In-person instruction and tentative success avoiding COVID outbreaks deserve to be part of this year’s back to school coverage.

By Alexander Russo

Given recent media coverage, parents and teachers could be forgiven for thinking that this year’s reopening of schools was primarily made up of two things: remote instruction and COVID outbreaks.

However, the back-to-school experience that I’m seeing doesn’t fit into either of those two narratives.

Millions of students are going back into school buildings in about half of school districts in the country, according to an analysis from CRPE cited in a recent HuffPost story. And the return to in-person learning has not led to widespread COVID outbreaks so far.

Let’s be clear: There’s nothing wrong with reporting on remote learning and school-based outbreaks. Indeed, reporters have a responsibility to cover these stories.

But there is another story, in many ways more intriguing and useful, that isn’t being told, about what’s going on in schools that have been open in person for weeks without generating a massive uptick in cases.

Above: This new Colorado Public Radio series takes us inside an in-person reopening.

Some schools and districts are experiencing growing numbers of cases; they’ve had to quarantine students and staff or even temporarily shut down in-person schooling.

Some hybrid rollouts haven’t been up and running long enough to know how things are going to go.

And it’s true that we don’t have nearly as much data about school-related COVID cases as we need.

However, roughly a quarter of the largest 100 districts in the nation are offering in-person education of some kind, according to Education Week.

Some students have been back two or three weeks now. A few even more.

And to my knowledge none of the districts are so far experiencing what I’d describe as massive outbreaks, super-spreader events, or widespread school shutdowns.

For example, there’s Utah’s 81,000-student Alpine School District, which is offering full-time in-person education for all students. Classes started Aug. 18. Roughly three weeks in, there are 75 cases, including employees, which have necessitated some recent modifications.

Colorado’s 67,000-student Douglas County School District has been open in hybrid mode since August 17. According to a local news report, 11 schools were affected by quarantines large and small during roughly the first full week of hybrid classes.

The 181,000-student statewide Hawaii Department of Education launched hybrid learning August 17 but has thus far reported few cases on the district spreadsheet, though there is some concern that not enough information is being released.

According to Tennessee state education commissioner Penny Schwinn, her state is seeing approximately 6 to 9 schools closed (of 1,350 opened in-person) at any given time.

You get the idea. Not all in-person schools are experiencing outbreaks or cases. Many of them aren’t – not yet, at least.

The data could change quickly. But these anecdotal reports deserve curiosity and attention just as much as anecdotal reports about infections, quarantines, and deaths.

Most teachers are “already back to school uneventfully,” tweeted self-described “edugeek” Karen Vaites, who has been among the most outspoken voices decrying the unwarranted amplification of parents’ fears. She estimates that there are already more than 5 million kids who are back in school in some fashion.

Above: This recent Denver Post story gives readers a preliminary picture of how in-person education is going so far.

FEAR FACTOR: One big problem with the recent coverage is that it’s focused narrowly on frightening anecdotes featuring large quarantines, outbreaks, and deaths.

This trend hasn’t gone unnoticed: “My children’s school has been open for weeks and zero cases so far,” noted education professor and parent Sarah Lupo. “But the media is highlighting the disasters.”

REMOTE ONLY: Another key issue is that back-to-school coverage has overwhelmingly focused on remote learning, which dominates big-city school systems but not the rest of the country.

“Coverage is so focused on the big cities starting remotely that we overlook that schools are actually open in much of the country,” noted ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis.

LACK OF FOLLOW-UP: Journalists have done precious little follow-up on the much-covered early COVID outbreaks at schools in Georgia and Indiana. “There have been ZERO major follow-up stories, a month after the Georgia schools outbreak,” freelance writer David Zweig noted recently.

Zweig reports that the Georgia district that not too long ago made national headlines is reporting 42 student cases out of 42,200 students and 20 cases out of 4,800 staff.

MISTAKEN CONNECTIONS: Some of the coverage focusing on COVID cases has appeared to connect teachers’ deaths to the reopening of in-person schools without giving any evidence that this was true. This recent Associated Press story is one example. This recent Washington Post story is another.

None of the 4 teachers in this story are documented to have caught it at school,” reminded NPR’s Anya Kamenetz in response to a recent Daily Beast story.  She also warned against the unwarranted use of terms like “cluster” or “spike” to describe situations in which an increase in the number of positive cases is simply the result of an increase in the number of people being tested and existing community infection levels.

Above: Last week’s Wall Street Journal story described a tentative return to in-person instruction.

There is a big appetite for news about schools that have found ways to keep COVID cases to a minimum on reopened campuses

“Schools that have safely opened and three weeks in are virus-free are totally fascinating,” tweeted writer Laura McKenna. “I want to hear about what they’re doing right.”

And there are a few stories already out there. A recent Denver Post story reported that there had been no COVID spike attributable to the reopening of schools midway through last month, though it could still happen. A Macomb Daily recently ran a piece headlined So far, educators say in-person learning is working.

Better data is coming soon. The Nationwide COVID-19 School Dashboard is scheduled to roll out in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, please consider writing about in-person education around the country, and be especially careful about whether these stories imply connections that might not be accurate.

Related coverage:

Smart ways to report on COVID cases detected in schools

How to avoid writing needlessly alarmist school reopening stories

How the media has us thinking all wrong about the coronavirus (Washington Post)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexander Russo

Alexander Russo

Alexander Russo is founder and editor of The Grade, an award-winning effort to help improve media coverage of education issues. He’s also a Spencer Education Journalism Fellowship winner and a book author. You can reach him at @alexanderrusso.

Visit their website at: https://the-grade.org/