With the start of school less than a month away in Vermont, state officials on Tuesday announced some revisions to the school restart guidance and Republican Gov. Phil Scott reiterated how important he thinks reopening schools is.
Scott said he worries about the children of parents who work in grocery stores, construction, and others who don’t have time to teach their kids and struggle to pay for child care and the negative effect not reopening schools would have on them and children of more vulnerable families.
“I truly believe that if we don’t provide a way to get those kids back into school we’ll see the ramifications for years to come,” said Scott, who acknowledged the anxiety of some parents and teachers.
The state will likely see some cases and clusters connected to schools, even though it has the lowest number of coronavirus cases in the country, he said. But the state has worked hard to build up its testing and tracing capacity, Scott and State Epidemiologist Patsy Kelso said.
“Our experience with child care indicates that we have an effective approach to identify clusters and contain them without seeing broader community spread,” Kelso said.
The state is changing its physical distancing guidance for children under the age of 10 from 6 feet apart to 3 to 6 feet apart. For those kids, “staying 3 feet apart is enough to prevent the majority of transmission,” Kelso said.
The decision to close a school or certain classroom for in-person teaching, and dismissing students or doing remote learning for the day will be decided on collaboration with the superintendent or head of the school and the Vermont Health Department, she said.
Many Vermont school districts are planning to reopen this fall, with hybrid, in-person and remote instruction.
Older adults in schools and people with underlying health conditions should talk with their health care provider about their risks to figure out if they should avoid in-person contact when physical distancing cannot be maintained, Kelso said.
“We’ve been building our contact tracing capacity since March and we have a robust team that’s ready. We can open schools safely,” she said, adding that there may no safer place to do it other than Vermont.
The Vermont National Education Association, the union representing teachers, is “increasingly frustrated with the inconsistent and seemingly changing ‘guidance’ from the administration,” said union president and high school teacher Don Tinney in a written statement. “Instead of joining us in an orderly, phased-in, statewide approach, he has chosen to allow districts to make critical decisions on their own. Let me be clear: When it comes to the health and safety of students, school employees, and communities, there can be no compromise.”
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FALL SPORTS
There will be a fall sports season for schools but it will look a lot different this year amid the coronavirus pandemic, said Jay Nichols, executive director of the Vermont Principals’ Association.
Schools may start sports practices on Sept. 8, the universal start of school in Vermont, which is a week later than usual to allow schools to prepare. Facial coverings will be required for all players, coaches, officials, staff and spectators, he said. The one exception is for cross-country running, which will have other guidelines, such as possible staggered starts.
Volleyball teams will be not be able to have indoor matches with other schools, Nichols said. Football may hold practice sessions with limited contact but full-contact football scrimmages and games will not occur in the fall 2020 season, he said. The football committee is developing a plan for a touch football season for this fall, he said.
The VPA hopes that schools will be able to have interscholastic events with other schools by Sept. 21, “if all goes well,” he said. Any outside sporting event held by a school must be limited to 150 people, based on state rules.
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THE NUMBERS
Vermont reported 11 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, for a statewide total so far of 1,472. The total number of deaths remained at 58. One person was currently hospitalized with COVID-19.
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