Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
School Reopenings Continue To Vex
CNN: Back To School: Some Kids Scared As Adults Debate Reopening Risks
Teachers and parents who are currently weighing their options when it comes to school reopenings in the middle of a deadly pandemic may have one additional challenge ahead: children who are fearful of returning to school. Like the rest of us, children in this country have been told to stay inside, to wash their hands and to wear a mask for months now. For some kids, the restrictions, what they've heard on the news and their own personal experience with Covid-19 have made the outside world feel like a dangerous place. (Bracho-Sanchez, 7/28)
San Jose Mercury News: Homeschool Parents' Advice For Surviving Online Learning
With the coronavirus keeping millions of California school children stuck at home when the new school year starts, it’s good to know there are some parents out there who not only survive the experience on a year-round basis, but purposely choose it. Helping kids through classes at home has become a strange new reality for most families in the Bay Area. But it doesn’t have to be all bad — homeschoolers say there are plenty of ways to keep kids focused and learning at the kitchen table. Until schools can reopen, here are some tips from teachers and homeschooling parents on how to make the most of it. (Wu, 7/27)
Cincinnati Enquirer: Coronavirus: Schools Re-Evaluate Return Plans Amidst Safety Concerns
Two weeks ago, nearly every major school district throughout Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky planned to send students back to school full time. Others still had rules in place that only strongly recommended masks for students. A week later, the landscape surrounding school reopening had shifted. Fewer schools are planning on a five-day-a-week return. Mask requirements have gotten stronger in many areas. A few districts recently have elected to skip returning in person altogether, opting for a virtual reopening, an Enquirer survey of area schools reveals. What's causing these rapid shifts in reopening plans? The continued spread of the virus and the evolving advice about the balancing act for schools seeking to reopen. (Headley, 7/27)
Boston Globe: For Many Massachusetts Districts, School Year Might Start 2 Weeks Late
School districts across Massachusetts will be allowed to delay the opening day for students this fall up to 10 days — and students won’t have to make up the lost time — under a deal finalized Monday that aims to give districts more time to prepare for a safe return. Under the deal — struck between state education officials and the state’s three largest teacher unions — districts can use the first 10 days of the school year to provide teachers and staff with time to redesign classroom lessons, learn techniques to help students overcome trauma they may have experienced during the pandemic, and to learn an array of new safety and health protocols developed to keep students safe from the coronavirus. (Vaznis, 7/27)
The Hill: Atlanta Mayor: 'As A Mother Of Four Children I Do Not Trust This President With Their Lives'
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) criticized President Trump’s push for schools to reopen in the fall amid surging coronavirus cases — as both a lawmaker and a mother. “As a mother of four children I do not trust this president with their lives,” Bottoms said Monday on a call with reporters. Bottoms said her family is a “prime example” of what can happen when children are sent back into “unsafe classrooms.” One of her four children was infected with COVID-19 but was asymptomatic. (Klar, 7/27)
The New York Times: A Small Georgia City Plans To Put Students In Classrooms This Week
When Jennifer Fogle and her family moved from Indiana to Georgia 13 years ago, they settled in Jefferson, a small, handsome city an hour’s drive from Atlanta, because they had heard about the excellent schools. And until recently, they had little to complain about. The teachers are passionate and committed, and the facilities rival those found at some private schools. But in recent days Ms. Fogle found herself uncharacteristically anxious, after learning that Jefferson City Schools planned to offer face-to-face instruction in the midst of a resurgent coronavirus pandemic that has seen thousands of new cases reported daily in Georgia. (Fausset, 7/27)
In higher-education news —
Politico: For HBCUs, The Coronavirus Pandemic Hits Especially Close To Home
Leaders of historically Black colleges and universities are grappling with a challenge others in higher education don’t fully share: how to reopen their campuses to a population that has proven especially vulnerable to Covid-19. Black people are dying at 2.5 times the rate of white people, according to the Covid Racial Data Tracker. And nearly a third of deaths among nonwhite Americans were in people younger than 65, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, compared with 13 percent among white people under that age. (McCaskill and King, 7/27)
