This week we saw a slowdown in school closures (the up-to-date map can be found at the top of our
School Opening Tracker page in addition to the visual below) even as we did see the first examples of districts going virtual a second time.
1. The pace of school closures slowed dramatically over the past week. We have now tracked 2,238 school closures across 561 districts (up from 549 last week) across 45 states (up from 43). As noted in last week's blog districts across the US have been rapidly iterating their quarantine and mitigation policies to reduce the number of exposed students and staff who need to be remote when exposed to someone with Covid-19. We also note the use of classroom and grade closures by schools to reduce disruption, as well as recently reported
decline in Covid-19 community rates in parts of the Sun Belt that began school in August. Current cumulative closure map below:
Note: Our school closure figures on the disruption map do not include closures related to Hurricane Ida. They reflect Covid 19 related closures only.
2. The following chart tracks "closure events' by week. An individual school closing counts as a "closure;" if an entire district closes, that would also count as one closure. We pick up closure events on a trailing basis and so the most recent week's figures will rise in the next report. That said, it is clear closures have slowed down over the course of the month. The average time a school closes has remained relatively constant at 7.3 days.
4. Mask mandates among the top 200 districts have reached a plateau. Here is the weekly trend since August:
5. We have begun tracking vaccine and testing requirements for schools across the US. To date, we have identified 61 districts of the Top 200 that require teacher and staff vaccinations.
6. In news from around the U.S: