Back to school in NYC, LA

The two largest public school systems in the US — New York City and Los Angeles — on Monday announced a return to five-day-a-week classes this fall with in-person instruction.

"One million kids will be back in their classrooms in September, all in person, no remote," Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City told MSNBC on Monday. "We're going to be back strong, ready, safe," he added.

De Blasio cited strong vaccination rates in the city for his decision, and the city has said reopened classrooms have been relatively safe since last fall, with very low in-school virus-positivity rates.

Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday that schools in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest school district, will be open five days a week but retain an online option. Some students and staff members may need to stay at home until everyone in the schools is vaccinated if they live with an immune-compromised family member, he said, adding that he expects the majority of students and staff to be in school every day.

Elementary school students will have full days of instruction with their teacher and classmates, while middle and high school students will change classrooms each period, said Beutner, who is stepping down in June.

Students and staff will wear masks until more children are vaccinated, he said.

In New York City, students will be in their classrooms with some version of the coronavirus protocols that have been in place in the current academic year, including mask-wearing and COVID-19 testing, de Blasio said.

He said city schools would be able to accommodate all students under current guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that call for 3 feet of separation, but he speculated that the standard may be relaxed before the city's public schools open on Sept 13.

After closing schools in March 2020, New York City was one of the first large US cities to reopen school buildings last fall, but the majority of parents chose online-only learning for their children, and about 600,000 students stayed home for classes.

A reopened school system will mean many parents will be able to return to work without supervising their children's online classes.

The mayor also said that teachers and school staff members, who have been eligible for the vaccine since January, no longer will be granted medical waivers to work from home. Nearly a third of city teachers are working from home, which has forced some schools to offer only online instruction, even from school buildings.

Elsewhere in the US, states are assessing how best to keep children safe in schools ahead of the fall term.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on May 17 reiterated that he expects all schools to fully reopen in the fall and said the vaccine and mask guidance updates will likely determine how schools plan for the next school year.

"I'm hopeful that with another month under our belt and continued lowered transmission rates, whatever fears some may have about fall are going to dissipate and we're going to be able to return to school every day, all day for all children," he said in an interview with The Hill.

Several public health experts believe that children would be at low risk from the virus if they head back into the classroom full time in a few months.

Dr William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, told China Daily: "The short answer is yes (it would be OK for children to be back in the classroom by fall.) It would be very low risk. And of course, the reason I'm suggesting that is several-fold.

"Firstly, at school all of the adults should be fully vaccinated. Increasingly, children aged 12 and over should be vaccinated. And of course, we trust by that time in communities across the country that cases, hospitalizations and deaths should be on a sustained downward trend, so this virus should not be circulating anyway, the way it was last school semester."

At least 3.9 million coronavirus cases have been reported among children in the US as of May 13, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Earlier this month, the CDC backed the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 12-15.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said that at least 600,000 children, ages 12 to 15, have received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination as of May 18.

Pfizer and Moderna are now both carrying out clinical trials of their vaccines in groups of children as young as 6 months old.

Dr Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, said he expects that COVID-19 vaccinations will become available to children "as young as 4" by the end of 2021.

Dr Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, also believes that children are "safe" to return to school full time this fall. But he added that they should continue to take precautions.

Benjamin told China Daily: "Children younger than 12 will not be vaccinated and will need to continue to follow CDC guidelines, which as of now includes mask-wearing and some degree of physical distancing.

"Youth 12 years of age and older are eligible for vaccination and should get vaccinated. They are expected to continue to wear masks for now because the vaccine for children 12-16 years of age has just been approved."

The impact of children having to receive instruction from home has upended parents' work situations, a poll found.

One-fifth of all parents have been unable to fully return to work as they stayed home to take care of their children, according to the Federal Reserve Board's report Economic Well-Being of US Households in 2020.

In a separate poll by Hart Research Associates, 73 percent of parents said that they wanted their children to return to in-person learning this fall.

Ryan Baker, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said that many high school and middle school teachers were unprepared to teach remotely amid the pandemic compared with universities.

Baker told China Daily: "High schools and middle schools educators had no preparation (to teach remotely). Whereas in higher education, there was a relatively quick shift and relatively smooth shift."