In Tokyo, high school grades were divided into two groups, with half attending in morning and half in afternoon. To address this, some schools have tried staggered schedules in which some students come to school on Mondays and Thursdays and others come on Tuesdays and Fridays. Experts have suggested limiting class sizes to only a dozen students to reduce social contact, creating challenges for schools that usually have more than thirty students in a class. PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES: Gaza’s preschools reopen in June.ĭecreasing capacity. Instead students are allowed to play with others in their class “ bubbles,” small groups that arrive at school at the same time, use the same classroom and playground area, and are taught by the same teacher to try to prevent a widespread outbreak. In Denmark, schools are not required to enforce social distancing. Most public schools in Hong Kong closed their cafeterias, requiring students to bring lunch. Schools have tried to keep students and faculty at least six feet apart by increasing the distance between desks, using plastic barriers in classrooms, and closing group spaces. Many schools require students to prove on a daily basis that they don’t have a fever, including by checking their temperature and filling out a form at home, entering their temperature into a mobile app, or using a contactless thermometer at the school’s entrance. Taiwan’s government, which never closed most schools, provides new masks to all adults and children every two weeks.Ĭhecking temperatures. Many schools have required students and faculty to wear masks while in the classroom. Researchers have shown that wearing masks can significantly decrease the chances of infection. To mitigate the challenges of reopening, schools have implemented many precautions, including the following: What health and safety steps have countries taken when reopening schools? In addition to fearing for their own health, teachers in schools that follow a hybrid model of in-person and online learning face the added stress of preparing lesson plans for both approaches. Restrictions have made it difficult to promote collaborative and engaging learning, especially for younger students. Pandemic safeguards have also put special burdens on educators. For example, reopening all of Maine’s public schools will cost an estimated $328 million. school district with around 3,200 students. One report estimates that implementing precautions will cost $1.8 million for a U.S. While primary and secondary schools in the United States have so far received $13.5 billion in federal relief, education policy researchers say it’s not enough for schools that were already struggling with funding. Some schools have hired more teachers because of smaller class sizes, and others have paid to improve their ventilation systems and build handwashing stations. Health experts have called on schools to guarantee they have enough personal protective equipment (PPE), such as masks and face shields, for students and teachers cleaning supplies and other safety materials, including plastic barriers, the costs of which can add up. Schools in Germany, where infection rates are low, have taken a different approach, keeping classes running and forcing only close contacts of the infected person to quarantine. communities.Īfter its disaster in the spring, Israel is now requiring schools with reported coronavirus cases to close for two weeks and all students and staff to quarantine. It remains to be seen, however, if schools can safely reopen in places suffering widespread outbreaks and community transmission, such as in many U.S. Most of the dozens of countries that reopened schools earlier in the year reported relatively low numbers of cases of the new coronavirus disease, COVID-19, and conducted widespread contact tracing. Schools have struggled with what to do if a student or teacher tests positive. What are the challenges to reopening schools? But lack of access to technology and concerns about widening achievement gaps have forced a seemingly impossible decision onto school leaders: reopen their doors and risk new outbreaks of the virus, or continue virtual alternatives that could leave students further behind and suffering from social isolation. Others don’t plan to resume in-person classes until 2021. Since then, some countries have cautiously reopened schools with mixed results.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |