Editor’s note: This article will be updated through the afternoon.
VTDigger is posting regular updates on the coronavirus in Vermont on this page. You can also subscribe here for regular email updates on the coronavirus. If you have any questions, thoughts or updates on how Vermont is responding to COVID-19, contact us at coronavirus@vtdigger.org
Pressure is building to close schools across the state as more superintendents individually choose to shutter local districts in response to COVID-19 outbreaks, teachers raise alarms, and parents launch an online petition demanding that Gov. Phil Scott take action.
Superintendents met from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday to discuss the status of schools amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Darren Allen, spokesperson for the Vermont NEA, said Sunday he understands the decision to close schools is “imminent.” The question is not if that decision will be made, but when, Allen said, echoing a recent comment from Health Commissioner Mark Levine.
Closing K-12 schools statewide would impact roughly 18,000 school employees and about 80,000 schoolchildren across the state.
“More businesses are moving to telework, and arts, sports and entertainment events are over, and if that’s where we’re going, it makes no sense to keep one of the places where the community gathers on a daily basis open,” Allen said.
Don Tinney, president of the Vermont NEA, applauded the Scott administration in a letter to members for working on a “non-political” transition for students, parents, educators and communities during the pandemic.
Tinney cited three factors that he and the union had asked the Scott administration to consider in making a decision whether to close schools — containing the spread of the virus, ensuring that students continue to have access to free food, and protecting teachers and support staff from “financial hardship and lost paychecks.”
“We are frustrated with the way it’s been going, but we also know closing schools needs to be done in an orderly way,” Allen said.
French said he would look to the Department of Health for guidance in a letter to school boards, teachers and superintendents issued Saturday.
Closing schools and childcare centers immediately, he said, would negatively impact “the ability of health care workers and others to report to work at a time when we need them making critical preparations.” French also expressed concern about making sure plans are in place to provide food to children who rely on school for meals.
Levine, the health commissioner, told lawmakers Saturday that with hundreds of COVID-19 test results coming in, this is a “key weekend” for gathering data needed to determine when to close K-12 schools across the state.
Echoing CDC guidance, Levine said that short-term, early closures appear to do little to prevent the spread of COVID-19, while slightly delayed, longer term closures have more of an impact.
“I think that the population may have lost the understanding that this is not an if, it’s a when,” he told the Joint Rules Committee via conference call.
French is also scheduled to speak with lawmakers this evening at 6 p.m. The Burlington School District, which has one of the largest groups of students in the state, is holding a hearing at 5 p.m. to discuss the situation there.
Parents, too, have mobilized with an online petition. Lauren Pricer, a parent with three children, two of whom are in Burlington public schools, started a petition in response to Scott’s emergency declaration on Friday, in which he stopped short of closing schools.
Pricer said she’d never started a petition before, but was moved to do so by all of the frustration she was hearing from people in her community who expected the governor to make a decision Friday to close schools.
“Parents assumed there would be some kind of action Friday,” Pricer said. People were expressing their frustration online, she said, and, “it felt very helpless, the only thing I thought I could do was to start a petition.”
As of Sunday afternoon she had more than 8,000 signatures on the petition via change.org. “Hopefully, it will get the governor’s attention,” she said.
Her hope is that the petition will galvanize the Burlington School District and the state of Vermont to close schools immediately. She believes children are weathering the virus, not showing symptoms and spreading it around.
“It’s about taking action soon enough so we don’t have to sit and watch people die because we don’t have enough hospital beds,” Pricer said.
Superintendents of two districts in southern Vermont have closed schools. Two Rivers Supervisory Union is closing its six schools until further notice after an individual from Ludlow presumptively tested positive for COVID-19.
More than 20 states have already decided to temporarily close schools, while many cities and districts making the decision on their own.
Alabama, Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin are all closing schools, according to USA Today.
School closures so far have impacted at least 25.8 million students. Education Week is keeping a running tally and map of school closures nationwide.
Editor’s note: Reporter Lola Duffort contributed to this story.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the superintendents met with Secretary of Education Dan French Sunday and administration officials at 11 a.m. In fact, French and administration officials were not involved with the meeting. It has been updated.
