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Credit: (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) File photo: Child undergoing COVID-19 swab test Testing students for the coronavirus is poised to become the latest flashpoint as Newark prepares to reopen classrooms this spring. The district has purchased air purifiers, desktop barriers, and hundreds of thousands of face masks, and is requiring teachers to test negative before returning to school buildings, which have been closed for nearly a year. But with in-person learning scheduled to resume in April, the district still hasn’t decided whether to test students for COVID-19 a safety measure that has been “under consideration” since the summer. ....
Credit: (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) File photo: In-person learning at a high school Until recently, Fs were piling up at Newark’s Central High School. On Jan. 10, the school of roughly 770 students recorded nearly 2,000 failing grades, according to staff emails reviewed by Chalkbeat. That day, a district administrator sent Central’s principal a list of all the students with Fs or missing grades, calling it “an action item that requires immediate attention.” Two days later, the principal, Dr. Sharnee Brown, issued a schoolwide directive: Get rid of the Fs. “During the pandemic, no student will have missing grades or Fs,” read a slide in a presentation shared with teachers on Jan. 12. Instead, every student was expected to complete the second marking period, which ended Thursday, with a C average or better, the slide said. It called the order a “NO F & Missing Grade MANDATE.” ....