Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic [jamanetwork.com]

By Kenne A. Dibner, Heidi A. Schweingruber, Dimitri A. Christakis, JAMA Network, July 29, 2020

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has presented unprecedented challenges to the nation’s kindergarten-grade 12 education system.¹ The rush to respond to the pandemic led to closures of school buildings across the country, with little time to ensure continuity of instruction or to create a framework for deciding when and how to reopen schools. States and school districts are now grappling with the complex questions of whether and how to reopen school buildings in the context of rapidly changing patterns of community spread.

In response to the need for evidence-based guidance to support education decision makers, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened an expert committee to provide guidance on the reopening and safe operation of elementary and secondary schools for the 2020-2021 school year. The committee was asked to integrate the most up-to-date evidence from medicine and public health with evidence about what is best for children and youth in view of the political and practical realities in schools and communities. The committee’s report, Reopening K-12 Schools During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prioritizing Health, Equity, and Communities, provides a series of recommendations aimed at helping states and school districts determine both whether to open school buildings for in-person learning and, if so, how to reduce risk in the process of reopening.² It also identifies areas of research that are urgently needed to allow educators and policy makers to make evidence-based decisions about reopening and about operating schools during a pandemic.

The committee recognized the decision to reopen school buildings entails weighing the public health risks of opening against the educational and other risks of keeping buildings closed. As school districts weigh these risks, the committee recommended that the school districts make every effort to prioritize reopening with an emphasis on providing in-person instruction for students in kindergarten-grade 5 as well as those students with special needs who might be best served by in-person instruction.

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