As all of our nation鈥檚 schools have reopened for the new year, and many communities continue to face rising infections, one of the best defenses against school disruptions may also be one of the least contentious: .

Testing can complement masking, vaccination requirements and proactive parent communication, and it can help schools while minimizing quarantines.

But our review of 100 large and urban school systems suggests many districts are not systematically taking advantage of this critical tool.

About half the districts in our review either mandate regular testing or rely on optional testing to identify new cases, with 37 requiring testing for staff and 14 for students.

Eight districts require staff to undergo testing, usually weekly, even if they are vaccinated. Twenty-nine require testing for some staff members, such as those who are unvaccinated. Another 29 districts offer optional testing for staff.

While student testing mandates in New York and Los Angeles grabbed headlines when school resumed, such requirements remain uncommon in the rest of the country.

Four districts in our review, including L.A. Unified, require all students to undergo regular COVID screening. Ten districts require some to undergo preventative testing, such as children who are unvaccinated or play sports. at least 10 percent of students each week, targeting unvaccinated kids.

Test-to-stay is a new tool aimed to shorten quarantine time

Testing can help administrators detect COVID infections before they spread in schools, while limiting the number of students who have to quarantine. Every district we track has now clarified its quarantine policy, and a growing number offer exemptions to students who take other precautions to safeguard against the spread of the virus.

Of the 100 districts we review, 86 exempt vaccinated students from quarantine, with 69 specifying that the exemption applies if they do not show symptoms. Other exemptions include students who recently recovered from COVID (37) and exposed students wearing masks (29).

Districts are increasingly turning to testing to limit quarantines. A little more than half of districts in our review (53) allow students who test negative for the virus to shorten or avoid isolation.

A few districts (8), in an attempt to keep more students learning in-person, are modifying their approach to quarantine using a test-to-stay program. These policies allow students who may have been exposed to the virus to continue in-person learning as long as they take daily COVID-19 tests.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet approved the test-to-stay approach and continues to recommend quarantine for up to 14 days for certain students. The federal public health agency told The New York Times but is working with local jurisdictions to collect more information on the strategy and its execution.

A handful of states, including , , and , have now outlined test-to-stay protocols or similar rules that let schools use testing to ease quarantine requirements. Seven of the eight districts with test-to-stay policies are located in these states. Portland Public Schools, in Maine, is the only district in our review administering a test-to-stay program without state guidance.

In other cases, state policies might prevent districts from adding nuance to their quarantine policies. asks students or staff who are under quarantine to stay home for 14 days after their last exposure to an infected person, monitor for symptoms and seek testing. A negative test does not shorten the length of time a student has to quarantine.

Testing may be an especially valuable tool in states that limit other health precautions, like Florida and Texas, whose governors have banned mask mandates, or Montana, which passed legislation that .

More districts signal vaccination requirements, but lack clarity on enforcement

Following the Biden administration鈥檚 recent, sweeping mandates for federal workers and businesses, a few more districts are following suit, with 40 in our review now requiring staff vaccinations. Of those, 14 require all staff members to get vaccinated without a testing alternative. This is double the number of districts with vaccine mandates a month earlier, but it is far outpaced by the growing number that allow staff to opt out through regular testing.

San Antonio ISD became the first district in Texas to require staff vaccinations, a decision that .

Meanwhile, 26 districts now require staff to either get vaccinated or participate in weekly testing. The School District of Philadelphia requires unvaccinated staff to get tested twice a week.

L.A. Unified and the Oakland Unified School District remain the ones that require vaccinations for all eligible students. Another California district, San Diego Unified, for students over 16. Eight districts require student athletes to get vaccinated.

As early as January, all eligible K-12 students in California will be required to get the vaccine. Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the nation鈥檚 first statewide mandate on Friday. 

