’m generally a positive person, I look for solutions.

I’ve had very little pushback on my mask mandate protocol. In fact, I’ve had mostly universal support and so I think that just shows that if you’re willing to take a risk, and look to the future in a positive way that people will climb aboard with you. So far, so good.