Take it down, rip it up, and forget it. The college-admissions
calendar, on which an entire industry depends, is kaput.
Last week, as the threat of Covid-19 shuttered dorms and silenced
quads, the lights in many enrollment offices stayed on late.
Huddled around tables, scrawling on whiteboards, harried
officials confronted a difficult question: How do you reel in a
freshman class during an unprecedented national crisis?
Alexander C. KafkaThe Chronicle of Higher Education
Effectively booted off campus in an effort to contain coronavirus
contagion, hundreds of thousands of college students are reacting
with shock, uncertainty, sadness, and, in some cases,
devil-may-care fatalism. Even as they hurriedly arrange
logistical details, the stress of an uncertain future is taking a
toll.
The Covid-19 pandemic threatens the health of millions across the
country, and it has pitched the remainder of the academic
year into chaos and uncertainty. While students wait to
learn how, or if, they can finish out their terms,
college leaders are beginning to grapple with the longer-term
financial ramifications.
Families across New York City grappled Monday with the first day
of an unprecedented systemwide shutdown of schools.
Learning from home sparked a range of early concerns. Top among
them: What role are parents expected to play in their children’s
remote education while balancing life’s other demands?
Michigan State University is offering to
refund the remaining students living on campus to leave
amid heightened coronavirus concerns.
Vennie Gore, MSU’s vice president for auxiliary enterprises,
emailed student housing residents Monday offering $1,120 in cash
or credits toward next fall’s on-campus dining and housing costs
or off-campus dining plan to any student who moves out by 5 p.m.
on April 12.
When some college students first got the news that their school
was canceling in-person classes due to the coronavirus outbreak,
they broke out into spontaneous dining-hall dance parties,
joked about nabbing dirt-cheap flights to Italy, and
plotted elaborate pranks to dupe their professors over
video chat.
More than 60 Colorado school districts have closed their schools
for at least the next two weeks, and more than 794,000 students
— roughly 87% of the state’s K-12 students — are home
for what could turn into a very extended spring break.
This has left many parents of young children who still have to
work scrambling for child care, while parents of older
children who are used to more independence are wondering what is
and isn’t OK.
Can children still go to the park? Can teenagers hang out with
their friends? Can families get together for playdates?
Coronavirus, already upending the schooling of millions of U.S.
students, is poised to wreak widespread havoc on spring testing,
a disruption that will affect dozens of important decisions, from
teacher evaluation and 3rd grade promotion to the way schools
measure and report their progress to the public. The virus has
also thrown college-admissions testing into disarray in hundreds
of cities.
As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the United
States, people with jobs that put them in physical contact with
many others are at the greatest risk of becoming sick.
School systems around the country have been closing. Teachers
rate high both for exposure to illnesses and for their proximity
to other people.
In an unprecedented move, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday he
would waive testing requirements for this year’s STAAR exam, as
many schools expect to be closed at least through the April
testing window, due to the new coronavirus.
Alex Zimmerman, Christina Veiga, Reema Amin Chalkbeat
New York City public schools will close down Monday through at
least April 20 to stem the spread of the new coronavirus
pandemic, a decision that has sweeping ramifications for the
city’s 1.1 million students and their families.
As the pace of virus-related school closures quickens
nationwide, the shuttered Jacqueline B. Vaughn
Occupational High School, which serves students with special
needs in Chicago, has become an extraordinary test case for
the restrictive new reality soon to be felt by millions of kids
and families across the country.
The National Education Association, the largest labor union in
the country, endorsed former vice president Joe Biden for the
Democratic presidential nomination late Saturday, calling him “a
tireless advocate for public education” and saying members are
ready “to use their power” to elect him to the White House.
As former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders faced
off Sunday in the first debate with only two Democratic
presidential candidates, concerns about the new coronavirus
dominated the discussion — including how the country should feed
students whose schools will be shuttered for weeks and how to
help parents in desperate need of child care.
Both Biden and Sanders spoke about plans they announced earlier
this week to tackle the coronavirus pandemic that has closed
schools in most of the nation’s largest school districts and
in more than two dozen states.
