The Public Education Department released guidance Tuesday that requires schools to start the year in a hybrid learning model with in-person attendance limited to 50% of classroom capacity.<\/p>\n
State officials are billing the plan as \u201ca prudent and responsible process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state\u2019s goal is to move all schools into a full school schedule as soon as it can be safely accomplished,\u201d the guidance states.<\/p>\n
School staff must have their temperatures checked daily and submit to COVID-19 testing. Schools also need to report results to state health officials. Students and staff must wear masks, and large gatherings like pep rallies or assemblies are to be avoided.<\/p>\n
The state will monitors cases regionally to determine if some schools can fully reopen or be forced to close due to changes in infection rates.<\/p>\n
In the hybrid model, students will have to continue with online lessons when at home.<\/p>\n
All students must be provided meals, suggesting schools will have to resume delivery systems for those learning remotely. Cafeterias, if used, are encouraged to stagger lunch times and spread out the students to comply with social distancing requirements.<\/p>\n
The guidance comes after a month of consultation with a task force that was made up of scores of parents, teachers and administrators who meet in mass Zoom calls and breakout sessions. They considered many ideas that might have been logistically challenging, such as requiring bus drivers to check every student\u2019s temperature.<\/p>\n
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory also explored numerous school infection scenarios, according to state Human Services Secretary David Scrase.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking at how we reopen schools safely. We\u2019re looking very closely at what\u2019s happening in Europe,\u201d Scrase said during a briefing Friday, noting that preliminary data out of Denmark and Iceland suggest that children may not transmit COVID as much but state officials still are hoping more can be learned about the virus.<\/p>\n
For most, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause severe illness, including pneumonia and death.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real issue about reopening schools is whether they\u2019re transmitters and whether they can spread at schools,\u201d Scrase said. \u201cThis is a big focus because obviously we\u2019ve got 330,000 children in New Mexico that this will effect and we want to do it right. We don\u2019t want to do just a dramatic reopening of schools like other states have done. We know that if we did that, we would likely see a huge uptick in cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
School openings in August will be something of an experiment.<\/p>\n
The guidance document says reopening schools at half capacity \u201cwill allow the state to collect and analyze data on the impact of a controlled start on the spread of the virus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephanie Ly, president of the New Mexico chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said Monday her main suggestion,to hire more teachers did not make it into the guidelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cClass sizes need to be reduced. We can no longer in this day and age stuff that many students into a classroom. So our schools are going to have to hire more educators,\u201d Ly said.<\/p>\n
The guidance does suggest ways that staff could cover for each other, for example by cross training educational aides and substitute teachers.<\/p>\n
[\u2013][\u2013][\u2013]<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
[\u2013][\u2013][\u2013]<\/p>\n
Cedar Attanasio is a corps member for the Associated Press\/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Public Education Department released guidance Tuesday that requires schools to start the year in a hybrid learning model with in-person attendance limited to 50% of classroom capacity. State officials are billing the plan as \u201ca prudent and responsible process.\u201d \u201cThe state\u2019s goal is to move all schools into a full school schedule as soon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53152"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}