Considerations for Reopening Pennsylvania Schools (REL Mid-Atlantic publication, June 2020)¶

Element · All elements
Evidence · 6 claims (6 for) · 3 studies (2 theoretical, 1 review), q1–q2 · 0 of 3 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study

Description¶

A publication produced by the Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic, published June 29, 2020, authored by Brian Gill, Ravi Goyal, Jacob Hartog, John Hotchkiss, and Danielle DeLisle. It responds to the Pennsylvania Department of Education's request for analytic support for guidance to assist schools in developing policies and procedures for mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring the safety of students and staff during Fall 2020 reopening.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Requested by and produced in partnership with the Pennsylvania Department of Education

Constraints¶

• Scoped to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's school reopening planning in 2020

Target Learners¶

• Pennsylvania K-12 schoolchildren

Target Learning Goals¶

• Safe school reopening and mitigation of COVID-19 spread while supporting student learning

Claims¶

• COVID-19 school closures in Pennsylvania are likely to have caused substantial learning losses, with harms concentrated in populations also disproportionately harmed by the disease [+W]
• Hybrid approaches with smaller masked groups attending part-time dramatically reduce total likely infections, and most outside infections produce zero additional in-school infections [+W]
• Requiring masks measurably reduces infection spread in schools, according to simulation models of school operating strategies [+W]
• Reducing student density in classrooms and shared school spaces, combined with precautions such as physical distancing, some mask wearing, and good ventilation, allows for a safer school reopening during COVID-19 [+W]
• Elementary schools are predicted to have lower infection rates than secondary schools using the same operating strategies [+W]
• In schools attending fully in person, temporary closures in response to known cases are far less effective than hybrid operation from the start and increase schedule disruption [+W]

Related Elements¶

• Outcomes, Impacts, and Processes framework publication (REL Mid-Atlantic)
• Exploratory research review of promising practices and approaches to support remote learning (REL Mid-Atlantic, 2020)

Examples¶

• State education agencies can commission regional educational laboratory analytic support to develop COVID-19 mitigation guidance for school reopening

Key Sources¶

• Brian Gill, Ravi Goyal, Jacob Hartog, John Hotchkiss, Danielle DeLisle. (2020). Considerations for Reopening Pennsylvania Schools. Regional Educational Laboratory Mid-Atlantic. https://www.mathematica.org/publications/considerations-for-reopening-pennsylvania-schools