By JACKSON HOGAN/Oregon Capital Bureau
In order to resume in-person school this fall, Oregon counties and the state as a whole must meet a low threshold of COVID-19 cases that only one county currently hits, according to a new mandate issued Tuesday by Gov. Kate Brown.
The county in which a school district is located must meet three standards for three weeks in a row, according to Brown’s mandate, including:
- 10 or fewer COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents;
- 5% or less positive tests per week;
- Statewide, Oregon must also have just 5% of COVID-19 tests come back positive.
The rule is slightly less strict for kindergarten through third grade classes, or rural school districts with fewer than 100 students. Those grades and school districts can reopen in-person education if their home counties have 30 or fewer COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents over seven days, the mandate states.
Not only are younger children less likely to catch, show symptoms of or transmit COVID-19 to others, but in-person learning is more crucial at that age, said state health officer Dean Sidelinger.
“These younger students need access to in-person education to develop literacy and numeracy skills they need that are critical to their continued learning,” he said at Brown’s press conference.
However, an area that meets these standards at first but later has an uptick in COVID-19 cases could be forced to transition back to at-home distance learning.
School districts must make online distance learning plans if the local county has 20 or more COVID-19 cases in a week and/or 7.5% or more of COVID-19 tests in the county are positive. Districts will immediately return to distance learning if their local county has 30 or more COVID-19 cases in a week and 10% or more of local COVID-19 tests are positive.
“Let me be really clear: I am absolutely unwilling to lose an entire school year for any of our kids,” Brown said in a press conference Tuesday afternoon. “But it is also incumbent on all of us … to take every measure to slow the spread of this disease so we can get our kids into school as quickly as possible.”
From April through the end of June, less than 5% of COVID-19 tests in Oregon returned positive, Sidelinger said. In July, the percentage of positive tests rose to close to 6%, he said, but it has been trending down again recently.
Only five Oregon counties had fewer than 10 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the past week, according to state data. All five of these counties — Sherman, Tillamook, Union, Wallowa and Wheeler — are rural and relatively small in population.
When stretched out to the three-week requirement of fewer than 10 new cases per week, only Wheeler County — the state’s least populous county — qualifies to re-open classrooms for all students.
The major Oregon counties with the fewest COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents were Benton and Lane counties, with about 10 and 16 cases per 100,000, respectively.
For the week ending July 25, Lincoln County had two confirmed positive COVID-19 cases on a population base of 50,000, and seven confirmed positive cases for the week ending July 18, according to the county Public Health department. It would need two more weeks of fewer than five cases to meet the new standard, said department spokeswoman Susan Trachsel.
But for the past three weeks the county has had fewer than 5 percent of its coronavirus tests come back positive, Trachsel said.
The Lincoln County School District is planning a “hybrid” model of instruction this fall, with students attending in-person classes for parts of two days each week and then on-line instruction another two days of the week.
To help make distance learning more effective in Oregon schools that need to do so, Brown announced a release of $28 million of emergency funds to go toward internet hotspots, internet-accessible computers, online curriculum and teacher training.
Brown and Sidelinger also urged Oregonians to keep wearing face coverings, practicing social distancing and washing hands to lower COVID-19 numbers so students can return to class.
“We can’t relent, especially if we all work together to reopen schools and get students back in desks,” Sidelinger said.
- The Oregon Capital Bureau in Salem is staffed by reporters from EO Media and Pamplin Media Group and provides state government and political news to their newspapers and media around Oregon, including YachatsNews.com