New CDC guidance, CARES money for Alabama schools Updated Feb 19, 2021; New federal guidelines and money are headed to Alabama as officials push to get more children back into classrooms. On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlighted a growing consensus that schools can safely open — if they have layered mitigation measures and if other pieces of society are making an effort to minimize community spread. The agency encouraged some level of in-person learning for elementary students, even in communities with high transmission rates, and said schools didn’t need to ...