The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed schools fully reopening in the fall on Friday.
The issue of schools reopening during the pandemic has become political over the last year, embroiling the CDC in controversy in February.
The updated guidance states that students “benefit from in-person learning, and safely returning to in-person instruction in the fall 2021 is a priority.” The CDC also advises that schools enforce 3 feet of social distancing and mask-wearing but emphasizes the importance of in-person learning “regardless of whether all of the prevention strategies can be implemented at the school.”
Studies have shown that students do not perform as well when engaged in online learning, as many students were during the pandemic. Other studies have shown that classrooms are seldom spreaders of the coronavirus.
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“We know that in-person learning is really important for school, for children, for their educational, social and emotional well-being, and so, we really want to get kids back in the classroom,” Erin Sauber-Schatz, a captain in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who assisted the task force that wrote the guidance, told the New York Times. “Physical distancing is still a recommended strategy [but] that should not keep children out of the classroom in the fall.”
Many local teachers unions have opposed returning to in-person learning until all teachers are vaccinated. In a few instances, they have opposed it until students are vaccinated as well.
In February, Biden’s CDC director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said that it was safe for teachers to reenter the classroom. That seemed to put her at odds with others in the Biden administration, as Biden press secretary Jen Psaki later seemed to walk back Walensky’s comment.
Later in February, the CDC released guidance for reopening schools that established four zones that schools would fall into depending on the rate of community transmission of the virus. Schools in communities with higher rates of transmission would fall into orange and red zones where teaching would use a hybrid model of in-person and online learning. At the time, Republicans in Congress charged that the guidance was a concession to the teachers unions, as most schools fell into the orange and red zones.
An investigation by the conservative Americans for Public Trust discovered emails showing that the American Federation of Teachers worked closely with the CDC in developing the February guidance.
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The updated CDC guidance comes about two months after AFT President Randi Weingarten said that schools must be open in the fall.
