Some, despite restrictions, will feel safe and mostly enjoy their time. For others, it will be challenging or even traumatic. Schools and teachers are used to supporting their pupils through challenges that they face in life — the current situation will amplify those situations many times over.
This guide aims to: Outline the scale of the challenge that schools and young people are facing. Provide practical advice, activities and support. Furthermore, the inclusion of any hyperlinks and the content presented is not intended to convey their relative importance, nor is it intended to endorse any views expressed or products or services offered.
The Department does not control, direct, or encourage any particular curriculum or the information related to curriculum. The use of materials or information by a school or educator is strictly a State and local matter. The REMS TA Center disseminates information about school emergency management and planning to help school communities learn more about developing, implementing, and revising high-quality emergency operations plans.
Comprehensive Centers. Schools also can help students with suicidal thoughts or behavior get needed support. Sporting events, practices, and other extracurricular activities may be limited in many areas. In schools that do offer sports and other physical activities, special safety steps should be considered. Vision and hearing screening and oral health programs should continue in schools, when possible.
These services help identify children in need of treatment as soon as possible so health issues don't interfere with learning. As the pandemic continues, schools are able to provide free meals to all children, regardless of household income, through June Many students receive healthy meals through school meal programs. Check with your school district for more information. Schools should provide meal programs even if the school is closed or the student is sick and stays home from school.
The benefits of in-person school are much greater than the risks in almost every way. Schools are safe, stimulating, and enriching places to be while parents or guardians are working. Children and adolescents receive more than just academics. They also learn social and emotional skills, get exercise, and have access to mental health and other support services.
For many families, schools are where kids get healthy meals, access to the internet, and other vital services. Families, schools, and communities can work together to help ensure students can safely remain physically together in school, where they need to be.
This includes making sure everyone who is eligible gets the COVID vaccine, influenza vaccine and other routine childhood and adolescent vaccines. It means wearing a face mask, staying home when we are sick and doing what we can to keep others safe around us.
When everyone does their part, the whole community wins. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. Turn on more accessible mode. Turn off more accessible mode. Skip Ribbon Commands.
Skip to main content. Turn off Animations. Turn on Animations. Our Sponsors Log in Register. Log in Register. Because transmission can happen even when one is physically distant from others, masks should be required for everyone on school property — students, teachers, staff, and parents. Masks should also be required on school buses. Schools should have plans to enforce mask wearing on campus and on buses.
However, during times when a teacher or students are talking and when students are in contact with individuals outside of their class e. Some schools may exempt preschool and kindergarten students, who may find mask-wearing more difficult. In these cases, extra care should be taken to implement other control strategies, like higher ventilation rates, better filtration, and group distancing to minimize contact with other classes and students at the school.
Proper mask-wearing hygiene and cleaning procedures are important for effective use. Schools should follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC and advise students and families on how to care for masks e. If there are concerns about parent, student, or teacher ability to obtain and care for a mask, the school should make them available to everyone. Washing hands is an easy and effective way to reduce transmission. Hands should be washed with soap and water for 20 to 30 seconds upon arrival and before and after touching shared surfaces, eating, touching the face, recess, physical education, and transitioning between classes.
Hand sanitizer or portable hand washing stations should be available throughout the school. Other strategies the school may implement include installing no-contact infrastructure like touchless sinks. Physical distance helps reduce the risk of infection by large droplets transmitted between individuals for example, from sneezing or coughing , and is particularly effective when combined with wearing a mask.
The goal is six feet, where possible, but we note that the American Academy of Pediatrics, in their guidance on re-opening schools, highlights evidence that three feet may be sufficient, particularly when masks are worn. Also factored in are the lower likelihood of kids catching, and transmitting, the virus.
Further, strict adherence to six feet distancing may limit in-person instruction, and must be weighed with the risks of kids staying home. Schools should ensure that maximum physical distance is maintained whenever possible- including in the classroom, bathrooms, and hallways, and on school buses see more info on buses in Question 12 and Questions 19 and 20 about recess and athletics.
Strategies such as spreading desks out in the classroom, staggering bathroom breaks or class transition times, limiting or discontinuing locker use, and marking one-way lanes for travel will help facilitate physical distancing.
School arrival and departure times can also be staggered to decrease crowding at doors and outside the building. While not as effective as complete physical distancing, this must be weighed against the risks of keeping kids out of school. Cohorting students can reduce the risk of a large outbreak if a student becomes sick by decreasing the number of other students with whom they had close contact.
Tiny particles that contain the COVID virus can float in the air, potentially infecting someone that was never in close contact with an infected person.
Schools may rely on mechanical or natural ventilation to bring fresh air into the building. There are established standards for the amount of fresh air coming into the building that schools should meet or exceed called the ASHRAE When possible, schools should increase the amount of outdoor air brought into the building beyond this standard. All re-circulated air should pass through a high-efficiency filter see Question 6. Schools should also consider keeping the ventilation system running even outside of normal school hours e.
Window fans or box fans positioned in open windows to blow fresh outdoor air into the classroom via one window and indoor air out of the classroom via another window may help to sustain and increase fresh air in the classroom.
Note that the control strategies in Questions 5, 6, and 7 are effective at controlling airborne virus particles and recommended as first priorities. Some schools may not be able to only rely on increases in ventilation or filtration.
There are a large number of other unproven or less proven technologies now being marketed. Please refer to the Healthy Buildings section of the main report for more information.
Mechanical ventilation systems can use a filter to remove small respiratory particles that contain viruses in air that is recirculated through the building, but some filters work better than others. Schools should consider replacing filters with those rated MERV 13 or higher, since filters with these ratings are able to significantly reduce concentrations of particles that carry viruses in the air that passes through them.
However, some systems cannot handle this type of filter. In this case, other approaches may be useful e. Filters should be checked regularly to make sure there is proper fit properly sealed around the edges so air does not leak through other openings beside the filter itself and airflow through the filter.
Portable air cleaners with high-efficiency particulate air HEPA filters may be useful to reduce exposure to viruses emitted from infectious individuals.
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