Schools may offer up to 20 days of remote instruction for students who are sick with COVID-19, the Texas Education Agency announced Thursday, offering school districts across the state some much-sought flexibility amid rising infections that have area parents and staff nervous about the start of school in the coming weeks.
The change, included in new guidelines for the upcoming school year, comes after TEA previously said districts could not offer virtual learning because the Texas Legislature failed to pass a bill that would have funded it in the 2021-22 school year. The new guidance now allows up to 20 days of remote instruction to be counted as attendance for funding purposes. Schools can apply for a waiver for additional distance learning time if needed in certain circumstances.
The guidelines also require districts to bar students who test positive or are sick with COVID from attending class in person. Students may not return to campus until they no longer are sick or testing positive for the virus, the agency said.
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It remains unknown whether the new directives will assuage the concerns of parents who still are trying to decide whether to send their children back to school amid rising COVID infections and hospitalizations that medical experts said have been driven by the highly contagious delta variant and low vaccination rates across the state. Children under 12 have not been approved for any vaccinations.
The start of the new school year — next week in some districts — comes just three months after the 2020-21 year ended with as many as half the students in some districts still learning from home.
Theresa Rieber, a mother of four in Fort Bend ISD, said she is glad the state came up with a plan for students who will have to miss in-person class to quarantine.
“That was a question on everyone’s minds,” she said. “It wasn’t properly addressed before today.”
Rieber, who worked as a registered nurse in a COVID unit in the Texas Medical Center last summer, said a plan for COVID-positive students is essential because transmission in schools is inevitable.
“We will have kids (who have) to stay home,” she said. “We’re just bracing to see how bad it gets and how fast.”
Texas State Teachers Association President Ovidia Molina called the guidance a start, but said it failed "to relieve the anxiety and fears many face going back to school in light of the inability of districts to mandate masks."
"Allowing districts to serve students remotely for up to 20 days if a student tests positive for COVID-19 may help in limited cases, but the approach outlined in TEA’s new guidance fails to holistically address CCOVID-19 outbreaks at a campus level," Molina said in a statement. "Districts won’t be able to simply address COVID-19 cases on a case by case basis and, in fact, will have to approach one positive case from a campus-wide perspective due to the rapid transmission of the Delta variant.”
Under the new guidance, districts will be required to notify the state health department of test-confirmed COVID cases in students and staff.
The guidelines say that parents should be notified if their child has been in close contact with someone who tested positive and that they can choose to keep their kids home to quarantine and learn virtually during that period.
Districts, however, will not be required to conduct contact tracing when positive cases are identified.
“Given the data from 2020-21 showing very low COVID-19 transmission rates in a classroom setting and data demonstrating lower transmission rates among children than adults, school systems are not required to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing,” the TEA said in a release announcing the guidelines.
Masks remain optional
The new rules keep masks optional in schools due to Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order barring school districts and other government entities from requiring anyone to wear a mask.
Districts may conduct recurring COVID testing on staff to mitigate the spread of the virus, the guidelines say. Students can be regularly tested, as well, with prior written permission of parents.
Houston-area districts had been waiting for the new guidance as they finalized plans for the upcoming school year. A handful of districts the Chronicle asked for comment on the guidelines said administrators are still reviewing them.
"We are still working through this," said Emily Conklin, spokeswoman for Sheldon ISD.
“Our health mitigation protocols will be updated,” said Dayna Owen, executive director of communication for Friendswood ISD in an email.
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Most districts in the state will not offer a virtual option to all students due to the lack of state funding. However, some districts, including Humble ISD, still plans to offer remote learning despite the monetary setback.
"Humble ISD is moving forward with offering virtual classes to the students whose parents chose it for the 2021-2022 school year. We are doing what is best for students and staff," spokeswoman Jamie Mount said. "If we must, we will use fund balance or (federal relief) funds to fund it."
Officials from Leander ISD north of Austin said it would use federal COVID relief funds to pay for virtual learning for a limited number of kids with health-related concerns.
Many area parents also have expressed concerns about the start of the school year as COVID cases in Harris County have risen sharply. Some say they have considered homeschooling their children because their districts will not offer remote learning.
According to the Texas Home School Coalition, the nonprofit advocacy group’s call and email volume doubled the last week of July. More than 1,000 families contacted the group that week compared to 536 the week prior. Those numbers represent an all-time high for the organization.
‘No good answer’
Jennifer Bergland, director of government relations for the Texas Computer Education Association, said the guidance will offer a temporary solution for students who become sick, but will not address the needs of parents whose children performed well in a remote environment and want to continue.
“It does not solve the problem of those parents who do not want to put their children in school right now," Bergland said.
Kate Simpson, a Houston ISD parent and a teacher, said the guidance appeared to be a step in the right direction, giving districts room to be flexible without losing funding.
“The kid can still be at home and still be interacting and learning and not losing time or credit,” Simpson said.
Regardless, Simpson said she still worries about the return to in-person instruction as her son Peter, who has a heart condition, is scheduled to attend fifth grade at Ella J. Baker Montessori School.
“It feels like there is no good answer,” Simpson said. “What do we have, two more weeks before they go back? Are things going to change? Am I worried about, I don’t know, nothing? Would we be able to keep him home? Will the surge that we have lessen at some point? I think part of it is watching the curve go up.”
Local medical authorities said this week they expect the number of infections and hospitalizations to grow throughout the month of August.
Lee Nelson, a mother of two Katy ISD students, said the allowance for some virtual learning is a step in the right direction. However, she said the policy ultimately is counterproductive because it will amount to waiting for children to get sick instead of preventing the spread of the virus.
“They are not taking care of the problem,” she said. “Actually preventing the illness in the first place should be the priority.”
Nelson said it also is worrisome that districts will not be required to trace the spread of the virus.
“They’re doing a disservice to the children,” she said. “They’ve got to control the spread and they’re not doing that.”
hannah.dellinger@chron.com
alejandro.serrano@chron.com
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