School Education || Under Covid-19

Will students have to wear masks throughout the school day and other educational questions answered

 

Read below for their full answers to your questions.

Would students be required to wear masks throughout the school day, even if class numbers are reduced?

 

Sam: "Yes. I think that is important. I am not so concerned about the contact between students. I am very concerned about the contact between educators and students. It seems that the children we know are less susceptible, through all the data from the scientists, that adults are not. "

She tells CNN that education will look very different. "We will have to wear protective masks, we may have to wear plastic gloves, we may have to wash ourselves. Learning will not be the same as it was before March 1. It just will not be, and we may not expect it to be."

It warns that parentsand school workers must be flexible in combining distance and face-to-facelearning and that communities and legislators must provide the necessarysupport to make this happen.

Mark says he will greatly encourage wearing masks at university, and he plans to wear one, but he cannot force students to wear masks at all times. "The classroom is under the teacher's control," he says.

"More or less we think that this will be, at the teacher's discretion, and would be more mandatory if you wish, than if you are inside our buildings you need to cover your face. And then, for open spaces, it is going to be more difficult to do comply. But that's kind of like our current thinking. "

Mark recently appointed Dr. Richard Carmona, the 17th US Surgeon General. USA, To lead the university reentry workforce. Together, they look for robust safety measures and guidelines that they can issue before welcoming students.

How do we manage schoolrestrooms in middle and high schools where teachers and staff generally do notmonitor students in that space?

Sam suggests sending the children to the bathroom one at a time. "One way to do this is to put X on the hallway tapes, 6 feet apart, and go to the bathroom one by one. Many elementary schools have restrooms in the classrooms, so they have always had an individual experience, but One of The things we will do as educators is teach children to distance themselves socially before we can teach them anything about academics. "

She says that you should expect lessons the first day about how you wash your hands, how you wear a mask, what is a contagious disease and what Covid-19 means.

How can we control and protect children during recess or the gym?

Sam: "I'm not sure that recess time is traditional as to how we used to do it. I think it will be at the teacher's discretion to take her 10 or 12 students in her classroom, go outside for five or 10 minutes and you know, assign teams to the students or whatever. Everything is very hazy right now at best. "

Will colleges suspend on campus that you live in the fall semester?

The University of Arizona does not plan to suspend life on campus, but they will reduce capacity. Mark tells CNN that they initially planned individual dormitories that would accommodate 4,500 students, "but we heard from our students that many of them would prefer a roommate," so they are looking into it.

He adds that most of his students live off-campus, in an "unregulated and uncontrolled environment," which they should be aware of as those students will come to and from the school grounds.

What prevents college students from interacting in close contact outside of class?

Mark: nothing. "College students, like everyone else, have some mission drive and a lack of discipline. So this is a great opportunity to educate them and tell them that it's not so much about protecting themselves, it's about protecting society. And others, especially high-risk individuals and you don't know who they are. "

How will we defend the academics most of you United Nations agency board the schoolroom you witness? And therefore the youngest academics, United Nations agency may be caregivers, caring for 2 countries with the foremost Vlahos at home?

Sam: "We perform preliminary results of the analysis and say that the educators aren't distressed concerning themselves, they're distressed concerning transfer home families, they're distressed concerning some touching and giving for his or her families." foreign terrorist organization explains however a university is organizing divisions Clearly in lecture rooms, additionally as protective the employees of the food market, Associate in Nursing says that this might be an possibility, as a result of the educators "will invariably wish to come back to category to examine however it's or work 2 years."

Mark: "We can build Associate in nursing applicable social distance all told lecture rooms and activities. We’ll have instructional programs to encourage vigorous laundry of days, or social distance, to hide the face, or chase. Eloisa for people who ar positive in Muslim power -they ar treated in an exceedingly quarantine setting ".

Do the academics havethe choice to figure reception, can they not feel safe?

Sam: "We may be academics United Nations agency ar meeting face-to-face, with the foremost sturdy immune systems and therefore the best things, and academics United Nations agency support or teach the gap that compromises their things. I don't recognize that this can be one thing irrational to think about which permits each we have a tendency to educators have met their obligations ... we will not leave a teacher wasted currently. "

Mark: "Cem for cento. We’ll have a versatile policy. They’ll not feel safe or decent, they'll be ready to provide lecture rooms by Zoom. currently it's going to be that they need twenty students United Nations agency have left the expertise within the schoolroom and maybe you are doing not recognize, an outsized canvas As a prof giving a lecture remotely, there would be additional attorneys or TAs to facilitate discussion in school and private expertise. most are fearful of being here. we have a tendency to ar permitting flexibility in decision-making for every individual, each time. "

Will students be tested before classes start? Are households with school age kids going to be periodically tested?

