Until Oregon sees a statewide positive coronavirus testing rate at or below 5% for three consecutive weeks, none of the state’s students will be allowed to reenter classrooms for in-person instruction, Gov. Kate Brown announced Tuesday.
The state hasn’t met that benchmark in July but did so in April and May, state officials said. The statewide positive testing rate was 5% in the most recent week but 6% in each of the previous two weeks.
“We are not where we need to be to safely reopen schools,” State Epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said. “Our current case rates are higher than they need to be and higher than they were in other countries that began to reopen schools.”
Within hours of Brown’s announcement, leaders of many of the state’s largest districts, including Portland, Beaverton, North Clackamas, Tigard-Tualatin and Salem-Keizer, announced they will offer only distance learning with no in-person options for any students through early to mid-November.
That was true even though Clackamas County meets the virus-related metrics Brown’s team laid out as necessary for safe school reopenings and Washington County is on the verge of doing so.
Brown and Oregon health officials also announced metrics they are requiring for schools in any given county to reopen, including scenarios under which children from kindergarten to third grade would receive in-person instruction while older students learn from home.
The metrics apply to both public and private schools.
“Closing schools in the spring was one of the most difficult decisions I have made in the pandemic. As COVID-19 continues to impact both our urban and rural communities, it’s been clear that this school year will not look like any other school year,” Brown said.
To open for full- or part-time in-person learning in all grades, schools in each county would have to meet these metrics for three weeks in a row:
• The state testing rate must remain at or below 5%.
• The county must have 10 or fewer new cases per 100,000 residents over seven days.
• The countywide test positivity rate must be 5% or less over that same time period.
The most recent statistics available, for tests given on July 12 through July 18, and for the previous two weeks show that 19 of Oregon’s 36 counties had a positive testing results above the 5% threshold in at least one of those weeks. They include Multnomah, Washington, Marion and Deschutes counties as well as less populous counties such as Malheur and Sherman.
But Clackamas, Yamhill, Lane and 14 other counties have remained at or below Brown’s desired threshold.
Sidelinger said, without naming them, that Oregon has 13 counties that currently have low enough case counts and testing rates to allow students to return for in-person learning if the state is able to get its positive testing rate down to 5% or lower. Officials indicated Multnomah County is not among them.
State schools chief Colt Gill said the guidelines are meant to “ensure students are not agents of further spread.”
Brown’s announcement came the day after hundreds of educators flocked to the Capitol demanding she keep schools closed unless the state records no new coronavirus cases for 14 consecutive days.
All but one of Oregon’s 36 counties — Wheeler County — have had a new coronavirus case identified in the past two weeks. Fewer than 200 students in Wheeler County attend brick-and-mortar schools.
Earlier in the day, the second largest teachers’ union in the country said it would support any of its members should they choose to strike against unsafe working conditions set by their districts. The American Federation of Teachers, which represents some community college instructors and education workers in Oregon but not public school teachers, said strikes should only be used as a last resort.
Oregon’s largest district on Tuesday announced its students will not physically return to classrooms until at least Nov. 5.
Students will log in for the first day of classes Sept. 2. They’ll spend the following eight school days adjusting to the district’s distance learning system, which they’ll then use for seven weeks.
Beaverton officials said schools in their district will operate exclusively online until at least Nov. 13. They won’t begin distance learning programming until Sept. 14 to give teachers time to prepare. Tigard-Tualatin officials similarly said that classes will begin Sept. 14, will be exclusively online and will continue that way for at least nine weeks.
“As educators, we are painfully aware of the importance of in-person instruction and relationship building, and all of us cannot wait for the day when we can welcome our students back into our buildings,” Tigard-Tualatin Superintendent Sue Rieke-Smith said in a statement. “This decision was made by weighing evidence-based data from our county and state health officials alongside my obligation to protect the safety and well-being of each of all of our students, teachers, and staff.”
North Clackamas officials also announced Tuesday that schools will only offer instruction through distance learning through at least some point in November.
John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association, said it was critical for districts to work with teachers’ unions to ensure educators have enough personal protective equipment and that schools lay out their processes for contact tracing and sanitization.
“Nobody wants a return to face-to-face instruction more than Oregon educators, but we cannot allow large numbers of students to physically return to classrooms until their health, and the health of educators, can be protected,” Larsen said.
Jim Green, executive director of the Oregon School Board Association, said he recognized state leaders needed to put forth metrics for school closings and that rural and urban districts would have different considerations to make.
“Predictability is not part of this pandemic,” he said. “While it’s extremely disappointing to weigh not reopening schools this September in some areas, we have to make hard decisions based on protecting the health of our students, our staffs and our communities.
Brown had told reporters in early July that she did not have a “bright red line” to draw in order to call for another statewide school closure. But she said last week she would spell out concrete metrics to guide the reopening — or not — of Oregon schools.
Her initial statewide school closure order came in mid-March amid pressure from superintendents for the state’s largest districts who said their teaching and substitute corps were hesitant to work in close contact with children, who at the time were widely seen as tiny vectors of infection for the novel coronavirus.
“We need to be cautious so schools do not become places where the virus spreads,” Brown said.
Subsequent studies have found that, while children ages 10 to 19 do spread the virus at substantial levels, spread by children younger than 10 is very rare.
Districts across the state have begun to roll out their tentative plans for fall, and very few have announced they plan to have students physically attend class full-time.
The rural Umatilla School District is so far the only one to submit its final reopening blueprints to the Oregon Department of Education, which detail the process for students to enter school buildings and how they’ll be isolated should faculty or staff suspect a child has COVID-19.
The neighboring Hermiston district last week announced its students will engage in distance learning full-time.
Meanwhile, most larger districts including those in Eugene, Beaverton and Portland are setting up virtual learning programs in case they must pivot to full-time distance learning at the drop of a hat. Those districts currently plan to have students alternate between in-person instruction and distance learning.
Brown said districts will have access to $28 million in CARES Act funding to purchase hotspots for students who may not internet access at home and to develop online curriculum.
As for when students can expect to play football, basketball or soccer again, officials were not optimistic in offering a timeline for families eager to get out on the field.
“It’ll be some time before we write guidance for youth to return to contact sports,” Sidelinger said.
Ted Sickinger of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report.
--Eder Campuzano | 503-221-4344 | @edercampuzano | Eder on Facebook
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