Scores of universities and colleges across the country are moving
online or closing campuses amid the coronavirus outbreak,
transforming U.S. higher education in a matter of days. At
least 200 universities and colleges have canceled or postponed
in-person classes, according to a list monitored by
Georgetown University senior scholar Bryan Alexander.
As the new coronavirus outbreak prompted college after university
to start shifting classes online — either for a few weeks or for
the remainder of the spring semester — education technology
companies lined up to say they could help.
The coronavirus situation is forcing colleges to teach online for
a few weeks or the rest of the semester. Budgets are tight.
People are stressed. But for admissions, the timing is just as
colleges are rolling out their days for admitted applicants. Most
colleges have canceled these days (along with most student
activity on their campuses) and are left to recruit students
without what for most of them is one of their best assets: their
physical campuses. This is a crucial time of year for many
students.
As national fears swell over the coronavirus outbreak, more than
a dozen governors called for school closures on Sunday.
Now, more than 30 states, plus the District of Columbia and
Puerto Rico, have closed schools for at least two or three weeks.
Some officials have predicted even longer shutdowns that
could stretch through the end of the school year.
Two coronavirus cases were confirmed Sunday at Chicago Public
Schools, one coming at a South Side elementary school and another
at a Southwest Side charter, the day after Gov. J.B. Pritzker
ordered all Illinois schools closed starting Tuesday.
The one at the kindergarten through eighth grade elementary
school, district-run Sheridan Math and Science Academy in
Bridgeport, was announced in an email to all CPS families Sunday
evening. The district wouldn’t say whether it was a student or a
staff member who came down with the coronavirus, COVID-19.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the Covid-19 virus was shuttering
on-campus classes and emptying dorms at colleges across the U.S.,
it wasn’t the only education topic under discussion in Congress.
Lawmakers were working on solutions to some of higher education’s
pressing problems – voting to block a rule from the Department of
Education that would have made it more difficult for defrauded
borrowers to receive debt relief, for example, and proposing
legislation to encourage alternative educational paths after high
school.
As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in states
surrounding Delaware continues to grow, so too does the urgency
of district officials crafting preparedness plans for Delaware
schools.
State officials have told districts that as of yet there is no
need to make immediate decisions about reducing class sizes or
school closures. With no confirmed cases in Delaware as of
Tuesday, school districts across the state have primarily
encouraged good hygiene and flu prevention practices among
students and staff.
After-school programs are urged to follow the guidance of their
local health officials and the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in response to the coronavirus epidemic, the
Afterschool Alliance said in a statement. Share CDC information
and check the department of health in your state, the
organization said.
School leaders across Houston are bracing for long-term campus
closures that will require extensive efforts to deliver meals and
educational materials to hundreds of thousands of children forced
to stay home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Hours after nearly all Houston-area districts announced they will
be closed through next week in an effort to reduce the
spread of the virus, education leaders said Friday they are
preparing to remain out of school well beyond this month.
Amid a rise in coronavirus cases nationwide and locally,
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced schools across the
state would shut down effective Monday through April 13, Edwards’
office announced in a press release Friday. The closure will
affect public elementary, middle and high schools, including both
traditional and charter schools.
Christina Veiga, Alex Zimmerman and Reema Amin Chalkbeat
Amid growing coronavirus concerns, New York City’s teachers union
as well as the union representing school administrators called on
Friday for the country’s largest school system to close its doors
in the face of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s strident opposition.
Across the country, schools and universities are closing to
prevent further outbreak of the coronavirus—and student-teachers
are caught in the middle.
Thousands of schools have been closed or are scheduled to
close, according to Education Week’s database, which is
continuously being updated. And dozens of colleges and
universities have also canceled or postponed in-person classes,
moving to online instruction.
Less than two hours after organizers called off SXSW EDU, Vaught
connected with Elizabeth Hubing, who runs the Iowa Edtech
Collaborative, about finding a way to connect with others who
were going to be in town. That evening, they formed an ad hoc
Slack group called “EdUnconference.”
As Hamilton County Schools prepares to close all its
facilities for at least two weeks to slow the spread of the
coronavirus, many worry about what will happen to nearly 45,000
children while they are away — and most importantly, what they
will eat.
