Unions consisting of more than 60,000 teachers and other school staff are now calling for all schools in the state of Connecticut to transition to online-only instruction from the day after Thanksgiving through January 18, 2020, if the state cannot meet the coronavirus safety and transparency criteria that are laid out in a new report.
Remote learning
In the report posted on November 23 by Courant, the unions disagreed with recent statements made by Gov. Ned Lamont, who said that classrooms remain one of the safest places to be.
The Board of Education Union Coalition said in a written statement that seven of eight counties across Connecticut report COVID-19 cases at levels that state guidance says should require hybrid or remote learning, as reported by NBC.
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But there are still many schools that continue with full-time in-person classes. Dozens of schools are quarantining hundreds of students and teachers or closing with little to no notice.
According to the state, the school districts should consider moving to online-only education when counties exceed 25 new daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.
As of November 14, the only county to remain under that threshold is Tolland, which is at 24.8 new daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.
The report comes as numerous school districts in Connecticut have announced plans to shift to remote learning after November 30 and through early December or mid-January.
A lot of administrators cited concern over increases in local community cases, as well as staffing shortages because of quarantine protocols.
Spike in cases
Connecticut reported 1,146 new COVID-19 cases among K-12 students from November 12 to 18; there was an increase of 471 or 70 percent from a week earlier. There were also 487 new staff cases reported over the same days, a 49 percent increase from the past week.
Remote students saw the largest single-week increase in percentage, with new cases among that population jumping 138 percent on a week-to-week basis.
Hybrid students also saw a 58 percent increase, and cases among in-person students climbed 51 percent compared to the week prior. Nearly every community in Connecticut has reached a rate of new cases that land them on the state's red alert list.
Donald Williams, the executive director of the Connecticut Education Association, said that every district has a different, inconsistent process to respond to coronavirus cases.
Williams added that they need a strict, statewide oversight and assurances that districts are uniformly following the SDE and CDC's health and safety procedures because currently, they are not.
The state Department of Education responded to the report. It maintained that COVID-19 mitigation strategies already taken in schools have been effective since they do not see sustained person-to-person transmission or outbreaks in their schools.
The department said in a written statement that education officials continue to work closely with the state Department of Public Health to monitor community spread.
According to the "Safe and Successful Schools Now" report, for schools to remain open, there must be regular testing of students and staff, including those who do not show any coronavirus symptoms.
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