Sam: "I don't think it's realistic to test every student... But I do think it's realistic to test every adult whose encountering students, since we know that they're at higher risk."

Mark has a robust three-T plan, "to test, trace and treat."

"The testing we're going to offer, it's not mandatory. We're going to offer it to volunteers who want to be tested and we feel very confident that we'll be able to offer the antibody test to everyone, all faculty, students, staff."

Their contact tracing will involve a mixture of in-person contact tracing and an app, but administered on a voluntary basis. Mark says his biggest concern is sick patients or asymptomatic patients refusing to get tested or cooperate in contact tracing efforts but, "I think because of privacy we can't mandate it."

"We hope that there'll be a big shift in culture that we will all do this as good, global citizens and for the betterment of society."

Should school nurses be responsible to check temperatures daily and even administer Covid tests?  If nurses will be responsible for sick patients or screening patients, do you need to hire more nurses and have isolation rooms?

Sam: "In Michigan, anecdotally, I can tell you that we don't even have one school nurse for every school district in some of our areas." She says that has to change. "If we're going to return to buildings, there has to be a plan and procedure in place that there is somebody from the medical profession who is assessing students in a way that makes reasonable sense for a learning environment." In addition to isolation rooms, the whole infrastructure of schools needs to be given more attention, she says, including ventilation systems.

Mark doesn't anticipate the University of Arizona having to hire many additional health care workers, only staff to help with contact tracing efforts. "We've got great public health students who are eager to do this. We've got medical students, nursing students, pharmacy students. So we feel pretty confident that we can at least make a good effort to put maximal protection. But again, not going to be risk-free."

Who's Paying?

It's great to talk about smaller classes to social distance but where are all the extra teachers coming from? And the payroll? Where will the money come from to make any social distancing refurbishments or adjustments?

Sam acknowledges that funding is key, both for personnel and PPE. She points to the Heroes Act, currently awaiting a Senate vote, as an option that would help.

"We've done a lot of bailing out of huge corporations, airlines and other businesses. If we can't ensure that our children and our educators are safe in schools and provide funding for that, I don't know what kind of a country we are anymore."

She says states will have to realign their budgets and reprioritize. "In Michigan we have huge tax credits for large corporations. If we're talking about true shared sacrifice, we have to go to the businesses community and say we need the tax dollars, not all of the tax dollars, but some of your tax dollars, to help provide and fill the gap for public education and our children. And this is a crisis. This is not situation normal. This is a national crisis."

In terms of additional teaching staff, Sam suggests enrolling student-teachers where there is a need. "We did that with physicians, we did that with nurses when we needed them in the crisis, now is the crisis for public education."

Mark is also hoping for extra funds. "We're unfortunately in a state that doesn't support higher education as well as some other states. Our donors have really stepped up and been helping us with these types of programs."

"We'll try to get as much funding as we possibly can because this will be expensive for us. But at the end we think it's our duty," he adds.

What's going to happen to school lunches in a Covid-19 world? 

Sam is adamant that cafeterias will be closed. School lunches can be made available for those that need them but there will be no communal cafeteria settings. She explains that a regular school day will be a thing of the past, replaced by a split shift scenario of in person learning mixed in with distance learning. "There could be a spot outside of school before students enter where they get their bag lunch. We won't be eating communally at cafeterias. You'll be eating your lunch either in your classroom or you'll be going to school for four hours, picking up your lunch and going back on the bus to go home. Or you're re-entering for p.m classes, getting your lunch coming in, and then going to school."

Regarding cafeteria workers, she proposes retraining them since they are already factored into the school budget. "Should they be out of jobs? No. But could they be trained to become pair educators and support personnel? Yes, they could. So we're going to have to think about what it means to re-educate and retrain some of our support staff to do a central functions that will needed to be done. Maybe there'll be custodial maintenance workers to ensure the cleanliness of classrooms and buses."

Mark: "We will have our union open with food courts, but we'll do it just like restaurants are doing, properly socially distance seating and people having to wear masks when they go into the restaurant."

