Since the beginning of this pandemic, experts and educators have feared that open schools would spread the coronavirus further, which is why so many classrooms remain closed. But a new, nationwide study suggests reopening schools may be safer than previously thought, at least in communities where the virus is not already spreading out of control.

The study comes from REACH, the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice, at Tulane University. Up to this point, researchers studying the public health effects of school reopening have focused largely on positivity rates. As in, did the rate of positive coronavirus tests among kids or communities increase after schools reopened?

The REACH researchers worried that testing in the U.S., especially among children, is still too varied and unpredictable. Instead, Susan Hassig, a Tulane epidemiologist who worked on the study, says they focused on hospitalization rates as a more reliable indicator of virus spread. It's easy to imagine infections going undetected in communities with spotty testing, Hassig says, but "if you get infected with coronavirus and you become substantially ill, you're going to become hospitalized." Mining nationwide data from 2020, she and her colleagues looked to see if more people ended up in the hospital after nearby schools reopened.

Members of the Baltimore County Board of Education railed against a proposed capital plan during a Tuesday night meeting, decrying school officials’ removal of projects to replace the aging and increasingly overcrowded Dulaney and Towson high schools.
But in a 7-2 split, with two abstaining, the board voted to add the two replacement projects back to the funding request.
Replacing Dulaney and Towson have been in the school system’s construction plan for years, but some board members said that re-adding them to the fiscal 2022 funding request could knock other schools in need down the list.
The proposed capital budget presented Tuesday evening included a request for almost $63 million to build a replacement Lansdowne High; planning money for an addition to Dundalk High that would add up to 650 seats for additional students; and roof replacements at Randallstown and Parkville high schools.
 

BOONE — Watauga County Schools administrators are working with officials from local emergency management and AppHealthCare to prepare for community-wide distribution of the vaccine by making school facilities available to use as clinic sites.
WCS Superintendent Scott Elliott said the first vaccination event will be on Jan. 16, at Watauga High School, and will be focused largely on older adults in the first stage of Phase 1b. WCS will begin to connect school employees to the health department to help them sign up for the vaccine when the number of doses are available. Elliott said he hopes this will take place within the next few weeks.
North Carolina is currently in phase 1a of its vaccination plans, which includes health care workers fighting COVID-19 and long-term care staff and residents. Phase 1b consists of adults 75 years or older and frontline essential workers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines frontline essential workers as first responders (firefighters, police), education (child care, teachers, support staff), manufacturing, corrections officers, public transit, grocery store, food and agriculture and U.S. postal workers.
As teachers are included in phase 1b, Elliott said administrators will strongly encourage employees to receive the vaccine. The school system does not plan to make vaccination a requirement for employees until or unless the state adds the vaccine to the list of requirements for employment. Elliott did not anticipate this happening at least until the vaccines are out of Food and Drug Administration emergency approval status.
Taking the vaccine is a decision each employee should consider in consultation with their own personal health care provider, Elliott said.
“Personally, I have a high degree of confidence in the vaccine and plan to receive it myself as soon as it is available,” Elliott said.
 

Atlanta Public Schools will delay the completion of a facilities master plan because of uncertainty brought on by the pandemic.
The planning effort, along with an accompanying demographic study, is important because it will guide the district’s building and property needs for the next 10 years. The document will serve as a key decision-making tool as officials determine which schools could be expanded, closed or merged based on factors such as enrollment forecasts.
Work to update the plan began in June 2019, when the district signed a $900,000 contract with the Atlanta-based firm Sizemore Group to develop it.
Under the original time frame, APS expected to be wrapping up work on the document.
Instead, officials recently announced they will press pause for a year to 18 months, citing concerns about how the coronavirus pandemic could impact enrollment projections.
“We need better data, and COVID has kind of changed the landscape on a lot of things,” said board Chairman Jason Esteves.
Accurately predicting enrollment trends is a critical component of the planning work. Officials rely on population forecasts and anticipated housing growth to predict which schools may add or lose students.
But the pandemic has cast uncertainty over those projections. Larry Hoskins, chief operating officer for APS, told board members last month that he’s “extremely concerned” about whether population forecasts made before the pandemic will change.
“We are now kind of wondering if, in fact, the region will experience the same growth projected prior to COVID, post-COVID,” he said.
 

