Reopening Arizona Schools
This June, three teachers tested positive for the coronavirus after teaching summer school in the same classroom in Arizona’s rural Gila County. One teacher, Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, 61, died after being hospitalized for two weeks. In an interview with CNN, the Hayden Winkelman School District’s superintendent, Jeff Gregorich, said that all three teachers wore masks and gloves, used hand sanitizer and socially distanced.
“The message or the concern that our staff has is, we can’t even keep our staff safe by themselves,” he said. “How are we going to keep 20 kids in a classroom safe? I just don’t see how it’s possible to do that.”
Politicians, educators and health care professionals have debated the reopening of schools in Arizona, where total coronavirus cases have topped 163,000. How to continue safely educating Arizona children — many of whom do not have access to distance-learning resources or supervision for at-home instruction — is a concern, especially considering President Donald Trump’s threat to “cut off funding” to schools that do not fully reopen for in-person learning this fall.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey originally set Aug. 17 as the date for schools to reopen. Yet his “Arizona Open for Learning” plan, released July 23, sets no new date and leaves the decision up to individual school districts and charter schools, which will be asked to consider guidance from health officials. All schools are required to begin teacher-led distance learning by the first day of their traditional school calendar (though it varies by district, generally in July or August) and provide 180 days of instruction or equivalent instruction hours. Ducey allocated $370 million in federal CARES Act dollars to school grants.
According to the Arizona Department of Health Services, 12% of the state’s positive coronavirus cases were recorded among people younger than 20 (over 19,000 cases, as of July 27). Most Arizona cases — 41% — occurred in people between the ages of 20 and 44. Among tests in which race is disclosed, Hispanics and Latinos have the highest rates of positive cases, at 23%. The risks of in-person learning are especially pronounced among communities of color and indigenous peoples like the Navajo Nation, which has reported more than 8,900 coronavirus cases and lacks distance-learning tools such as internet service in many places.
“This pandemic … has highlighted the inequities that have existed for decades in communities of color,” Devin del Palacio, governing board member for the Tolleson Union High School District in west Phoenix, told local media. “Many of our students live in generational family homes where they have grandparents, aunts and uncles living there, and it would be devastating to get a whole unit ill.”
Some legislators support Trump’s stance that schools should open in the fall, including District 5’s Rep. Andy Biggs, a Republican, who led a group of Republican lawmakers July 9 to demand the reopening of schools in August. “It would be more harmful to keep children locked out of schools and less harmful and less risky for children to go back to schools. That’s the bottom line. It is as simple as that,” Biggs said during a news conference at the Arizona Capitol, adding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines — which include social distancing, sanitizing and wearing masks — were “ridiculous” and “extremely harmful” for students.
Prior to Ducey announcing the Arizona Open for Learning plan, more than a thousand school board members, health care workers and education advocates sent him a letter asking him to delay opening schools until October. Ducey’s office released a media statement that read: “Our approach since this virus started has been to work with the education community. We’re listening and we will be working with Superintendent [Kathy] Hoffman and other education leaders on how and when it’s best to safely reopen schools.”
Hoffman, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, released a statement July 9 that read, in part, “We cannot ignore the severity of COVID-19 in our state and how that impacts adults and children alike in our community.” Hoffman sent a letter to Ducey urging him to use public health data to determine reopening metrics.
A recent Arizona Education Association survey of 7,651 school workers showed that 67% agreed with the statement that schools should not reopen until public health experts determine it is safe and that schools are equipped with sufficient safety planning and protective equipment.
While some states with lower infection rates might be able to reopen schools, places with spikes in coronavirus cases should reconsider, according to Tucson-based internist and hospital physician Dr. Matthew Heinz. “Certainly not for my state, if the numbers continue the way they are,” he told the journal Medical Xpress in early July. “We are in a fulminating virus-on-the-rampage situation. I can’t see where this would be safe. I would caution the leadership in the states that are hardest hit to take appropriate steps to delay reopening.”
One of those steps is ensuring adequate funding for schools. The Arizona Open for Learning plan, which Ducey crafted in cooperation with Arizona health professionals and educators, provides $370 million for grants to qualifying school districts and charter schools that provide onsite learning opportunities to students not participating in distance learning. Funds are allocated to assist lower-income students who lack access to quality remote learning, including $40 million earmarked “to expand digital broadband in rural communities and bridge the digital divide.” Another $20 million will go toward “extra support for high-need schools.”
The Arizona Department of Health Services will issue “benchmarks” for traditional classroom instruction Aug. 7. The plan states: “Local school leaders will make the determination of when to physically open for regular classes and consider these recommendations, guidance from county health officials, community needs and available resources to determine when to open. This provides maximum flexibility to school leaders, with public health guidance.”
Schools will have to develop policies regarding face coverings to protect students and staff, including exceptions for students when they can socially distance and when they are outside in playground settings, per CDC guidelines.
On July 22, Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, released its guidelines for schools. They include recommendations for the use of face coverings and a scale measuring the risk of activities such as lunch and recess. The county will provide schools, as needed, with protective equipment such as masks, gloves and gowns.
Some school districts are planning on going completely virtual while others will have a mix of online and in-class instruction. Phoenix’s Madison School District, whose eight schools serve nearly 5,800 students, will not open for in-person classes until at least October. Nicole Rodriguez, the district’s director of community relations and marketing, said they were considering all the guidelines from the CDC and local health officials, as well as the recommendations and concerns of parents.
“We know the best place to learn is the classroom,” Rodriguez said. “And we want that to happen as soon and safely as we can for our students.”