Protocol for dealing with coronavirus incidents

Will schools be closed for a period of time if a student test positive? Will the students and parents be notified of a student who tests positive?

Sam says it's possible. "It's going to have to be, in my opinion, a fluid scenario of opening and closing and teaching face to face or not teaching face to face... I don't think it's going to be one size fits all." She suggests closing schools for longer periods of time when coronavirus is at its peak, or cases have been discovered in school or in communities, and shifting to a totally virtual teaching experience during those periods. For example, starting school in mid-August through Thanksgiving and then closing until New Year when coronavirus is expected to be at is winter peak. However, she maintains that such decisions will need to be fluid.

Asked about parents who may not have the same job flexibility to stay home for weeks when school is out, she says it's something that needs to be addressed, in addition to means and access to broadband. "We continue to talk about the economy opening up, but unless we're providing childcare services or opening public schools and other school systems, how are parents able to go back to them?"

Mark agrees that universities may need to switch to distance learning when a second wave comes and if cases spike and says that's what keeps him up at night.

For individual instances of Covid-19 contraction, the person would be quarantined. "We would isolate them. We've got a dorm already outfitted. It's an old motel which has doors go directly to the outside. We would take care of their food needs or mental health needs, make sure they have Wi-Fi for the two weeks or however long they need to be quarantined. They could participate in class and then we're going to have a 10 to 20 bed infirmary. If they got really sick and a high fever and needed to have their oxygen saturation monitored, we can do that. If they do need a hospital, then we've got a world class academic medical center right on our campus."

Mark adds that the school would aggressively contact trace the sick patient's interactions, to inform people who may be at risk. However, he cautions they have to be mindful of privacy laws that could prohibit revealing who contracted the infection without their consent.

Long-term takeaways

With all the risks is it worth it?

Sam: "We've shown that distance learning can work. Is it optimal? Absolutely not. We know the strongest educational experience is with teachers and students in the classroom, having interpersonal relationships, and having those kind of contacts. We have to prioritize the need for that and if we can't safely do that then we have to consider an alternative. That is less effective than what we know would work best. Now that's going to be the community prioritizing and saying what they value and putting their money where their mouth is."

Mark: "I think that our students want the on campus face to face experience. Many of our faculty do, some don't. So there's a balance. We're a big large land grant, private AAU university, and I think it's our responsibility, to our students, our faculty and our staff to at least do a very thorough scientific analysis of that data and find out what the risk reward is."

What do you think the long-term damage will be to children who learn about social distancing and do not learn about the value of touching, hugging, etc.? What can parents do to support mental health for children during this time? 

Sam: "We have talked about for years the need for strong mental health services for our students. Nothing brings that home like a national health crisis." She says she hopes children are receiving lessons on the value of touching and hugging from their family life but acknowledges that not every child will be. She emphasizes the need to focus on every child's mental health in school.

"We're going to need to provide mental health supports for students reentering, particularly if they've lost somebody or know somebody who has passed away from Covid-19 and who maybe hasn't had an opportunity to say goodbye in traditional ways that we would normally do."

Mark: "I think it's going to be dramatic. And this is not the last, pandemic we'll have, and it's going to change the way we do things." He agrees that a greater mental health resources need to be provided, adding, "one of the big issues is the angst and the fear of getting this infection. Almost everybody knows someone who's been sick or died so you know, that's putting an enormous stress on people, as is being isolated, socially isolated with depression and fear and anxiety."

What are the best and worst case scenarios on the future of education?

Sam: "My best-case scenario is that this is a brief moment in time when you're talking about years and years of schooling. It was approximately six months of students learning distance wise and maybe it will be another six months of distance online combination. That's almost nothing in the life of a person. It will be something that they will be able to catch up on, students are resilient, people are resilient."

"My worst-case scenario is that it sets us back in a way that we risk health and lives of individuals that were needless. If we're not careful now, I believe we'll have more devastating, not less devastating results because we've rushed into it."

Mark: "My best-case scenario would be that students come back, they get the rich and full on campus experience. Worst-case scenario would be that we bring people back and then, November 1 we have to send them home because we think it's too, too much risk and too many people are getting sick."

Programming Note: CNN will host a "Coronavirus: Facts and Fears" town hall on Thursday night hosted by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The town hall will air on CNN, CNN International and CNN en Español at 8 p.m. ET.