The Biden administration introduced a new safety strategy Friday to keep children in classrooms – a move that comes as the country braces for the impact of a new COVID-19 variant that threatens to return schools to remote learning.
READ: Nearly 100% of Students Back to School Full Time and In Person
“If exposed children meet certain criteria and continue to test negative, they can stay in school instead of quarantining at home,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Zelensky said during a press briefing.
The new strategy leans on a “test-to-stay” policy, in which students who have been exposed to the virus but show no symptoms can remain in school as long as they test every day, or no less frequently than twice a week.
The policy would replace current CDC guidance, which recommends children who have been exposed to quarantine for up to 10 days – a policy that’s shuttered whole classrooms for weeks at a time and made it difficult for educators to help students regain the academic, social and emotional losses incurred since the onset of the pandemic.
Several school districts have been experimenting with test-to-stay strategies since the fall.
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While the vast majority of schools are still providing full time in-person learning, some have begun adding remote days to their schedules due to a perfect storm of staff shortages, increasing mental health needs and – most recently – an uptick in some communities due to the introduction of the Omicron variant.
Over 164,000 coronavirus cases in children were reported last week – a jump of nearly 24% over the previous week, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. The groups called this number “extremely high.”
Evidence shows schools remain one of the safest spaces for children in terms of the risk of transmission, they’re also now one of the most vulnerable spaces since vaccinations rates among children remain low.
As it stands, 18% of kids ages 5 to 11 have at least one shot, as do 61% of children aged 12 to 17, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, but the vaccination rate for children has dramatically slowed.
Zelensky emphasized that the best way to keep children safe is to have them vaccinated, adding that “no evidence of serious safety concerns” have been found in children under the age of 12 who have gotten the shot.
Zelensky pointed to a pair of new studies of the strategy that, she said, “demonstrate the test-to-stay works to keep unvaccinated children in schools safely.” The CDC published the studies Friday.
“In order for test-to-stay to be implemented safely and correctly, some key prevention measures need to be included,” Zelensky said. “In both studies, masks were worn consistently and correctly, close contacts of a positive case were monitored for symptoms and stayed home if they became ill, and those who did not develop symptoms had regular testing.”
READ: Nearly 100% of Students Back to School Full Time and In Person
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the guidance will help ensure that students can stay in their classrooms.
“It’s encouraging that test-to-stay strategies are proving effective both in limiting transmission of the virus and in ensuring that students can remain learning in school, so that entire classrooms or schools do not have to shut down when a case of COVID-19 is discovered in the school community,” Cardona said in a statement.
The proposal got an early endorsement from educators, with the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers throwing cautious support behind the plan.
“The test-to-stay protocol is a promising strategy that can minimize quarantines and keeps students safely in classrooms with their peers and teachers, where they do best,” AFT President Randi Walgreen said.
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