During spring 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic forced widespread United States school building closures in an unprecedented disruption for K-12 students and staff. School closures due to COVID-19 have impacted at least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools with nearly every state either ordering or recommending that schools remain closed through the end of the 2019-2020 school year. At the end of the traditional school year in June 2020, more than 55 million U.S. children had missed months of in-class instruction.
Anticipating the challenges for schools to develop reopening plans our team partnered with the American School Health Association (ASHA) to survey school staff members regarding their return to school concerns. Our web-based survey focused on the Whole School, Whole Community Whole Child (WSCC) Components: physical environment, health services, and mental health. Our goals were to identify primary areas of concern related to school reopening, and share this information with ASHA membership and school personnel to facilitate information sharing and dialogue. In addition, we intended to provide resources specific to concerns raised in the survey. Our School Reopening Executive Summary provides the results of our survey and includes resources ranging from school reopening plans to specific information on student mental and physical health needs during the pandemic.
Learn more about this project: