New York is placing an emphasis on keeping younger kids in the classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic, a step that will need the cooperation of local district officials and county health departments to conduct the necessary testing.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday said the relatively low level of positive COVID cases in schools in the state is "astonishing" even as COVID cases rise generally across the country and in New York.
"All the testing says schools are safer than the surrounding community," Cuomo said at a news conference unveiling a wintertime plan for the pandemic. "We focus on special ed, K to 8, doing testing in schools on a sustainable basis for long-term operation."
Cuomo's winter time plan for the coming weeks of a resurgent pandemic includes the goal of keeping schools open. He has noted repeatedly local district officials have the final say in staying open or shut, but the governor was not pleased with the decision to close schools in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to reopen schools next Monday.
Elsewhere in the state and in much smaller districts there are different challenges.
The focus on elementary and middle school students remaining in the classroom makes sense to education officials. Younger kids find it generally harder to focus at home and learn remotely; parents of essential workers are also less likely to remain home to look after teenage students.
"There's a clear sense that younger students do not fare as well with remote instruction," said Robert Lowry, the deputy director of the New York Council of School Superintendents. "Older students are better able to handle it. Another factor is younger students are less likely to become infected."
And there's the question of making sure parents who have jobs that are deemed essential or frontline workers during this crisis to know that their kids are learning. A big concern for the governor has been whether nurses and doctors will show up for work and not worry about their kids. This has been in the mix of the conversation surrounding making sure kids are in school.
Still, the pandemic has shined a light on the disparities within the education system: Kids who have better access to learning from home typically fare much better.
"All that speaks to whether online instruction should be done at all," Lowry said. "Some of that relates to what's happening in the home. Are parents able to supervise? How many children are they dealing with? What are their work responsibilities that they are trying to perform from home?"
And then there's the question of tests, making sure school districts have them to keep COVID rates low. Cuomo on Monday indicated New York would move to a "pool" testing strategy
"The question is just will the schools have the capacity to do that and we don't really have expertise in that area," said David Albert of the New York State School Boards Association. "We are going to be looking to the health departments and if the health departments don't have that capacity, it will result in those schools being closed."