Millions of students across the country rely on the free or
discounted meals they eat at school, and for many, the hot
breakfast and healthy lunch served at school might be the only
meals they eat that day.
Roberto Villalpando and Melissa B. TaboadaAustin American-Statesman
The Austin school district shuttered its campuses Friday amid the
growing threat of the new coronavirus.
Citing an “interest of health safety in regard to our students
and staff,” the district told parents in a 3:35 a.m. email and
phone call that it would “continue to closely monitor the
situation and provide operational updates, as necessary.”
Amid virus fears, hundreds of colleges and universities have now
moved face-to-face instruction online. Some, like the University
of Washington, have decided to keep campuses open and to let
students decide if they want to stay.
Other colleges, however, have said in no uncertain terms that
students, barring extraordinary circumstances, need to leave
campus.
ALBANY — By noon on Thursday, the dorms at University at Albany
were eerily silent. In the Campus Center, small clusters of
students waited around listlessly. Some wore masks or
rubber gloves provided by the college upon request.
Sharinel Nunez, a sophomore from Brooklyn, said she wore the
protective gear because she was planning to take public
transportation back home later in the day.
“I don’t know if I’m safer here or in the city,” she said. “I
feel like there are a lot of cases we still don’t know about.”
More than 10,000 K-12 schools in the United States have
shuttered or announced closings because of worries about
spreading the coronavirus, affecting some 5 million students.
Entire states, including Ohio and Maryland, and some of the
nation’s big cities, including San Francisco and Houston,
announced closings on Thursday.
Though health experts disagree to what extent school
closures will help, some parents are signing
petitions demanding that more schools close and shift to
online learning to protect families from the risk of infection.
States might be able to scrap their required annual tests for
closed schools, the federal education department
said Thursday, as concerns about the coronavirus swept
the country.
Guidance released by the U.S. Department of Education says it
will consider waiving requirements for state-wide tests,
currently mandated in grades 3-8 and once in high school. State
testing occurs throughout the spring, and some school closures
were already running into planned testing windows.
As coronavirus closes schools, a growing number of educators,
observers and others have also asked whether states will continue
to require students to sit for their annual spring accountability
tests.
“There are plenty of reasons to question the high stakes use of
these tests in any year, but one thing is clear—this year, they
will produce no useful data,” national education blogger Peter
Green writes in Forbes.
As leaders across the country have shut down school districts to
curb the spread of coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov.
Andrew M. Cuomo have come under growing pressure from elected
officials, public health experts, teachers and parents to do the
same in New York City.
The latest to do so was the City Council speaker, Corey Johnson,
who on Friday called on the city to temporarily close it schools.
“It is not time to panic,” he wrote on Twitter. “But it is
time to act.”
The Covid-19 pandemic threatens the health of millions across the
country, and it has pitched the remainder of the academic
year into chaos and uncertainty. While students wait to
learn how, or if, they can finish out their terms,
college leaders are beginning to grapple with the longer-term
financial ramifications.
When the Northshore School District in Washington
state closed all its schools last week out of concerns
over the new coronavirus, district officials promised they’d
support their students with disabilities as schools moved all
lessons online.
School leaders distributed thousands of laptops and WiFi hotspots
to students and urged parents of students with
disabilities to share concerns and questions. Still, the
switch has proved difficult for some parents — something the
district says it’s working to address.
Thousands of schools in five states plus the District of Columbia
were set to close as governors ordered statewide shutdowns, a
dramatic escalation in the U.S. response to
the coronavirus pandemic.
With COVID-19 continuing to spread throughout the United States,
thousands of superintendents are suddenly becoming fluent in a
peculiar new idiom: that of “social distancing” and “flattening
the curve” of infection to prevent overwhelming medical
facilities. Increasingly, they’re faced with the tough decision
of if and when they should decide to close their schools to stave
off transmission.
Lori Higgins, Koby Levin, and Eleanore CatolicoChalkbeat Detroit
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has ordered all K-12 schools in
the state to close in light of concerns about the coronavirus.
