From NYTimes 7/17/20
Responding to soaring coronavirus infections and growing concern from teachers, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California announced new rules on Friday that would force many of the state’s districts to teach remotely when school starts next month and require most of its more than six million students to wear masks when they do attend class.
“We all prefer in-classroom instruction for all the obvious reasons,” Mr. Newsom said, “but only if it can be done safely.”
The announcement comes at the end of a week in which school districts across the state and country, including California’s two largest, Los Angeles and San Diego, abandoned plans for in-person instruction, saying they would start the school year remotely, and in which California announced a sweeping rollback of plans to reopen businesses.
Education leaders in Houston, Atlanta, Nashville, Arlington, Va., and Broward County, Fla., also said this week that they planned to open the academic year online, despite pressure from President Trump and some Republican governors who want students in their classrooms five days a week.
In Texas, where state officials had previously put limits on online schooling, new guidelines were issued Friday that would allow as many as eight weeks of online-only instruction when schools come back in session next month.
And leaders of Chicago’s public school system, the nation’s third-largest district after New York and Los Angeles, said on Friday that they’re planning for a mix of in-person and online classes. But they stressed that the announcement was a tentative framework, with a final plan expected in August. New York City schools are also planning an in-person and online mix.
The California rules announced by Governor Newsom on Friday would force schools in counties that the state has put on a “watchlist” — because the virus is spreading rapidly there — to teach online until they meet certain public health thresholds. Currently, 32 of the state’s 58 counties, including many of the most-populated, are on that list.
The rules would also require teachers and staff to maintain six feet of physical distance in schools that are allowed to reopen, and mandate masks for students in third grade and up. Younger children would be encouraged but not required to wear face coverings.
The guidelines also recommend that school employees be tested regularly for the coronavirus, something teachers across the country have been pushing for, although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said doing so is not necessary, and scaling up testing has been a challenge.