Via the San Antonio Current: At least 45 districts shut down in-person classes due to COVID-19 cases, affecting more than 40,000 students. Excerpt:
At least 45 small school districts across Texas have been forced to temporarily stop offering in-person classes as a result of COVID-19 cases in the first few weeks of the new school year, according to the Texas Education Agency.
The shutdowns, which affected about 42,000 students as of Thursday, come as cases caused by the highly contagious delta variant have plagued administrators who hoped for a normal return to the school year.
Caseloads have left districts scrambling when many have said they have fewer tools at their disposal to combat the spread of the virus and have had to come up with their own strategies that can differ from district to district. Administrators are tasked with protecting students’ and staff members’ health, providing a quality education and staying open enough days to avoid tacking on extra days at the end of the school year.
“By far this is worse in terms of planning than last year,” said Tim Savoy, spokesperson for Hays Consolidated Independent School District, which closed some classrooms. “There’s no question about it. Last year we had a lot of tools at our disposal: We could require masks, and we could provide a virtual option that was funded. … [Then], the delta variant really kind of appeared and just exploded on us.”
State data about the number of coronavirus cases in districts that have closed at least once during the school year thus far is incomplete — 19 have not reported any cases in students or staff to the state, while case totals in 22 districts have been suppressed by the state due to privacy policies. The list of public school closures in Texas is also incomplete, according to TEA. The agency is tracking closures informally based on media and district reports since districts are not required to report closures to TEA, said Frank Ward, an agency spokesperson.
From Aug. 23-29, there were 27,353 new positive COVID-19 cases among students in Texas public schools, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, making it the biggest one-week increase in the entire pandemic. The state reports 51,904 cases among students and 13,026 among staff since the school year began. That’s about 1% of the 5.3 million students enrolled in the state as of January.
Children’s hospitals, which have been inundated with COVID-19 patients at levels never seen before during the pandemic, have also seen an uptick in patients as the school year is underway, said Dr. Corwin Warmink, medical director of emergency services for Cook Children’s Health Care System in Fort Worth.
“Every year when school starts, we expect a bump in volume [in our emergency room] — we planned for it, we scheduled for it,” Warmink said at a news conference Wednesday. “In the regular year we’ll see about 300 kids a day during this time. On Monday, we saw 601, an all-time record. ... At 600, we’re physically unable to care for kids in a timely fashion.”
