This is the Coronavirus Schools Briefing, a guide to the seismic changes in U.S. education that are taking place during the pandemic. Sign up here to get the briefing by email.
College collab houses
Some college students will spend this semester in their childhood bedrooms. Others are taking their chances on campuses.
Then, there’s a third option: Rent a giant house with friends and take remote classes from a far-flung locale. It’s an adventure, it’s potentially cheaper than living in a college town and it’s more fun than Zooming from your parents’ basement.
Taylor Lorenz, a Times technology reporter, described it as “off-off-off campus housing,” inspired in part by social media influencers who have formed “collab houses” across Los Angeles.
Two groups of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will spend the semester in Hawaii. At least seven groups of friends rented large houses in the greater Salt Lake City area. And more than 30 Chinese students who attend American universities plan to live in adjoining properties in Beijing.
The houses range from lavish mansions to budget-friendly solutions. Morgan Margulies, a rising junior at Columbia University, will live in Santa Cruz, Calif. with nine friends from other colleges. “I am a first generation, low-income student and this is my cheapest option,” he said.
Admittedly, college students and communal housing seem like a dangerous mix. In the United States, more than 26,000 people have been infected at colleges and universities, with clusters popping up in dorms and Greek houses nationwide.
Students say they plan to adhere to a strict two-week quarantine, are choosing locations near major hospitals and have developed plans in case someone got sick. (“I think a lot of that was to placate their parents,” Taylor said.) But they will be traveling to rural areas from around the country and the world.
“This plan is crazy, but what isn’t crazy right now?” said Anika Beamer, 19, a rising junior at Grinnell who is relocating to Utah. “Our lives have been uprooted and we’re hoping to find a sliver of comfort and adventure.”
Other back-to-school innovations:
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Learning pods have a reputation as a luxury option. But less expensive pods are also being improvised in repurposed living rooms, cleaned-out barns and even tree houses.
Bacteria in the water fountains
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about: School buildings that have been closed for months may be harboring a deadly bacteria in their water supplies.
Legionella, which causes Legionnaires’ disease, can form in stagnant water and then disperse through the air. Students at a sink or drinking fountain could inhale the bacteria and develop the respiratory condition. Young children are less at risk than older students, adults and people with compromised immune systems. Still, it can be fatal for 1 in 10 people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So far, officials in Ohio and Pennsylvania have had found Legionella in several schools. But it’s fixable. Flushing the water with chlorine and regularly testing for bacteria should do the trick.
Schools Reopening ›
Back to School
Updated Aug. 28, 2020
The latest on how schools are reopening amid the pandemic.
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- A number of schools have found the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease in their water after coronavirus lockdowns, and experts say more should expect to see it.
- A growing number of districts in New Jersey are going online only, citing teacher shortages, ventilation issues and delayed guidance from the state on the virus.
- As New York City races to reopen school buildings physically next month, it is clear that the pandemic has exacerbated the gap between the wealthy and everyone else.
- We asked educators to show us how they are preparing their classrooms to teach amid the coronavirus. Here’s what they shared.
A global reality check
The trade-offs and stresses of remote or hybrid learning are very real. But it’s also important to keep things in perspective.
Around the world, 1.5 billion children have been told to stay home since the pandemic began — and about 500 million have been completely cut off from any kind of education.
According to Unicef, the United Nations agency for children, 90 percent of countries have remote learning policies. But without a laptop, a tablet or even electricity at home, students cannot access them.
As is often the case with education inequity, girls bear a disproportionate burden, according to a related report by Human Rights Watch. Boys “often end up getting more access to these resources,” the report found, and in some countries there is a “strong connection between girls leaving or being out of school and them being forced into marriage.”
Around the country
Lawsuits
It’s getting litigious out there. Teachers are suing to stay out of the classroom. Schools are suing to reopen. The disputes are often along partisan lines.
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In states with Republican governors, educators are fighting mandates around in-person learning. In Florida, teachers’ unions are fighting a state rule that mandated in-person school. On Monday, a circuit court judge sided with them, but the state is appealing the decision. In Iowa, the Des Moines school district also asked a court to reverse an “unsafe” mandate for partial in-person learning.
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Democratic-led states are fending off their own challenges. Two lawsuits in front of the California Supreme Court challenge online-only mandates. One was filed on behalf of private schools, the other by a charter school and the Orange County Board of Education. Earlier this month, in Oregon, a federal district judge rejected a petition from three Christian schools seeking an exemption to hold classes in person, despite state health restrictions.
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Some disputes are settling out of court. In Seattle, the teachers’ union and public school administrators have reached a tentative agreement after months of negotiations. And although teachers across the country have threatened to strike, few — if any — have actually done so.
Other local news
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Most public schools in Hawaii will continue remote-only learning through October.
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The Maryland school superintendent announced $10 million in grants that will be available to school systems that bring students back for in-person instruction.
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The Tufts dental school, in Massachusetts, laid off faculty and staff members. And UMass Amherst furloughed hundreds of staff members, because of a $168.6 million budget deficit.
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Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth, now has at least 360 cases, and has asked two sorority houses to self-quarantine. At least 160 people at colleges in South Dakota tested positive, and more than 600 are in quarantine or isolation. And nearly 300 students who live in a dorm at the University of Connecticut have been asked to quarantine.
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Schools in big cities are less likely to reopen for in-person learning than rural schools, according to the Center for Reinventing Public Education.
Your Covid-ready classrooms
This month, we asked teachers to show us how the pandemic had changed their classrooms. Educators from across the country wrote back, showing us how they’d modified their classrooms. Here are three trying to find a new normal.
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Ashley Allen, a sixth-grade teacher in Florida, bought shower curtains at a dollar store to hang across a table. She also sends students outside for a “mask break,” if they need one.
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Jennifer Graves, a preschool special education teacher in Connecticut, recorded a video to show students and families her personal protective equipment. She wanted to reassure them that she was still there, despite the mask.
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David G. Stone, who teaches choir and handbells in Indiana, spent $2,000 of his own money preparing his classroom. His students can still sing, but with masks on, six feet apart. And choir can last only 30 minutes before an HVAC unit circulates the air before the next class sings.
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College Housing: Some Students Are Living Way Off-Campus - The New York Times
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