City schools will reopen in September, but not fully, with most children attending in-person classes two days a week as officials attempt to balance public health and the education of 125,000 students during a coronavirus outbreak.
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. and Mayor Jim Kenney announced the plan Wednesday morning.
Each of the district’s 200-plus schools will develop its own operations plan to execute the district’s broad guidelines, including: social distancing, all staff and students in masks or face shields, a ban on nonessential visitors, and meals mostly eaten in classrooms. The school system pledged increased scrubbing and sanitizing of classrooms and adequate supplies and ventilation inside its buildings, but said it would not conduct temperature checks, instead relying on students and staff to self screen for health problems.
Classroom capacity will be limited to 25 people “when feasible,” according to the plan. When students cannot be six feet apart, plexiglass barriers will be “prioritized.” Student desks should face forward, the district said — though at many schools, students now sit in groups at tables.
English, math, art, music and physical education will be prioritized for face-to-face learning, the district said, meaning such subjects as social studies and foreign language could be fully remote. The district also said career and technical education classes may become in-person.
Preschoolers and students with complex needs will attend school four days a week. Athletics and extracurriculars will resume eventually, with a phased-in approach to getting students back on sports fields and possible changes to contact sports.
Families that choose to do so can opt out of face-to-face instruction in favor of 100% virtual instruction.
Attendance will be taken, and students will be graded, a shift from the policy suspension last spring that said students could receive final grades no less than what they were earning on March 13, when the coronavirus shut down classes.
Students and staff who test positive for COVID-19 are expected to remain out of school until symptom free, and at least for 10 days, but do not need to show a doctor’s note or a negative COVID test upon return.
Hite will seek to move the first day of school to Sept. 2, instead of Aug. 31 as currently planned. The shift will allow for an extra week of professional development for teachers to prepare for educating students during the pandemic.
Officials said they realized there could be times when schools, sections of schools, or the entire district would be forced to close because of coronavirus outbreaks, and said they would launch a program to cope with the trauma and stress students have experienced because of the pandemic.
“Together, we are approaching a school year that will look and feel very different than any other we have experienced before,” Hite wrote in a letter to the district community. “What we know is that COVID-19 conditions will continue to evolve and that the guidance we must follow from city, state, and federal health authorities will also evolve — sometimes very quickly.”
The plan comes four months after COVID-19 abruptly shut schools and sent students home for an extended, unexpected break; Philadelphia students went six weeks without learning new material, and the shutdown exposed significant educational gaps in the high-poverty district, with thousands of students unable to access any education at all.
It also raises questions about whether the district can adequately clean its buildings, many of which have often had shortages of toilet paper, soap and hot water; keep secondary students, who rely on public transportation to get to school, safe; accommodate staff with health concerns in a workforce where 72% of teachers are 50 or older; and convince students to keep their masks on.
Though officials provided no price tag for the plan, they have said an infusion of federal funds would be needed to afford it. The American Association of School Administrators has estimated that schools will need an additional $480 per student to operate during the COVID-19 outbreak.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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Philly’s coronavirus back-to-school plan: no full reopening, most students in class 2 days - The Philadelphia Inquirer
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