Impact on Child Care and Schools Reopening
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Reopening Schools: The Los Angeles County Office of Education has issued new guidance for schools on how to safely reopen this week, which includes a staggered school day, all students wearing masks and lunch alone at desks, reports The Los Angeles Times. The 45-page framework is the result of a collaborative effort between experts and administrative officials. Not all were pleased with the framework. Ten area superintendents disagreed with the framework, citing concerns over cost and forcing children to adhere to physical distancing measures, reports LAist. The county guidance comes ahead of guidance from the state – in a press conference on Wednesday, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said the state would be releasing guidance in early June, reports ABC 7. Additionally, Thurmond called on private companies to help California’s children who lack internet access and/or computers to close the digital divide.
While administrators and public health experts are thinking through how to safely reopen schools, teachers and parents are reluctant to go back, reports The Washington Post. A new poll from USA TODAY shows that 20% of teachers will not be returning to the classroom in the fall, and nearly 30% of parents prefer their children continue learning from home. And while the exact reason why teachers are reluctant to return is unclear, the numbers are a further illustration of how the pandemic has upended the traditional school model. Additionally the poll revealed that many teachers are working harder than ever to provide education remotely, and that parents understand that.
Related article: First Five Years Fund: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Releases Reopening Guidance for Child Care Providers
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Impact on Parents, At Home Learning and Other Resources for Parents
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Decisions, Decisions: As Stay-at-Home orders loosen, parents are facing a myriad of decisions on what to allow their children to safely do, especially as day cares begin to reopen and summer camp season approaches. In a piece for The Atlantic, a trio of authors argue in favor of summer camps reopening, saying the risks were manageable and camp could provide some much needed normalcy for stressed out children. NBC’s “Today” asked experts about the safety of sending young children back to child care; Tara Sell, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, says parents should make sure that the daycare appears to be following COVID-19 precautions and guidelines. In a guest piece for Slate, economist and parenting book author Emily Oster shares a system parents can use to make decisions in a variety of settings: 1. Frame the question 2. Mitigate risk 3. Evaluate risk 4. Evaluate benefits 5. Decide. She also encourages parents to only make decisions that are pressing, and not to project into the future. Pro Publica also published a piece to help parents evaluate risk, including how to approach grandparents. Vox explored the many questions involved in kids and care, including questions providers must ask themselves, like “can we afford to implement all of these safety guidelines?”
Related article: The Washington Post: Pools? Planes? Camps? What public health experts will — and won’t — do this summer.
Child Hunger: An emergency program created by Congress two months ago to fight child hunger has only reached a small fraction of the 30 million children it was intended to help, as reported by The New York Times. The program –– Pandemic-EBT –– aimed to compensate for the lack of free school lunches due to COVID-19 school closures, but time-intensive data collection, outdated computers and obstacles in issuing specialized EBT cards have left millions of families still without the benefit.
High levels of food insecurity have meant more people have had to rely on charitable food banks, but food banks have limitations and are not a sustainable solution to America’s childhood hunger issue, as reported by WAMU. Instead, food banks themselves point to the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a solution, claiming that giving hungry families money to buy groceries is a far more effective distribution model than giving families bags of food. For example, for every meal provided by Feeding America’s network of food banks, SNAP provides nine, according to Institute for Policy Research Director at Northwest University Diane Schanzenbach in an op-ed for The Hill. Schanzenbach argues that with the Pandemic-EBT program only funded through the end of the school year, it’s even more critical than ever that congress come together to pass legislation that expands SNAP to feed hungry children in America during this time of economic crisis.
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Pregnant Women and Newborns
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Pregnant and Breastfeeding: Information about how COVID-19 affects pregnant women and newborns is still evolving but a new study suggests that coronavirus may impact babies in the uterus, as reported by the Science Times. The study –– which examined the placenta of 16 pregnant women who tested positive COVID-19 –– found that 12 had a type of injury which impairs blood flow to the fetus and 6 had blood clots in the placenta, as reported by The New York Times. One of the 16 women miscarried but the other 15 babies were born healthy and tested negative for COVID-19 despite these findings. Additionally, a different study that examined 46 pregnant women with COVID-19 found that women who were obese developed severe breathing problems and were hospitalized, suggesting that obesity may complicate pregnancies in women who have COVID-19, as reported by U.S. News & World Report. Lastly, another new study published in the Lancet discovered that COVID-19 may be able to travel in breastmilk, as reported by Newsweek. Researchers stress that the discovery is anecdotal and based on findings from only one woman and that more research is needed to confirm whether the virus can be passed in fluid.
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$50 Billion: Half of all child care centers in the United States are at risk of permanent closure due to the pandemic and congressional Democrats are proposing a $50 billion bailout to rescue the industry, as reported by Claire Cain Miller for The New York Times. While some providers have received short term financing from the CARES Act relief package which gave $3 billion to child care, the proposed twin bills echo the urgent reality that working parents need child care if the economy is to “reopen.” The child care industry, unlike public education, operates mostly on private tuition payments and the majority of providers are barely profitable. With closures related to the pandemic, many have been unable to pay landlords and teachers. Funding from the bailout would cover operating expenses, new safety measures and tuition relief for families. Proponents of subsidized early education typically point to the fact that it’s good for children’s brain development and the economy because it enables parents to work. Proponents of the bailout claim these arguments have gained new urgency as a result of the pandemic, particularly to reverse the impacts of months-long isolation and to help the economy when parents return to work. Public health is a concern, however, and others worry that propping up the “wrong” businesses with a recovery bill could have consequences. If the new bills became law, the federal government would send states money under the Child Care and Development Block Grant.
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Costume Daddy: Of the countries that have instituted mandatory Stay-at-Home orders due to the pandemic, Spain has had some of the harshest restrictions, especially for children. Spanish children were only recently allowed outside, and must be accompanied by an adult. To help his daughter cope with the harsh restrictions, one dad made most of the scant time allowed outside by dressing them in elaborate costumes to take out the garbage. Donning costumes from Batman to Frozen, dad and daughter delighted neighbors as they took the trek to the garbage bins. CBS and NBC's Today covered the story.
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Fact Sheet: The California Budget and Policy Center released a Fact Sheet this week detailing how the proposed 10% rate reduction for subsidized child care providers in Gov. Gavin Newsom's budget would impact the field. As providers are already poorly paid, with many leaning on the safety net to survive, the pay cut would devastate providers according to the analysis. Click here to download.
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ICYMI: On Case You Missed it, Non-COVID-19 Stories
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