In his inaugural address in early January, Gov. Phil Scott told Vermonters he hoped to get “every child in every district” back to the classroom for full-time, in-person instruction “hopefully sometime in April.”
“The fact is, we have some of the best conditions in the world to begin this work,” he said at the time. “For our children and their future, we must reestablish full, in-person instruction, routines and relationships as soon as possible.”
But school officials have expressed skepticism about the governor’s aspirations. They wonder how the goal would be achieved without the state departing from a keystone of its risk-mitigation approach — physical distancing — at a time when community transmission remains high.
“Realistically, I think people are saying, like, how can we even be talking about that?” said Dave Younce, president of the Vermont Superintendents Association. “The conditions aren’t there, and it doesn’t seem like they will be in order to make that happen.”
If all students were to return full-time to in-person instruction, the largest shift would occur in Vermont’s middle and high schools, the vast majority of which are operating according to hybrid schedules, according to survey data published by the state Agency of Education.
The landscape is flipped in the younger grades, where a slim majority of elementary school students have been back in person full-time since November, according to the agency. About 17% were fully remote in December, the most recent month for which data was available, and another 31% were learning in a hybrid mode.
That’s largely because of distancing requirements. Research has consistently suggested (although not conclusively) that very young children are less likely to catch and pass along the virus. Vermont officials have recommended students in grades K-5 be spaced at a minimum three feet apart. In the upper grades, it’s twice that: six feet.
“The only way you get more of those students back in the school is if the social distancing requirements go out the window,” said Younce, who oversees the four-town Mill River Unified Union School District. And to abandon those requirements without vaccinating teachers and students, he said, would “create chaos and concern.”
Anne Sosin, program director for the Dartmouth Center for Global Health Equity, says that in some places — particularly in the younger grades — there is indeed room to expand in-person learning safely and within the bounds of existing guidelines.
But the “really robust mitigation measures” currently recommended by Vermont’s public health authorities have been a “critical part of the state’s success” in keeping transmission within schools low, Sosin said, and relaxing them would be unwise.
“What I am not for is changing the guidance just to stick more kids in the classroom,” she said.
Sosin also worries that Vermont’s approach to vaccination — which is not prioritizing essential workers, such as teachers — will do little to help tamp down overall transmission of the virus. Combined with hints that state officials are considering relaxing shutdown measures as the most vulnerable receive their shots, Sosin worries that overall health conditions could be worse, not better, by the time April rolls around.
“I think there’s a risk of forgetting the importance of suppressing community transmission in pursuing the goal of expanded in-person education,” she said.
Tim Lahey, an infectious disease physician and director of clinical ethics at the University of Vermont Medical Center, called the April goal a “good aspiration.”
“As with everything in the Covid pandemic, it comes with a huge caveat,” he said. “Will the current downtick in cases continue? Will the new variants end up being a problem for vaccines?”
Epidemiological studies have not shown that teachers are at higher risk of catching the virus than other workers, Lahey said. But that research mostly took place after mitigation measures were put in place, so it’s hard to know which safety precautions mattered the most. A decision to reduce distancing requirements, for example, would be “a tough call.”
“If I was a teacher, I’d be wondering about that, too — because we probably won’t know the answer by April,” he said.
Administration officials have said that they are considering adjusting the distancing guidelines but stressed they would let science lead the way.
“This is exactly the kind of issue being weighed and discussed with health experts as part of the education restart team, and no decisions had been made,” Jason Maulucci, a spokesperson for the governor, wrote in an email.
The goal of returning to face-to-face learning was announced soon after educators were told that they would not be prioritized in the state’s first phase of vaccination. For many teachers, the idea of taking on more risk while being denied additional protection felt incongruous.
“Teachers and school staff need to be able to support students without worrying about our health,” Bibba Kahn, a teacher at Main Street Middle School in Montpelier, and the 2020 Vermont teacher of the year, recently wrote in a VTDigger commentary.
Asked whether the governor’s hopes for an April return were realistic, Don Tinney, the president of the Vermont-National Educational Association, was circumspect.
“I think there are a whole lot of complexities to work out before that happens across the state,” he said.
The teacher’s union is seeking clarity about when members will be eligible for vaccinations. State officials, in response, have repeatedly said they simply do not know.
Vermont is prioritizing those over 65 and those with certain chronic conditions. Speaking to the Senate Education Committee in mid-January, Health Commissioner Mark Levine told lawmakers that meant there were “literally 200,000 people” ahead of the average Vermont educator in line for the vaccine.
“I can’t make that story feel good to a teacher. There’s no way,” he said. “Even if I told a teacher, ‘You’re next in line. After the last person with chronic conditions gets their shot, you go first.’ Well, that’s going to be April, May, I don’t know when. It depends on how many vaccines are available.”
Jeanne Collins, a superintendent in Rutland County who sits on the statewide task force that helped craft the state’s school reopening guidance, agrees with Younce. For her, the problem is simple. Either vaccinate widely and eliminate the need for social distancing, or find solid science that shows why nearly a year of public health messaging around distancing was actually too conservative.
“Until then, we can’t physically fit the kids,” she said.
Collins says she understands that the governor’s goal is aspirational. But it is already creating an expectation among many parents and students, she said, who are being set up for disappointment.
“It leaves it to the schools to communicate the realities of what that goal is. And perhaps by April there will be a sudden surge of vaccines and everything will be fine. But I can’t promise that to the parents who want it to happen now,” she said.
