The Biden CDC finally has issued a road map that aims to get students back into the classrooms within the first 100 days of the administration. This looks like a fairly solid plan, and I can tell that much time and thought was put into it. However, with the pandemic producing surprises such as this terrifying stat for the B117 variant below, it remains to be seen if the plan is feasible or not…
The good news to counteract the bad news above is that trials are underway for the children's vaccine for AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer. Remember that just because children aren’t getting sick at the rates of adults does NOT mean that they cannot be asymptomatic carriers. It is important to follow the Plan in full!
This diary is intended to look at the Plan, and give accolades to portions that seem to work and also give suggestions as to how to get around holes in the current Plan. We don’t want the Year from HELL to extend into yet another school year!
A Look Backwards
On December 31, 2020, I wrote why many schools cannot be open right now. In order to do so these corners have to be cut. Here are SOME of the challenges I identified in getting schools open…
- You would have to have public health screening and instant tests.
- You need independent contact tracing, because the government has utterly failed us here.
- If you abide by 6 feet social distancing rules, you cannot fit 25 desks in an average classroom.
- Most instructional techniques violate social distancing protocols.
- School lunch and snack time have to be totally rethought, as it is the most vulnerable point in the school day for transmission.
- Recess in the younger grades has to be rethought.
- You literally cannot do normal transitions with typical block schedules at middle and high schools. It makes sense to have them virtual with homerooms.
- The young ones (K-2) have to be taught how to go to school. This will be different in the era of Covid.
- Most teachers already pay for their own supplies and cannot pay more.
- Most schools run on an HVAC system that is not negative pressure.
- School bathrooms are always a disaster zone.
- The windows at the school do not open most times if they even exist.
This luckily has been narrowed down down to four key issues by a Vox article:
- Universal masking amongst students and staff.
- Grouping students and teachers into stable pods to make contact tracing easier.
- Proper ventilation as the virus is airborne — whether through open doors/windows or other means.
- Quick and somewhat reliable testing for schools to identify and prevent outbreaks.
These four principles, along with 5. Requiring some sort of social distancing between stable pods, are what needs to happen in order for schools to fully reopen amidst this Year from HELL. Let’s see how the Biden CDC Plan does under each of those criteria.
What The Biden CDC Plan Does Well
The Biden Plan does an excellent job at recommending measures that will stop the spread of the virus through contact and close proximity. Frequent hand washing, universal masking, and social distancing through usage of stable pods will really isolate virus spread to a single pod and make it easier to test and trace if an outbreak does develop.
The good news is if pods are done correctly, and the system is in place correctly, a LOT of the concerns I raised six weeks ago in the “Look Back” are alleviated. You can socially distance the pods six feet apart from one another and get most of the kids in the classroom. You can do small group instruction and inquiry based instruction and have one on one interactions with a teacher again. Pods stay together for lunch and recess. If space is still an issue, repurpose a place like the cafeteria to accommodate more student pods for larger grades.
Another good thing is that, combined with the Covid-19 relief package, schools should have the funding to implement a rapid testing program needed to contact trace and catch those asymptomatic and mild cases amongst kids and adults. This is one huge logistical hurdle that school districts CANNOT do without some time and extra money. This is probably the most critical portion of the Biden CDC Plan.
How to Fix the Holes in the Biden CDC Plan
The Plan is weak on suggesting ways to properly ventilate schools to prevent airborne spread of the virus. All it includes is a suggestion to open the windows and doors of the classroom to allow proper air flow. While that is indeed a passable suggestion, try doing it when it is 115 in Phoenix in the summer. Try doing that when it is -15 in Minneapolis in the winter. That suggestion is not enough!
Luckily, HEPA air filters on your HVAC system and air purifiers in classrooms, while expensive, can mitigate SOME of the airborne spread of the virus until the negative air pressure systems can be installed or the pandemic subsides or there is universal vaccination. It is an acceptable compromise for a thorny issue that I feel the CDC Plan really glossed over.
The Plan needs to require that all staff be vaccinated before a return to in person instruction. I am sorry, but if we are to make lemonade out of this chicken shit year, at least protect the staff members who are putting their lives on the line for you. Low transmission =/= no transmission at schools. I know many are fed up with teachers, but they have been shat upon by governments for 40 years and ongoing. They are fed up with always being the first to sacrifice everything for the greater good. It’s time to give them ONE thing and allow them to be safe in a germ filled environment.
In Conclusion
Full time in person schooling is possible with a Herculean effort. Rhode Island provides a road map for how it looks like over the long term. That is why vaccinating staff is a key element of the plan — it is HARD to have to switch between remote Zoom instruction and in-person instruction on a whim. Inoculate the staff, and that problem goes away for teachers. They will NOT have to quarantine every time an exposure happens. Instead, the pod in question will have to do so.
Instead of having teachers go ‘hybrid on Covid’, have them choose either online Zoom instruction or in-person instruction. This lowers the work rate down to manageable levels next year instead of the increased stress placed on teachers through using ‘hybrid on Covid’. Don’t force each teacher to go to the worst of both worlds — instead, have departments pick one (MS and HS) and each school pick one (K-6) grade level teacher to work on the new virtual Zoom school in each district.
This Plan is a good start, but I don’t think it will allow Biden to keep his promise of having most schools open by the end of April. There are too many holes, and the funding needed to implement this program of virus mitigation just isn’t there until the Covid relief bill passes through the House and Senate and is signed by Biden.
For another balanced view, I recommend reading this entire thread. It is a long one, but it contains both the benefits and drawbacks of the current Biden CDC Plan.