Whitmer announced the order during an 11 p.m. press conference,
where she was accompanied by State Superintendent Michael Rice
and other state officials.
The order affects nearly 1.5 million public school students, 537
school districts and nearly 300 charter schools. Private schools
are also affected.
Ohio’s Department of Health has banned “mass gatherings” of over
100 people in Ohio. Gov. Mike DeWine says the state will also
suspend schools for three weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19
coronavirus.
Gov. Mike DeWine says the state will suspend schools for three
weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus.
“This action is not an action I took lightly,” DeWine said at a
press conference Thursday afternoon.
The threat of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is forcing
educators across the country to think about what they’ll do if
they have to close their schools for weeks or even months at a
time. State and federal agencies have advised schools to create
online learning plans to minimize the disruption to student
learning. For some schools, that’s a small leap. Their students
have internet connections at home, laptops they can work from,
teachers who know how to design online lessons and a strong
foundation of in-school blended learning experience.
Dahlia Bazzaz of the Seattle Times reports on what led to Washington’s largest school district closing because of the coronavirus and the challenges school officials are still grappling with.
NEARLY 150 TESTING centers in the U.S. canceled their
administration of the SAT college entrance exam to students as
planned for March 14 – the latest interruption to American life
caused by the coronavirus.
The administration of the SAT is also canceled countrywide in 17
countries, including places like China, Italy, Japan, South Korea
and the United Arab Emirates.
Bucking the national trend, the University of Georgia plans to
resume normal class operations following spring break on Monday.
And the University System of Georgia intends to keep all 26
public campuses open, contrary to decisions by more than 150
other colleges, including the entire University of North Carolina
System, to close down because of the coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Emory announced it is moving classes online and
closing its dorms, followed by a similar decision earlier today
by the Atlanta University Center campuses, Spelman, Morehouse and
Clark Atlanta,
As the new coronavirus continues to sicken Coloradans, school
nurses in Denver are calling attention to a concerning fact:
While the school district’s protocol heavily relies on nurses to
detect suspected outbreaks, only 11% of the city’s public schools
have a full-time nurse.
That percentage goes up to 15% when factoring in schools that
span grade levels, such as a middle/high school, that share a
full-time nurse between them. The rest of Denver’s more than 220
schools have a nurse only part time.
Many Houston-area school districts, private schools and
institutions of higher education are taking steps to slow the
spread of the coronavirus in the region. Here’s the latest
rundown of cancellations and closings.
All school-sponsored travel to the mainland U.S. and abroad will
be canceled for the rest of the school year effective Thursday
due to coronavirus, the Hawaii Department of Education informed
parents in a March 11 letter posted to the agency’s website.
2020: The Year That Shredded the Admissions Calendar
Take it down, rip it up, and forget it. The college-admissions calendar, on which an entire industry depends, is kaput.
Last week, as the threat of Covid-19 shuttered dorms and silenced quads, the lights in many enrollment offices stayed on late. Huddled around tables, scrawling on whiteboards, harried officials confronted a difficult question: How do you reel in a freshman class during an unprecedented national crisis?
Shock, Fear, and Fatalism: As Coronavirus Prompts Colleges to Close, Students Grapple With Uncertainty
Effectively booted off campus in an effort to contain coronavirus contagion, hundreds of thousands of college students are reacting with shock, uncertainty, sadness, and, in some cases, devil-may-care fatalism. Even as they hurriedly arrange logistical details, the stress of an uncertain future is taking a toll.
As the Coronavirus Scrambles Colleges’ Finances, Leaders Hope for the Best and Plan for the Worst
The Covid-19 pandemic threatens the health of millions across the country, and it has pitched the remainder of the academic year into chaos and uncertainty. While students wait to learn how, or if, they can finish out their terms, college leaders are beginning to grapple with the longer-term financial ramifications.
With New York City Schools Closed, Many Parents Become Reluctant Homeschoolers
Families across New York City grappled Monday with the first day of an unprecedented systemwide shutdown of schools.
Learning from home sparked a range of early concerns. Top among them: What role are parents expected to play in their children’s remote education while balancing life’s other demands?
Read the full story here.
