{"id":4477,"date":"2020-11-05T09:00:45","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=4477"},"modified":"2020-11-05T11:55:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-05T18:55:53","slug":"data-show-that-local-schools-can-safely-proceed-with-in-person-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegonewsdesk.com\/?p=4477","title":{"rendered":"Data Show that Local Schools can Safely Proceed with In-Person Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">San Diego Unified School District recently announced the second phase of its four-phase school reopening <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sandiegounified.org\/UserFiles\/Servers\/Server_27732394\/File\/Covid-19%20Status\/ppt.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">plan<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under Phase 2, students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade will attend class in-person four days a week for half a day.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Students in grades 6-12 will attend in-person class two days a week, for a total of 240 minutes of designated period instruction and 120 minutes of &#8220;Flex Time.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Fridays, all students will have an online check-in and independent learning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SDUSD is certainly taking a step in the right direction by reopening its schools, but perhaps four steps are unnecessary, given that data have consistently shown schools to have very little impact on the spread of COVID-19.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brown University Professor Emily Oster has spearheaded an effort to analyze the COVID-19 case rates of students and staff since the start of the pandemic. Using <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/statsiq.co1.qualtrics.com\/public-dashboard\/v0\/dashboard\/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839#\/dashboard\/5f62eaee4451ae001535c839?pageId=Page_1ac6a6bc-92b6-423e-9f7a-259a18648318\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">data<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> taken from the second half of September and covering almost 200,000 students across 47 states, Oster\u2019s team of researchers found a case rate of 0.13% among students and 0.24% among staff\u2014both significantly less than the overall U.S. case rate of 2.4%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/nvss\/vsrr\/covid_weekly\/index.htm#AgeAndSex\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Center for Disease Control and Prevention<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, only 79 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. were of children 14 years or younger, amounting to .038% of all COVID-related deaths in the country since October 21.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If those numbers do not inspire a more rapid approach toward the reopening of schools, then perhaps the declining mental health of children should be more closely considered.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A recent mental health <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.schoolcounselor-ca.org\/Files\/Student%20Wellness%20Survey%20Summary%205-08-20.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">survey<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California revealed that the mental wellness of children had dramatically decreased since schools closed in mid-March.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The survey consisted of 653 students across 49 districts. It found that 65% of students rated their pre-pandemic mental wellness a 7 or above on a scale of 1-10. Tragically, less than 40% now rate their current mental wellness at that same level. Additionally, 23% rated their current mental wellness below at a three or less.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Keeping our children safe should rightfully remain a top priority for San Diego, but if all available evidence can lead us to conclude that sending them back to school will not endanger their lives\u2014and that keeping children at home has created issues\u2014then perhaps we should look more closely at the possibility of a faster reopening of our schools.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>San Diego Unified School District recently announced the second phase of its four-phase school reopening plan.\u00a0 Under Phase 2, students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade will attend class in-person four days a week for half a day.\u00a0Students in grades 6-12 will attend in-person class two days a week, for a total of 240 minutes of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.5 - 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