A Strong and Healthy Start: Safety and Health Guidance for Reopening Schools, Fall 2020. Revised

COVID-19 presents novel and unprecedented challenges to our society. The pandemic is placing our economic system, our system of government and every sector and area of human life under great stress, and forcing us to raise to the challenge in new ways. Education is no exception. Educating students, ensuring they make progress, and safeguarding their health, welfare and nutrition has been made vastly more difficult by the presence of the virus. In Vermont, COVID-19 forced the rapid dismissal of schools in March 2020, followed by a period of maintenance of learning, while the education system worked to stand up a Continuity of Learning structure. The education community has worked incredibly hard and risen to the challenge in truly inspiring ways. The lessons learned from these experiences indicate the need to resume in-person instruction of students as soon as safely possible, while continuing to strengthen the Continuity of Learning systems and the ability to be nimble and move quickly to respond to future outbreaks of the virus. The following guidance is drafted with this in mind. It is one of several sets of guidance that will released in the coming weeks, intended to help School Districts and Supervisory Unions (SU/SDs) and independent schools prepare to reopen school in the Fall of 2020. This document is focused on safeguarding student and staff health while operating in-person instruction. [This guide was produced with the Vermont Department of Health.]