Coronavirus: Michigan State Will Pay Students to Leave Dorms
Michigan State University is offering to refund the remaining students living on campus to leave amid heightened coronavirus concerns.
Vennie Gore, MSU’s vice president for auxiliary enterprises, emailed student housing residents Monday offering $1,120 in cash or credits toward next fall’s on-campus dining and housing costs or off-campus dining plan to any student who moves out by 5 p.m. on April 12.
Coronavirus College Closures Will Hurt Poor Students
When some college students first got the news that their school was canceling in-person classes due to the coronavirus outbreak, they broke out into spontaneous dining-hall dance parties, joked about nabbing dirt-cheap flights to Italy, and plotted elaborate pranks to dupe their professors over video chat.
School’s Out for Coronavirus. Can My Kids Have a Playdate?
More than 60 Colorado school districts have closed their schools for at least the next two weeks, and more than 794,000 students — roughly 87% of the state’s K-12 students — are home for what could turn into a very extended spring break.
This has left many parents of young children who still have to work scrambling for child care, while parents of older children who are used to more independence are wondering what is and isn’t OK.
Can children still go to the park? Can teenagers hang out with their friends? Can families get together for playdates?
Coronavirus Throws Spring Testing Into Disarray
Coronavirus, already upending the schooling of millions of U.S. students, is poised to wreak widespread havoc on spring testing, a disruption that will affect dozens of important decisions, from teacher evaluation and 3rd grade promotion to the way schools measure and report their progress to the public. The virus has also thrown college-admissions testing into disarray in hundreds of cities.
Interactive: The Workers Who Face the Greatest Coronavirus Risk
As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout the United States, people with jobs that put them in physical contact with many others are at the greatest risk of becoming sick.
School systems around the country have been closing. Teachers rate high both for exposure to illnesses and for their proximity to other people.
See the full interactive here.
Texas STAAR Test Requirements Waived Due To Coronavirus Outbreak
In an unprecedented move, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Monday he would waive testing requirements for this year’s STAAR exam, as many schools expect to be closed at least through the April testing window, due to the new coronavirus.
Read the full story here.
NYC Schools To Close Monday for At Least 4 Weeks Amid Coronavirus Pandemic
New York City public schools will close down Monday through at least April 20 to stem the spread of the new coronavirus pandemic, a decision that has sweeping ramifications for the city’s 1.1 million students and their families.
Read the full story here.
Coronavirus School Closing: Under Quarantine, These Kids Lack Symptoms
As the pace of virus-related school closures quickens nationwide, the shuttered Jacqueline B. Vaughn Occupational High School, which serves students with special needs in Chicago, has become an extraordinary test case for the restrictive new reality soon to be felt by millions of kids and families across the country.
Read the full story here.
National Education Association, Nation’s Largest Union, Endorses Joe Biden for President
The National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country, endorsed former vice president Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination late Saturday, calling him “a tireless advocate for public education” and saying members are ready “to use their power” to elect him to the White House.
Read the full story here.
Biden and Sanders Demand Coronavirus Relief for Parents, Schools
As former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders faced off Sunday in the first debate with only two Democratic presidential candidates, concerns about the new coronavirus dominated the discussion — including how the country should feed students whose schools will be shuttered for weeks and how to help parents in desperate need of child care.
Both Biden and Sanders spoke about plans they announced earlier this week to tackle the coronavirus pandemic that has closed schools in most of the nation’s largest school districts and in more than two dozen states.
Coronavirus Hits Colleges, Universities Hard
Scores of universities and colleges across the country are moving online or closing campuses amid the coronavirus outbreak, transforming U.S. higher education in a matter of days. At least 200 universities and colleges have canceled or postponed in-person classes, according to a list monitored by Georgetown University senior scholar Bryan Alexander.
Read the full story here.
As Coronavirus Closures Force Colleges to Move Students Online, Ed-Tech Expert Opportunity, But Also Risk
As the new coronavirus outbreak prompted college after university to start shifting classes online — either for a few weeks or for the remainder of the spring semester — education technology companies lined up to say they could help.
Read the full story here.