State, federal leadership needed to help districts take advantage of testing

District leaders face the critical work of protecting students’ health, keeping them learning in classrooms wherever possible and helping them recover from the academic and emotional toll of the pandemic. They cannot afford to waste precious time and attention battling state officials or teachers unions over health precautions. Nor can students afford to have this school year interrupted by excessive quarantines.

Testing can be a valuable tool for catching outbreaks early in schools. It can work in concert with masking, vaccination and quarantines 鈥� or provide critical protections in districts where political barriers are blocking these crucial health precautions. And research suggests it can provide a safe, effective way to while guarding against infections in schools.

State and federal leaders should enact guidance that helps districts make the most of this critical tool. State education and health offices must come together to provide the funding, policy guidance and coordination so districts can conduct reliable testing at scale.

Locally, health authorities can pool resources and share protocols. And they should help districts find creative ways to overcome one of the biggest logistical barriers to robust COVID testing programs: a lack of staff. As one district official in Texas told The Times, 鈥�.鈥� That army could include parent volunteers, school system workers, employees from community organizations or personnel from local health agencies.

There is still much we don鈥檛 know about the barriers preventing schools from implementing effective COVID testing programs. Until more districts start enacting testing programs and talking openly about the operational barriers, it may not be clear exactly what states, health agencies and community volunteers can do to help.

Bree Dusseault is principal at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, supporting its analysis of district and charter responses to COVID-19. She previously served as executive director of Green Dot Public Schools Washington, executive director of pK-12 schools for Seattle Public Schools, a researcher at CRPE, and as a principal and teacher. Christine Pitts is a resident policy fellow at the Center on Reinventing Public Education.

Districts across the state reported they did not receive nearly as many applicants as anticipated and, as a result, there is some legislative momentum right now to extend the deadline.

School officials attributed the weak response to a number of factors, including summer communication lags and a concern among students that having pass/no pass outcomes on their transcripts would hurt their college prospects.

鈥淪ometimes it feels like our families have some school messenger fatigue, where they don’t always hear them or listen to them,鈥� said Tess Seay, head counselor at Fresno High School in the state鈥檚 Central Valley. Of their over 2,000 students, roughly 50 requested grade changes before their district鈥檚 Aug. 17 deadline, five days after their first day of school. They expected at least 100.

The ability to purge a low letter grade from your record has very real consequences. For two students on the cusp of 2.0 GPAs, Seay said the grade change option pushed them over that eligibility threshold for Cal Grants, the state鈥檚 loan-free financial aid. Some Cal Grants could provide for college tuition, making a significant financial impact for low-income students.

California legislators in July designed to not penalize students for the challenges that came with remote learning during the pandemic. In addition to the pass/no pass option, families could also request that their child repeat a grade or waive particular high school graduation requirements not mandated by the state.

The law required that districts notify families by Aug. 2 and provide a two-week application period. Many have questioned whether the timeline adequately enabled families 鈥� particularly those without regular internet access, or who may have been offline during the summer 鈥� to seriously consider their grade change options.

In San Bernardino, students returned to in-person learning Aug. 2 for the first time since March 2020. Anticipating a more hectic than usual back-to-school season as a result, the district opened English and Spanish-language grade-change on Aug. 16 for their 14,911 high schoolers, weeks after many other districts.

By Aug. 31, the district east of Los Angeles received 256 applications 鈥� just under 2 percent of those eligible.

鈥淏y design, we planned to start [the application window] the third week of school, allowing students, families, and counselors to focus on [the new state policy] and not overlook it in the rush of the start of the school year. This way students were settled into a routine before we brought it to their attention,鈥� Maria Garcia, the district鈥檚 communications officer, said in an email to 蜜桃影视.

Each San Bernardino high school website flags the policy and directs families to . Families were also notified via their district鈥檚 phone app [Parent Square], social media and email newsletters.

