They have shaken communities and upended the school reopening debate.
This is the Coronavirus Schools Briefing, a guide to the seismic changes in U.S. education that are taking place during the pandemic. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
The teacher death toll
No one knows how many educators have died from Covid-19. Our colleague Dan Levin reports that the American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, knows of at least 530.
Educators lost to the coronavirus in recent weeks include a married couple who taught at public schools in Grand Prairie, Texas, and died within hours of each other; an art teacher in Fayetteville, N.C., whose students left her personal messages on a memorial outside the school; and Bobby Hulse, a 76-year-old principal in Arkansas, who died on Wednesday after contracting the virus. “Hulse was known for his love of basketball, his bright shirts and ties and for affectionately calling everyone ‘chief,’” KATV reported.
The special role that teachers play — through their connection with children and families — has rippled through their communities. And the concern among many educators about the contentious issue of in-person education has made the losses particularly painful and disruptive.
There is no indication that teachers are being infected or dying at a higher rate than people in other professions. It is difficult to definitively say how the teachers who died contracted the virus. Still, it is clear the deaths have had an impact on the debate about how and when to reopen schools during the pandemic, galvanizing some teachers to protest in-person learning.
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In Houston, after a high school chemistry teacher named Erick Ortiz died, teachers in Harris County participated in a nationwide sickout to demand a safer learning environment.
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In Cobb County, Ga., teachers protested ahead of a school board meeting after at least three teachers died.
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And public schools in Montgomery, Ala., moved classes online after pressure following the deaths of at least four teachers.
“He could have been me,” a teacher in Houston said after Mr. Ortiz died.
A London dispatch
Jenny Anderson, a longtime education reporter based in the United Kingdom, wrote to give us a taste of what life has been like for parents and students this year.
Back when all U.K. students returned to school in September, it was glorious. I had no reservations about sending my two girls, ages 10 and 12. In late July, Britain had about 500 virus cases a day in a country of more than 66 million people. The country prioritized getting children back to schools — employing the same scientific logic as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week — over allowing parties in pubs. And it worked, for a while.
In my daughter’s primary school, kids were in “bubbles” within their classes. They did not have to wear masks, and while social distancing existed between grades, life inside the bubble was normal.
Secondary schools (for children ages 11 to 18) had more adjustments because they were larger and housed riskier populations. Students wore masks to and from school and in hallways. My elder daughter’s year started with a handful of positive cases, which led to targeted quarantines. It was unnerving at first, but cases tapered off after that first month.
For a few blissful months, our kids spent their days in school and with friends, not with us and on screens. Then we added “variant” to our lexicon, with the shocking surge of a much more transmissible version of the coronavirus. On Dec. 19, the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, canceled Christmas. Stores were closed, and meeting other people was forbidden.
The government said schools would reopen on Jan 4., and some did — for a day (not ours). Then the government made another U-turn and shut all schools until at least February, though they remain open for the children of frontline workers. We’ve now been told that my daughters’ schools will be closed until at least early March.
The variant is very real. Last March, it was only the doctors we knew who came down with Covid; in December, it seemed like everyone had it: couples, kids, entire families. From 500 cases a day in August, Britain’s cases exploded to some 60,000 a day — and nearly 1,500 deaths.
My kids dreaded home school 2.0. But humans are adaptable creatures, and kids even more so. Teachers are more comfortable teaching online, and the kids have more self-direction. They still get lonely: When I asked my 10-year-old what she needed as she crawled by me during a Zoom call, she replied: “Company.” It was like she was saying, “I need humans and you working ones SUCK.”
Recently, the numbers have come down a bit: The seven-day average for cases hovers around 33,000. The U.K.’s vaccination plan is going pretty well: among people age 80 and above, four out of every five have been vaccinated. But deaths remain stubbornly high and the National Health Service is on its knees.
The weather still sucks, parents are epically stressed and kids are falling behind. But we have gotten schools open once and I’m betting it happens again. Some days we mope, other days we grasp at silver linings. The sun now sets after 5 p.m., more than an hour later than at the end December. A small victory, the result of nothing more than the passage of time, but one we will take.
Around the country
College update
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The University of Michigan asked students to remain home through Feb. 7 as the new and more contagious variant spreads through campus.
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Concordia College, a liberal arts college in New York, is closing after the pandemic exacerbated financial problems.
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The State University of New York at Oneonta had to close its campus last fall after the virus ran rampant. On Monday, it will host in-person classes for the first time since August, despite a backlash from students, faculty and staff members.
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Over 1,000 students at Columbia University are on tuition strike, demanding the school reduce its cost amid financial burdens and online learning.
K-12 update
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The school board in San Francisco voted to rechristen 44 schools named for people it deemed to be controversial. The change — which may cost $10,000 per building — has drawn ire as remote learning continues.
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Philadelphia plans to reopen classrooms for its youngest students on a hybrid basis beginning on Feb. 22.
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A good read: Our colleague Andy Newman spent time with three sisters in the Bronx who have found a way to attend school online in a homeless shelter.
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