Colleges Develop Strategies for Recruiting Students Without a Campus Visit
The coronavirus situation is forcing colleges to teach online for a few weeks or the rest of the semester. Budgets are tight. People are stressed. But for admissions, the timing is just as colleges are rolling out their days for admitted applicants. Most colleges have canceled these days (along with most student activity on their campuses) and are left to recruit students without what for most of them is one of their best assets: their physical campuses. This is a crucial time of year for many students.
School Closures for Coronavirus Could Extend to the End of School Year, Some Say
As national fears swell over the coronavirus outbreak, more than a dozen governors called for school closures on Sunday.
Now, more than 30 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, have closed schools for at least two or three weeks. Some officials have predicted even longer shutdowns that could stretch through the end of the school year.
Read the full story here.
Two New Coronavirus Cases Confirmed in Chicago Schools
Two coronavirus cases were confirmed Sunday at Chicago Public Schools, one coming at a South Side elementary school and another at a Southwest Side charter, the day after Gov. J.B. Pritzker ordered all Illinois schools closed starting Tuesday.
The one at the kindergarten through eighth grade elementary school, district-run Sheridan Math and Science Academy in Bridgeport, was announced in an email to all CPS families Sunday evening. The district wouldn’t say whether it was a student or a staff member who came down with the coronavirus, COVID-19.
A Proposed Bill Would Authorize $400 Million For Apprenticeship Programs
WASHINGTON, D.C. – While the Covid-19 virus was shuttering on-campus classes and emptying dorms at colleges across the U.S., it wasn’t the only education topic under discussion in Congress. Lawmakers were working on solutions to some of higher education’s pressing problems – voting to block a rule from the Department of Education that would have made it more difficult for defrauded borrowers to receive debt relief, for example, and proposing legislation to encourage alternative educational paths after high school.
As Coronavirus Cases Rise Nationally, Delaware Schools Prepare for the Worst
As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in states surrounding Delaware continues to grow, so too does the urgency of district officials crafting preparedness plans for Delaware schools.
State officials have told districts that as of yet there is no need to make immediate decisions about reducing class sizes or school closures. With no confirmed cases in Delaware as of Tuesday, school districts across the state have primarily encouraged good hygiene and flu prevention practices among students and staff.
After-school Programs Urged to Follow Health Officials’ Guidance on Coronavirus
After-school programs are urged to follow the guidance of their local health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in response to the coronavirus epidemic, the Afterschool Alliance said in a statement. Share CDC information and check the department of health in your state, the organization said.
Education Leaders Planning For Schools to Remain Closed Beyond March Because of Virus
School leaders across Houston are bracing for long-term campus closures that will require extensive efforts to deliver meals and educational materials to hundreds of thousands of children forced to stay home due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Hours after nearly all Houston-area districts announced they will be closed through next week in an effort to reduce the spread of the virus, education leaders said Friday they are preparing to remain out of school well beyond this month.
Governor Closes Public Schools Statewide Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
Amid a rise in coronavirus cases nationwide and locally, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced schools across the state would shut down effective Monday through April 13, Edwards’ office announced in a press release Friday. The closure will affect public elementary, middle and high schools, including both traditional and charter schools.
Read the full story here.
NYC Teachers Union Calls on De Blasio to Shut Down Schools as Parents Increasingly Keep Kids Home
Amid growing coronavirus concerns, New York City’s teachers union as well as the union representing school administrators called on Friday for the country’s largest school system to close its doors in the face of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s strident opposition.
What Happens to Student Teachers When Schools and Colleges Close Due to Coronavirus?
Across the country, schools and universities are closing to prevent further outbreak of the coronavirus—and student-teachers are caught in the middle.
Thousands of schools have been closed or are scheduled to close, according to Education Week’s database, which is continuously being updated. And dozens of colleges and universities have also canceled or postponed in-person classes, moving to online instruction.
SXSW EDU is Called Off. But the Sessions and Parties Are Still Happening.
Less than two hours after organizers called off SXSW EDU, Vaught connected with Elizabeth Hubing, who runs the Iowa Edtech Collaborative, about finding a way to connect with others who were going to be in town. That evening, they formed an ad hoc Slack group called “EdUnconference.”
