RICHMOND, Va. — Even as Virginia continues seeing some of the worst coronavirus case numbers since the pandemic began, Gov. Ralph Northam said Thursday he wants schools to start preparing to reopen.
“In the long-term, we need to look at adjusting our school calendar and the probability of schools operating year-round to make up for some of this time,” Northam said. “But in the short term, all of our school divisions need to be making plans to reopen schools.”
Northam made the announcement Thursday during his weekly coronavirus press briefing ahead of a release of new reopening guidelines by the Virginia Department of Education.
“Instead of ‘schools need to be closed,’ we’re going to approach it from the starting point of, ‘schools need to be open, and here’s how to do so safely,’” Northam said.
VDEO released those guidelines, along with a letter to superintendents and local school and health leaders around the state, Thursday afternoon. The bulk of the document is a five-step plan for reopening schools. Those steps include schools assessing their ability to implement mitigation strategies, determining how an open school is affecting virus transmission in its community and deciding which groups to include for in-person learning.
On the latter point, VDOE is recommending that schools keep priority learners – which includes early learners, students with disabilities and English learners – in classrooms even in some situations where community transmission is high.
In their letter to superintendents and other officials Thursday, Virginia Superintendent of Public Instruction James F. Lane and State Health Commissioner M. Norman Oliver warned that reopening schools to in-person learning will inevitably lead to new cases of COVID-19.
“It is not possible to eliminate all risk of disease in community settings, such as schools. Students and staff most at risk of serious complications from COVID-19 should continue to have remote learning and working options,” Lane and Oliver wrote. “But the risks of not opening schools need to be carefully considered and given proper weight. Long-term school closures as a mitigation strategy for COVID-19 transmission may cause inadvertent harm to children; for example, children who do not have in-person instruction may suffer learning loss with long-term effects, mental health issues, or a potential regression in social skills.”
Northam said it will be up to individual school districts to review the guidelines and formulate their own reopening plans.
As of Thursday, Virginia was averaging more than 5,000 new cases and 50 new deaths from the coronavirus a day – the highest numbers the commonwealth has seen since the pandemic began. Less than 3% of the state’s population has received even the first shot of the vaccine.
On Monday, the commonwealth did expand vaccine access in 11 health districts to the Phase 1B population, which includes teachers. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, there are more than 86,000 public school teachers employed in Virginia.