COVID-19 IMPACT: School District Operational Status. Updates for Spring 2022

Below is how MCH defines the teaching methods. Most values are reliant on the person completing the survey and their individual interpretation of their instructional plans.

Learning modalities: Type of instruction provided to K-12 students (in-person, hybrid, or remote).

In-person learning: School districts offer face to face instruction 5 days per week to all students at all available grade levels.

Hybrid learning: School districts offer face to face instruction, but less than 5 days a week or to a subset of students.

Remote learning: School districts offer no face-to-face instruction, learning conducted online to all students at all available grade levels.

Masking compliance (Indoors): CDC recommends indoor masking for all individuals age 2 years and older, including students, teachers, staff, and visitors, regardless of vaccination status.

Masking compliance (Outdoors): In general, people do not need to wear masks when outdoors. CDC recommends that people who are not fully vaccinated wear a mask in crowded outdoor settings or during activities that involve sustained close contact with other people. Fully vaccinated people might choose to wear a mask in crowded outdoor settings if they or someone in their household is immunocompromised.

Exceptions can be made for the following categories of people:

• A person who cannot wear a mask, or cannot safely wear a mask, because of a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) (42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.). Discuss the possibility of reasonable accommodation with workers who are unable to wear or have difficulty wearing certain types of masks because of a disability.
• A person for whom wearing a mask would create a risk to workplace health, safety, or job duty as determined by the relevant workplace safety guidelines or federal regulations.

COVID-19 vaccinations: The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is currently the only vaccine that children ages 5 through 17 years can get. School staff may get Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccination.

COVID-19 vaccination clinics: Vaccinations offered by vaccine providers in community locations, including schools, that are hosted by community groups, employers, and other organizations.

COVID-19 screening testing: Screening testing identifies infected people, including those with or without symptoms (or before development of symptoms) who may be contagious, so that measures can be taken to prevent further transmission.

In K-12 schools, screening testing can help promptly identify and isolate cases, quarantine those who may have been exposed to COVID-19 and are not fully vaccinated, and identify clusters to reduce the risk to in-person education. CDC guidance provides that people who are fully vaccinated do not need to participate in screening testing and do not need to quarantine if they do not have any symptoms. Decisions regarding screening testing may be made at the state or local level.

COVID-19 diagnostic Testing : Diagnostic testing is intended to identify current infection in individuals and should be performed on anyone that has signs and symptoms consistent with COVID-19 and/or following recent known or suspected exposure to SARS-CoV-2.

COVID-19 testing clinics: Located either onsite at the school or off-site through partnerships with a local provider (such as a pharmacy or local health department).

Test to Stay (TTS) : An optional strategy to keep close contacts who are not fully vaccinated in the classroom as an alternative to traditional quarantine at home. Test to Stay combines contact tracing and serial testing (testing that is repeated at least twice during a seven-day period post-exposure) to allow asymptomatic school-associated close contacts who are not fully vaccinated and do not test positive for SARS-CoV-2 to continue in-person learning.

Learn more about TTS in the Science Brief and COVID-19 Testing in Schools.

Contact tracing: Schools should continue to collaborate with state and local health departments, to the extent allowable by privacy laws and other applicable laws, to confidentially provide information about people diagnosed with or exposed to COVID-19. This allows identifying which students, teachers, and staff with positive COVID-19 test results should isolate, and which close contacts should quarantine.

Fully vaccinated close contacts should be referred for COVID-19 testing. If asymptomatic, fully vaccinated close contacts do not need to quarantine at home following an exposure (they can continue to attend school in-person and participate in other activities). In addition to correctly wearing masks in school, they should wear a mask in other indoor public settings for 14 days or until they receive a negative test result.

Close contacts who are not fully vaccinated should be referred for COVID-19 testing. Regardless of test result, they should quarantine at home for 14 days after exposure. Options to shorten quarantine provide acceptable alternatives of a 10-day quarantine or a 7-day quarantine combined with testing and a negative test result.

See the added exception in the close contact definition for the exclusion of students in the K-12 indoor classroom who are within 3 to 6 feet of an infected student with masking. See the Department of Education’s Protecting Student Privacy FERPA and the Coronavirus Disease 2019 for more information.

Schools should report, to the extent allowable by applicable privacy laws, new diagnoses of COVID-19 to their state or local health department as soon as they are informed. School officials should notify, to the extent allowable by applicable privacy laws, teachers, staff, and families of students who were close contacts as soon as possible (within the same day if possible) after they are notified that someone in the school has tested positive.

Isolation: Isolation is used to separate people infected with COVID-19 from those who are not infected.

At-home quarantine: Quarantine is used when people might have been exposed to the virus and may or may not have been infected.

Physical distancing: CDC recommends schools maintain at least 3 feet of physical distance between students within classrooms, combined with indoor mask wearing to reduce transmission risk.

A distance of at least 6 feet is recommended between students and teachers/staff, and between teachers/staff who are not fully vaccinated. Mask use by all students, teachers, staff, and visitors is particularly important when physical distance cannot be maintained.