As Schools Close to Slow Coronavirus Spread, Concern Grows for Students Who Rely on School Meals
As Hamilton County Schools prepares to close all its facilities for at least two weeks to slow the spread of the coronavirus, many worry about what will happen to nearly 45,000 children while they are away — and most importantly, what they will eat.
Millions of students across the country rely on the free or discounted meals they eat at school, and for many, the hot breakfast and healthy lunch served at school might be the only meals they eat that day.
Austin Schools Closed Friday Amid Coronavirus Threat
The Austin school district shuttered its campuses Friday amid the growing threat of the new coronavirus.
Citing an “interest of health safety in regard to our students and staff,” the district told parents in a 3:35 a.m. email and phone call that it would “continue to closely monitor the situation and provide operational updates, as necessary.”
Future Unclear For Support Staff on Empty College Campuses
Amid virus fears, hundreds of colleges and universities have now moved face-to-face instruction online. Some, like the University of Washington, have decided to keep campuses open and to let students decide if they want to stay.
Other colleges, however, have said in no uncertain terms that students, barring extraordinary circumstances, need to leave campus.
Masks, Gloves and Doritos: COVID-19 Rattles College Students, Faculty
ALBANY — By noon on Thursday, the dorms at University at Albany were eerily silent. In the Campus Center, small clusters of students waited around listlessly. Some wore masks or rubber gloves provided by the college upon request.
Sharinel Nunez, a sophomore from Brooklyn, said she wore the protective gear because she was planning to take public transportation back home later in the day.
“I don’t know if I’m safer here or in the city,” she said. “I feel like there are a lot of cases we still don’t know about.”
Coronavirus Is Shutting Schools. Is America Ready for Virtual Learning?
More than 10,000 K-12 schools in the United States have shuttered or announced closings because of worries about spreading the coronavirus, affecting some 5 million students. Entire states, including Ohio and Maryland, and some of the nation’s big cities, including San Francisco and Houston, announced closings on Thursday.
Though health experts disagree to what extent school closures will help, some parents are signing petitions demanding that more schools close and shift to online learning to protect families from the risk of infection.
Closed Schools Could Get OK to Not Give State Tests Amid Coronavirus, Education Department Says
States might be able to scrap their required annual tests for closed schools, the federal education department said Thursday, as concerns about the coronavirus swept the country.
Guidance released by the U.S. Department of Education says it will consider waiving requirements for state-wide tests, currently mandated in grades 3-8 and once in high school. State testing occurs throughout the spring, and some school closures were already running into planned testing windows.
SAT Test Centers Begin to Cancel. Will Florida Call Off Spring Testing?
As coronavirus closes schools, a growing number of educators, observers and others have also asked whether states will continue to require students to sit for their annual spring accountability tests.
“There are plenty of reasons to question the high stakes use of these tests in any year, but one thing is clear—this year, they will produce no useful data,” national education blogger Peter Green writes in Forbes.
Coronavirus in N.Y.C.: Pressure to Close School System, Nation’s Largest
As leaders across the country have shut down school districts to curb the spread of coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have come under growing pressure from elected officials, public health experts, teachers and parents to do the same in New York City.
The latest to do so was the City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, who on Friday called on the city to temporarily close it schools. “It is not time to panic,” he wrote on Twitter. “But it is time to act.”
As the Coronavirus Scrambles Colleges’ Finances, Leaders Hope for the Best and Plan for the Worst
The Covid-19 pandemic threatens the health of millions across the country, and it has pitched the remainder of the academic year into chaos and uncertainty. While students wait to learn how, or if, they can finish out their terms, college leaders are beginning to grapple with the longer-term financial ramifications.
Schools That Go ‘Remote’ For Coronavirus Must Keep Serving Students With Disabilities. Can Any Really Do It?
When the Northshore School District in Washington state closed all its schools last week out of concerns over the new coronavirus, district officials promised they’d support their students with disabilities as schools moved all lessons online.
School leaders distributed thousands of laptops and WiFi hotspots to students and urged parents of students with disabilities to share concerns and questions. Still, the switch has proved difficult for some parents — something the district says it’s working to address.
