The school closures that lasted approximately a year and a half in the name of the Wuhan coronavirus had devastating effects on children. And yet there are school districts closing down again, with cases spiking once more. While the latest variant, Omicron, is particularly contagious and has raised alarm across the country, it's also milder than the Delta variant. As data from South Africa and studies from multiple countries have confirmed, the variant is less likely to result in hospitalizations.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), appeared on "CNN's Newsroom" earlier on Thursday, where her fear-mongering included talk of school closures "because of people getting sick."
Thanks to CNN for having me on this morning. We have never seen anything like Omicron before & while we are all trying to keep schools open because we know that’s important for kids,we need the safety measures like testing, well fitted masks,good ventilation, vaccines & boosters. https://t.co/94sUyYE5QR
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) December 30, 2021
What would make such closures even more tragic is how unnecessary they are. Brown University School of Public Health Dean Ashish K. Jha told "Fox News Sunday" that closures "really shouldn't even be on the table." He added "I'm disappointed to see this is happening" with regards to schools that are shutting down in January. "Schools should be absolutely the last place to close and the first place to open," he also said.
As Landon reported on Sunday, Dr. Jha also said during his appearance on ABC's "This Week" that a spike in cases shouldn't be the "major metric" anymore, but rather the focus should be on hospitalizations and death.
On December 20, The New York Times published a guest essay by Dr. Joseph G. Allen, "We Learned Our Lesson Last Year: Do Not Close Schools."
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Dr. Allen's particularly lengthy piece discusses how the "harms to kids from being out of school... are severe. They are accumulating. And they could last for decades... All of these effects were predictable and, in fact, predicted. And they must not be repeated."
As the piece details:
Online learning isn’t the same as in-person learning. A report by McKinsey examining Covid-19 effects on the 2020-21 school year found that the pandemic left students five months behind on math and four months behind in reading. Schools with majority Black and brown populations saw deeper losses: six months behind in math and five to six months behind in reading. A separate study analyzing the impact of remote learning found that math and reading passing rates were lowest in poor areas and that going from fully virtual to fully in person counteracted the low math passing rates by 10 percentage points.
And that’s for students who were in school. One million students expected to be in school didn’t show up in person or online at all, with the largest declines in the youngest learners and in families living below the federal poverty line.
...
The effects of closed schools go far beyond learning loss. We have a full-on child mental health crisis on our hands. The proportion of pediatric hospital visits for mental health reasons increased significantly in 2020 as the pandemic hit and schools closed, and the trend only worsened as 2020 wore on.
Schools are the place where we first detect trouble at home, including neglect and abuse. Even short-term closings have steep consequences. In just the first three months of the pandemic, an analysis of data from New York City found a drop of nearly 8,000 in expected reports of allegations of child maltreatment. When researchers extrapolated that to the rest of the country, they estimated that more than 275,000 cases would have otherwise been reported.
My colleagues and I wrote last fall about how school closings were preventing 14 million kids from getting the food they need. Low-income children get more than half of their calories from school meals. Kids with food insecurity are twice as likely to be in poor health as kids who are food-secure and are more likely to be hospitalized.
It's worth mentioning that The New York Times notes that Dr. Allen "is an associate professor and director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He is also the chair of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission Task Force on Safe Work, Safe School and Safe Travel and a co-author of “Healthy Buildings."
That mental health crisis was also discussed in depth by Justine Coleman for The Hill on December 24.
Even MSNBC's Brian Stelter on "Reliable Sources" earlier this month raised issues with closing schools again.
Despite what the experts say, schools are closing while students return to virtual learning in approximately 300 schools across Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, and New York, as Edward Helmore reported for The Guardian.
Host Mike Emanuel on "Fox News Sunday" had mentioned 800 schools closing.
The threat also looms for other major school districts.
They have learned nothing https://t.co/NoR0t9L6N5
— Alexandra DeSanctis Marr (@xan_desanctis) December 30, 2021
As Alexandra DeSanctis Marr highlighted over Twitter, Mayor Muriel Bowser of DC announced on Wednesday that they "expect that schools and classrooms will need to transition to situational virtual learning throughout the semester, especially in the coming weeks." In a lengthy thread, Mayor Bowser explained that children need to test negative before returning to schools on January 5.
To minimize disruptions to learning, DCPS families will need to: pic.twitter.com/ZH1R2e08Vt
— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) December 29, 2021
Here is what to do if your child tests negative or positive: pic.twitter.com/YtIngDZK4v
— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) December 29, 2021
At the university level, some colleges are still charging tuition while they return to virtual learning.
Unfortunately, this looks to be a prevalent issue. Corey DeAngelis also highlighted other individual districts where teacher's unions are making all sorts of demands throughout the country as they threaten to force schools to return to virtual or hybrid learning.
Chicago public schools spend over $27,000 per student per year
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) December 30, 2021
Give that money directly to families so they can find alternatives. https://t.co/s4CHjTADt9
Arlington teachers union:
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) December 30, 2021
"The AEA calls on [the district] to provide testing to every student and staff member prior to returning to the classroom and/or remain virtual until January 18" pic.twitter.com/Zt1jnNHm8n
Time will tell whether or not we listen to the experts or if school districts cave in and close.
