American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten outlined a series of concerns about logistics that she says the CDC’s revised social distancing guidelines present.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE country's most politically powerful teachers union called into question the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's decision last week to revise from 6 feet to 3 feet its social distancing guidance in schools, arguing that the science backing the decision doesn't take into account the unique challenges most urban school districts face.
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"Although I was very worried about the implications of the shift, I reserved judgment until we could review the new studies that were presented," American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten wrote Tuesday in a letter to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. "We have done that this weekend."
[ READ: U.S. Public School System Tiptoes Back to Life ]
"We appreciate that the body of knowledge regarding the impact of COVID-19 in school environments is expanding, but we are not convinced that the evidence supports changing physical distancing requirements at this time," she continued. "Our concern is that the cited studies do not identify the baseline mitigation strategies needed to support 3 feet of physical distancing. Moreover, they were not conducted in our nation's highest-density and least-resourced schools, which have poor ventilation, crowding and other structural challenges."
The letter outlines the same concerns Weingarten cited even before the CDC officially announced the revised social distancing guidance – and for good reason.
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Despite the fact that the country's public school system is tiptoeing back to life, urban school districts account for the majority of the holdouts to providing in-person instruction as they've faced significantly more challenging circumstances to reopening.
Not only do many of them still have high community transmission rates, but their school facilities tend to be older, with poorer quality heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems. They lack the extra indoor and outdoor space that their suburban and rural counterparts have to help keep children socially distanced. And many of them also lack the funding of their well-resourced peers to provide personal protective equipment and sanitization, hire additional staff – including nurses, social workers, janitors and bus drivers – and establish testing and tracing programs.
Most notably, the low-income, Black and Hispanic communities that urban districts more often serve have been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. Their students are expected to have some of the greatest academic, social and emotional learning losses coming out of the pandemic.
In the letter, Weingarten specifically requests that the CDC conduct comparative studies on mitigation efforts "in urban, densely populated schools that do not have up-to-date ventilation systems and have been systematically under-resourced for decades."
She also underscored the increased importance of the CDC's risk-mitigation strategies in light of the social distancing revision, arguing that it's now even more crucial that schools enforce universal masking, thorough cleaning of buildings, regular COVID-19 testing for staff and students, contact tracing and quarantine protocols and that schools have effective ventilation systems.
[ READ: Lessons Learned From a Year of Closed Schools ]
"Weakening one layer of layered mitigation demands that the other layers must be strengthened," she wrote. "We strongly urge you, in any discussion of this shift, to forcefully insist on strict and strengthened adherence to the other mitigation strategies."
Weingarten also outlined a series of questions about teaching and transportation logistics that she says the revised social distancing guidelines present.
"With the guidance that students can be 3 feet apart from each other but adults should remain 6 feet from children or other adults, what is the expectation for the teacher in a classroom—that she remain in one spot at the front of the room the entire day, not moving about the classroom?" she asks.
The letter comes as the Biden administration is racing to reopen schools for in-person learning. Cardona announced last week the release of about $140 billion to K-12 schools, which was part of the administration's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. And the secretary is headlining no less than six major education conferences this week where he's repeating the same message: "I want to be clear that my primary focus right now is reopening schools as quickly and safely as possible."
On Wednesday, he'll oversee the Education Department's National Safe School Reopening Summit, which will bring together educators, school leaders and policymakers to talk about effective reopening strategies, how to implement the CDC's reopening guidance and how schools should prepare for the academic, social and emotional learning losses with which children will return to school.
The momentum represents a distinct shift within the Biden administration, which had been on the defensive in the school reopening debate after it moved the goalposts on the president's reopening goals and fielded mounting criticism that it was drafting reopening guidance and making education decisions with the input of the teachers unions.
Last week, after announcing the revised social distancing guidance, Walenksy fielded questions from the press about whether the CDC has been pressured in any way by the teachers unions.
"Let me just acknowledge what teachers have had to do this year in the context of COVID-19 and how they have had to evolve their thinking and their curricula and how to teach their students in truly an overwhelming and challenging time," Walensky said in response. "I've spoken to the teachers unions. They know that we need to follow the science and make our guidance based on that science, and they have been very respectful of that."
Lauren Camera, Senior Education Writer
Lauren Camera is a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report. She joined the News team as an ... READ MORE
Tags: teachers, American Federation of Teachers, coronavirus, CDC, public schools