A Chicago School closed after a special-education aide tested positive for coronavirus, reports Yana Kunichoff on Chalkbeat. The school serve more than 200 students with disabilities who travel across the city — on buses — to receive services. Some are medically fragile.
Parents at Vaughn Occupational High School are organizing a food pantry, sending out urgent messages in Spanish and Polish, and scrambling to figure out what child care looks like during a 10-day voluntary quarantine announced Saturday by the city.
A Chicago school, closed due to an aide’s coronavirus diagnosis, is being sanitized.
Many of the students have parents who can’t afford to miss two weeks of pay to stay home with their child. “The scramble to find child care almost certainly will be more difficult as caregivers also fear potential exposure to the coronavirus,” writes Kunichoff.
Seattle Public Schools will stay open this week, even as other nearby districts and the University of Washington close or go online-only to contain COVID-19, reports Joy Resmovits in the Seattle Times.
“Many of our families rely on our schools and staff for basic needs, including regular meals, health care, and child care,” a district statement said.
On Friday, New Jersey officials told schools to plan for “home instruction” if ordered to close by health officials, reports Adam Clark of Advance Media.
In Mount Olive, administrators and teachers are trying to figure out how to keep homebound students learning for two to four weeks. The district provides laptops, but not all students have internet access at home.
Beyond basic academics, home instruction days present major logistical challenges. What about special education? Mental health services? Sports? Childcare? Paychecks for cafeteria workers and bus drivers?
“My biggest concern is meeting the needs of our at-risk students when school shuts down,” Superintendent Robert Zywicki said. “For many of those kids, school is a safe place. School is place that is warm, and school is a place where they get fed.”