“Get your son out of this school.”
That’s the message Yanira Rios received seven years ago from her son’s kindergarten teacher shortly after moving to Bridgeport, the only community in the region where she could afford an apartment. Her son had learned to read in preschool before leaving Shelton, and now Rios was being told that his teacher needed to focus on his classmates, who were far behind him academically.
“It was so discouraging to have a teacher beg you, ‘You have to figure it out. You have to get your kid out of here, because at the end of the year he’s going to be behind,'” said Rios.
A few months later, she cried while reading the letter saying her son had won a coveted spot through the school choice lottery in Westport Public Schools, the top ranked district in the state and No. 28 nationally.
“I was excited to the point of tears, because it meant a lot to me that he would be in a place where he would be challenged, where when he graduates he would be, I would say, on equal footing with most people in the state,” said Rios, who grew up in public housing and attended schools in Bridgeport and Puerto Rico. “It was heartbreaking to see the differences in Westport.” She also has a daughter who is now in the Westport school system.
The opportunity given to Rios’s two children, however, is not shared by the majority of students from Connecticut’s cities, where schools are largely filled with poor students who are multiple grades behind. Why? Because for decades state lawmakers have relied on predominantly white suburban communities to voluntarily offer enrollment to city students or to allow the construction of affordable housing so low-income city dwellers can move to their suburb and attend their schools.
Neither strategy has consistently worked.
 

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — A few extra pennies is going to add up to millions, possibly billions. The half-cent sales tax has begun collecting revenue in Duval and Clay Counties. The money generated will go back to the school districts.
Schools are going to be restored, renovated and even rebuilt. It all depends on the school's age and what all needs to be done. While the sales tax means pennies on a coffee order, it’ll end up touching every school in the district.
Click here for Duval schools. Every school in Duval County is listed. Click on your school to get a break down of the master plan. The district is expecting the tax to generate about $2 billion in 15 years.
Click here for Clay schools.  They have the school project listed by each school. Clay County School District is expecting their half-cent sales tax to generate around 400 million over 30 years. 
 

Manchester High School Central has joined a list of schools a consultant recommends be closed due to declining enrollment and climbing maintenance costs.

The latest version of the school facilities report prepared by MGT Consulting Group recommends closing four elementary schools and one high school, while merging two other high schools to address declining enrollment and more than $150 million in deferred maintenance and other costs.

A draft copy of the revised audit released Monday suggests closing Hallsville, Gossler Park, Smyth and Wilson elementary schools, along with Central High. Other recommendations include merging Manchester School of Technology with Manchester Memorial High School.

HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WMBF) – A former teacher for Horry County Schools has filed a lawsuit against the district, alleging exposure to mold while at school led to numerous health issues.

According to the lawsuit filed Dec. 31, 2020 against the district and four individual schools, Mary Burroughs taught at St. James Elementary School, Seaside Elementary School, Lakewood Elementary School, and Socastee Middle School during the 2016-2019 school years.

During that time, Burroughs said she continued to suffer from severe headaches, short-term memory loss, a lack of energy, watery eyes, dizziness, congestion in her nose and throat, and nerve issues in her hands and fingers, the lawsuit states.

Burroughs alleges she did not suffer from these ailments before working for the school district. A medical and allergy test revealed exposure to mold, according to the suit.

The plaintiff claims she reported problems with her modular classroom at St. James Elementary as having a mildew odor and mold problems on numerous occasions to not only the school’s custodian and maintenance personnel, but also the principal.

According to the lawsuit, HCS had knowledge of water damage, water leaks, and mold issues for years within numerous schools, including St. James Elementary.

Positive cases of the coronavirus have prompted New York City leaders to close more than 100 school buildings on Monday, News 4 has learned.
The Department of Education plans to close 128 buildings, which are made up of classrooms for younger grades attending in person as well as those in Learning Bridges and early childhood daycare.
A map of building closures due to coronavirus cases can be found on the city's website.
City Hall says there is no plan for a larger district-wide closure of buildings while state data for the city holds below the 9 percent benchmark that would trigger an automatic closure by the state.
New York City, like the state's other regions, has seen a significant rise in case numbers and deaths amid a winter surge of the coronavirus. As of Sunday, New York state's coronavirus dashboard showed New York City's seven-day rolling average at 6.24 percent. Despite the concerning number of COVID cases following the long holiday break, Mayor Bill de Blasio insists keeping schools open is important and safe.
"About 100,000 students, teachers, staff got tested across the entire school system ... the positivity level was .68 percent. Much, much lower than anything we're seeing anywhere else in New York City," de Blasio said. "So, the safest place to be in New York City of course is our public schools."