Largely missing from the reopening protocols at states and schools around the nation are concrete plans for what administrators are to do when coronavirus infections enter a school.
How a school would handle multiple coronavirus cases across the building, and how many infected students or teachers would raise alarms, are details often left up to parents to guess. Typical plans include only references to"case-by-case" decisions.
The CDC also recommends dismissing school for at least two to five days after an infected person is in the building, but most school plans don't reference closing whole school buildings. In Miami-Dade County, Florida, the fourth largest school district in the U.S., guidelines do allow for the closing of schools, but don't outline the plan for if that happens, nor what would prompt schools to close in the first place.
In Memphis, Tennessee, Shelby County Schools outline a more comprehensive plan. It doesn’t indicate a case threshold for closing but notes: “Depending on the extent of positive cases within a school, a school may need to close for up to two weeks and then stagger student attendance upon restarting.” Of the few plans that do address COVID-19 infections among students or teachers, plans range from shutting down the school for 24 to 48 hours for deep cleaning and then resuming classes, to sending all kids home for remote learning for two to four weeks, Dusseault said.
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