As of Tuesday, 621 K-12 schools around the country have closed in response to the growing coronaviru
I know I may be caring for nephews
and nieces if my sisters schools close.
The coronavirus will cause a child care crisis in America
As schools close and parents lack paid leave, who will take care of the country’s kids?
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/10/21171807/coronavirus-schools-closed-closing-covid-19-kids
By Anna North Mar 10, 2020, 4:00pm EDT
Elk Grove Unified School District in Northern California is closing for at least a week. Northshore School District in Washington state is shutting its doors for up to two. Public schools in Scarsdale, New York, are shut down until March 18.
As of Tuesday, 621 K-12 schools around the country have closed in response to the growing coronavirus outbreak, according to Education Week.
The closures come as a means to fight the spread of the virus, often (though not always) after a parent or other community member tests positive. The impact on day care centers, preschools, and other early childhood education and care providers is harder to measure, since facilities tend to be smaller and many are privately run. But at least one preschool has closed in California, and more are likely to follow.
When schools are closed unexpectedly, whether it’s for something as simple as a snow day or as new and uncertain as the coronavirus, “lots of families are left scrambling,” Aaron Pallas, a professor of sociology and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, told Vox.
For kids, a school closure means lost learning time, which can have long-term effects. In some cases, it can also mean going hungry, since many kids across America — including about 70 percent of students in New York City — rely on free or reduced-price lunch programs at their schools.
For parents, a school closure can mean taking time off work to care for kids — except that many jobs don’t offer paid time off. That means parents can lose pay for the days they don’t work, or even lose their jobs entirely
. And while working from home is a possibility for some parents, many jobs can’t be done remotely — cleaning hospitals and other facilities, for example, or putting out fires — and it’s not always possible to care for a child while working at the same time.
Like so much about the coronavirus outbreak, school closures are highlighting larger social problems as well as creating immediate problems for many of the most vulnerable people in society. In this case, it’s the need for improvements to the child care system in America so that parents aren’t left without options when schools close. And, perhaps most of all, it’s the need for paid leave — not just for sick people, but for those caring for others, whether they’re children, older people, or anyone in need of extra support.
As Taryn Morrissey, a professor of public administration and policy at American University, put it, when it comes to coping with this outbreak and preparing for future crises, “paid sick leave and paid family leave are key.”
When schools and day cares are closed, it affects kids — and their whole families
Closing schools can be a necessary precaution to keep students, teachers, and families safe if someone in the school community is infected with the coronavirus, according to the CDC. Though the virus is thought to be less severe in children, it can spread to adults and people with underlying conditions that make it more dangerous. Meanwhile, some are advocating for preventive closure of most schools regardless of whether someone has tested positive.
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But closing schools and child care centers comes with its own set of problems. New York City is a good example. Earlier this month, Richard A. Carranza, the chancellor of the city’s schools, said they would only close as a “last resort,” according to the New York Times, because so many students — including about 114,000 who are homeless — rely on them for food, health care, and even a place to do laundry.
Those needs are mirrored around the country, where 1.36 million students were homeless as of the 2016-’17 school year. Meanwhile, about 30 million students in the US qualify for free or reduced-price lunch at school. For families living in poverty, “the closure of the school makes those kinds of supports less accessible,” Pallas said.
And when schools are closed, parents are faced with a question, he added: “Who’s going to watch their young kids?”
Some parents have little choice but to take time off work to take care of their children. But as of 2018, one in three private sector workers, and seven in 10 low-wage workers, lacked paid sick days, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families. And even those with paid sick days may not be allowed to use them to care for a family member. ..................................
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