Schools would have to offer in-person learning for primary students starting Feb. 16 in order to get the full funds under the governor s education budget. Lawmakers would need to meet deadlines in February and March.
A 100-day headache: Biden’s vow to quickly reopen schools
Presented by Sallie Mae
With help from Mackenzie Mays
Editor’s Note: Welcome to Weekly Education: Coronavirus special edition. Each week, we will explore how the pandemic is reshaping and upending education as we know it across the country, from pre-K through grad school. We will explore the debates of the day, new challenges and talk to movers and shakers about whether changes ushered in now are here to stay.
This newsletter is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro’s daily Education policy newsletter, Morning Education. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.
School nurses return to campuses as United Teachers Los Angeles covers for Democrats
On January 11, compelled by the agreement drawn by the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), school nurses began returning to campuses in the world epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. The union-backed agreement is an initial move towards resuming in-person instruction in the nation’s second largest school district, even as the pandemic rages out of control and deaths mount.
Over the past week, Los Angeles County has reported an additional 105,716 new cases. That is an average of 15,102 new cases per day and 232 average daily deaths. The county is now home to 959,156 reported cases, or 1,047 infected per 100,000 residents. Intensive care unit (ICU) capacity is at zero, forcing hospitals to accommodate critically ill patients in areas not equipped to support intensive care. Angelenos count for 40 percent of COVID-19 deaths in California, despite making up only 25 percent of the state’s populatio
Lindsay Whitehurst, Terry Tang, and Allen G. Breed
State leaders around the U.S. are increasingly pushing for schools to reopen this winter pressuring them, even as teachers begin to gain access to the vaccine against the raging pandemic.
Ohio’s governor offered to give vaccinations to teachers at the start of February, provided their school districts agree to resume at least some in-person instruction by March 1. In Arizona, where teachers began receiving shots this week, the governor warned schools that he expects students back in the classroom despite objections from top education officials and the highest COVID-19 diagnosis rate in the nation over the past week.
President-Elect Joe Biden initially pledged to reopen a majority of the nation’s schools within his first 100 days but recently revised the goal to most of the country’s K-8 schools.