As the world continued to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic in the early months of 2021, U.S. health officials released guidance designed to help students get back into classrooms for in-person instruction. However, many opponents still argue that schools should stay closed until there is less chance of community spread of the virus or until all teachers have been vaccinated.
In the guidance, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that schools in all areas, regardless of the current risk of COVID-19 infection, should require the use of masks, physical distancing of at least 6 feet as well as frequent hand-washing and facility cleaning. Schools also would be required to set up contact tracing and testing of teachers, staff and students.
The guidance also laid out risk categories based on community spread and outlined various advice for each category. For example, for those school districts in the high-risk category or those with the most community spread, high schools and middle schools would need to maintain virtual learning while elementary schools could offer a hybrid of in-person and virtual instruction.
Proponents have long argued for reopening schools, saying that students are suffering academically and are experiencing mental health impacts from being separated from their peers.
Proponents also say that reopening schools will help parents resume or increase their normal work schedules. For the most part, Republicans supported the push to reopen schools, pointing to data that suggested that COVID spread in communities with schools conducting in-person instruction is minimal. “As the months have rolled by and the data have poured in, it’s become clear that schools can open safely,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a floor speech in February. “An administration that puts facts and science first would be conducting a full-court press to open schools.”
Several Republican governors, including Florida’s Ron DeSantis, called out the CDC guidance as too rigid. In a statement, DeSantis pointed to a CDC study that found that in-school activity accounted for just 3.7% of the community spread of COVID-19 among 17 rural Wisconsin schools in fall 2020. “These kids have been out of school in parts of this country for almost a year, and if you follow that CDC guidance, they will not go back in this school year,” DeSantis said in February.
Others have pointed to the social and emotional benefits of in-person learning, citing evidence of increased anxiety and depression among youth during the pandemic. The group Open Schools California, a coalition of parents that organized in January, said on its website that “opening schools aligns with a harm reduction approach, as the risks to children of closed schools are far greater than the risk posed by the pandemic.”
However, many teachers unions have argued that it is not safe to return to in-person instruction unless teachers and staff are vaccinated and schools have taken safety measures like purchasing air purifiers and reducing class sizes. In Chicago, for example, the city’s teachers union pushed back on the city’s plans to resume in-person classes and voted in January to allow its members to continue working remotely.
“The district is so far unwilling to phase in or add capacity over time for in-person staff to get vaccinated, but it is our belief that vaccinations must be connected to staffing,” the union said in a statement after the vote.
In December, then President-elect Joe Biden promised to reopen the majority of public schools in his first 100 days in office. His $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill, the American Rescue Plan Act, included $130 billion for school reopening, which was approved by Congress.
However, the Biden administration walked back that goal early in 2021, instead saying that 50% of schools should be open for at least one day of in-person learning per week within his first 100 days.
Republicans largely criticized the adjusted metric and unified around a message that Democrats, many of whom receive campaign donations from teachers unions, were blocking students from the classroom. “Science is not the obstacle. Federal money is not the obstacle. The obstacle is a lack of willpower,” McConnell said in Senate floor remarks in early February. “Not among students. Not among parents. Just among the rich, powerful unions that donate huge sums to Democrats and get a stranglehold over education in many communities.”
The decision to reopen ultimately lies with individual districts, which are influenced by parents, teachers unions and local politicians, meaning reopenings will vary across the country.
For more background, see the September 2017 issue of Congressional Digest on “School Choice.”