Nancy Witrado, director of counseling and guidance with Fresno Unified School District, said their application was made available via a fillable PDF, available in Hmong, Spanish and English. While they did not track the demographic details of who applied, she told 蜜桃影视 that many originated from a high school in northern Fresno county with a history of high parental engagement.

Many Fresno families filled out applications incorrectly, asking to change Bs or Fs to pass; the former would not benefit students and the latter would be impossible. The district is now paying overtime to several registrar and counseling employees to meet about 200 requests.

鈥淲e have a lot of follow-up to do, and to try to connect with parents to make sure that they have a full understanding of what it is they’re asking for,鈥� Witrado said.

Fresno Unified stuck to its Aug. 17 cutoff, though Witrado says not many families have reached out after-the-fact. One instance, of an application mistakenly submitted to a student鈥檚 teacher, will be honored because it came in before the deadline.

Problems reaching families may not be the only driver behind fewer grade-change requests 鈥斅爏ome college-bound students were warded off by the worry that a pass/no pass grade carried negative connotations with admissions officers.

Cecilia Roeder Chang, a senior at Gunn High School in affluent Palo Alto, said her district and school did a great job of getting the word out online, and her peers even posted about it on Instagram. Last school year she earned two Cs, in physics and foreign policy, that she considered changing to pass.

鈥淚 originally had decided that I was going to. Then I emailed my school counselor, and they replied back that colleges didn’t like that as much. So I decided against [it],鈥� she said.

Roeder Chang, who is applying to both in- and out-of-state schools, was not made aware that all California State Universities and all campuses within the University of California system must grades, or that some Cal Grants require a minimum 2.0 GPA. Her peers did not apply for grade changes, she said, given that they had mostly As and Bs.

The knowledge that some are able to change low grades for the better, after the school year鈥檚 end, has garnered mixed feelings.

鈥淚 sort of feel conflicted because on one hand, if you do have like lower grades it is helpful, but also on the other hand, if you are one of those people who are getting consistently like higher grades, you can feel like, I don’t want to say annoyance 鈥� maybe a little frustration.鈥�

North of Roeder Chang鈥檚 Palo Alto, Oakland Unified School District received 660 applications in Chinese, Arabic, English, Spanish and Vietnamese. All of the district鈥檚 13 high schools were represented, and the highest volume of applications were submitted by students at Skyline, Oakland Tech and Oakland High, the largest schools. Only two families have reached out after the district鈥檚 Aug. 16 deadline.

鈥淕iven this was the first legislation of its kind, we didn’t anticipate a certain number of requests and made sure we were prepared to handle a large number,鈥� John Sasaki, the district鈥檚 communications director, told 蜜桃影视 by email.

From a policy standpoint, advocates caution against permanent alternative grading. The , a national nonprofit that aims to make students prepared for post-secondary education, expressed concern for pass/no pass policies over longer periods, saying they may lead to decreased expectations for students and less accurate student data.

Short-term adjustments to grading policies can be beneficial for students who may need to heal from collective trauma, said one former high school math teacher who now works with the Collaborative. Recalling how his Las Vegas school let up on requirements after a mass shooting in October 2017, he said changing grading policies provided students with needed flexibility.

He said that other supports 鈥� like removing deadlines or penalties for late work 鈥� may adequately support students without overhauling A-F grading, which feeds into many other systems like financial aid, school report cards and state reporting.

San Diego Unified 鈥� the state鈥檚 second-largest district 鈥� during the pandemic. Only 290 of their 36,000 high schoolers applied for grade changes. The in its communications 鈥� recommending instead that the grade be 鈥渟uppressed鈥� by repeating the class.

Because of low application rates and school capacity to process applications at the start of the school year, San Diego state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the state law, is now recommending districts extend deadlines voluntarily and is pursuing legislation to formally extend the deadline to October.

鈥淚 will say we鈥檙e a little disappointed with the lack of flexibility with some of the districts,鈥� . 鈥淚f you feel like you missed [the deadline], contact the school district. Really push.鈥