Five States, D.C. Order All Schools Closed in Effort to Prevent Spread of COVID-19
Thousands of schools in five states plus the District of Columbia were set to close as governors ordered statewide shutdowns, a dramatic escalation in the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic.
To Close or Not? How Superintendents Decide to Shut Down Schools
With COVID-19 continuing to spread throughout the United States, thousands of superintendents are suddenly becoming fluent in a peculiar new idiom: that of “social distancing” and “flattening the curve” of infection to prevent overwhelming medical facilities. Increasingly, they’re faced with the tough decision of if and when they should decide to close their schools to stave off transmission.
Gov. Whitmer Orders Closure of All K-12 Schools in Michigan Over Coronavirus
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has ordered all K-12 schools in the state to close in light of concerns about the coronavirus.
Whitmer announced the order during an 11 p.m. press conference, where she was accompanied by State Superintendent Michael Rice and other state officials.
The order affects nearly 1.5 million public school students, 537 school districts and nearly 300 charter schools. Private schools are also affected.
Coronavirus in Ohio: Schools Suspended, Public Gatherings Over 100 Banned
Ohio’s Department of Health has banned “mass gatherings” of over 100 people in Ohio. Gov. Mike DeWine says the state will also suspend schools for three weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus.
Gov. Mike DeWine says the state will suspend schools for three weeks to stop the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus.
“This action is not an action I took lightly,” DeWine said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.
Virtual Learning and Coronavirus Poised to Inflame Inequality in Schools
The threat of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus, is forcing educators across the country to think about what they’ll do if they have to close their schools for weeks or even months at a time. State and federal agencies have advised schools to create online learning plans to minimize the disruption to student learning. For some schools, that’s a small leap. Their students have internet connections at home, laptops they can work from, teachers who know how to design online lessons and a strong foundation of in-school blended learning experience.
#tellEWA Member Stories (Mar. 6-12)
Here's what we're reading by EWA members this week:
Dahlia Bazzaz of the Seattle Times reports on what led to Washington’s largest school district closing because of the coronavirus and the challenges school officials are still grappling with.
Chalkbeat’s Yana Kunichoff breaks down the challenges that arise when school officials must decide whether to close due to COVID-19.
Coronavirus Forces Hundreds of Sites to Cancel the March SAT
NEARLY 150 TESTING centers in the U.S. canceled their administration of the SAT college entrance exam to students as planned for March 14 – the latest interruption to American life caused by the coronavirus.
The administration of the SAT is also canceled countrywide in 17 countries, including places like China, Italy, Japan, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
Georgia Keeps Its Public Campuses Open Despite Coronavirus Fears
Bucking the national trend, the University of Georgia plans to resume normal class operations following spring break on Monday. And the University System of Georgia intends to keep all 26 public campuses open, contrary to decisions by more than 150 other colleges, including the entire University of North Carolina System, to close down because of the coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Emory announced it is moving classes online and closing its dorms, followed by a similar decision earlier today by the Atlanta University Center campuses, Spelman, Morehouse and Clark Atlanta,
As Coronavirus Hits, Only About 1 In 10 Denver Public Schools Has a Full-Time Nurse
As the new coronavirus continues to sicken Coloradans, school nurses in Denver are calling attention to a concerning fact: While the school district’s protocol heavily relies on nurses to detect suspected outbreaks, only 11% of the city’s public schools have a full-time nurse.
That percentage goes up to 15% when factoring in schools that span grade levels, such as a middle/high school, that share a full-time nurse between them. The rest of Denver’s more than 220 schools have a nurse only part time.
Coronavirus Update: School, Higher Ed Closings and Cancellations in Houston Area
Many Houston-area school districts, private schools and institutions of higher education are taking steps to slow the spread of the coronavirus in the region. Here’s the latest rundown of cancellations and closings.
Read the full story here.
Hawaii DOE Cancels All School Travel Outside State
All school-sponsored travel to the mainland U.S. and abroad will be canceled for the rest of the school year effective Thursday due to coronavirus, the Hawaii Department of Education informed parents in a March 11 letter posted to the agency’s website.
Read the full story here.