Back To School: Live Updates

Confrontations over masks, vaccines and how race is taught in schools have many school board members across the U.S. worried for their safety.

Mobs are yelling obscenities and throwing objects. In one district, a protester brandished a flagpole against a school board official. Other cases have included a protester yelling a Nazi salute, arrests for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct, and numerous death threats against public officials.

School board meetings, usually one of the most mundane examples of local democracy in action, have exploded with vitriol across the country in recent months, and school leaders are scared.

That's according to a letter that the National School Boards Association sent this week to President Biden. It's asking for help from federal law enforcement, including the Justice, Education and Homeland Security departments as well as the FBI, saying: "These heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes."

The letter names incidents that have disrupted school board meetings in California, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The association mentioned a chaotic school board meeting in Loudoun County, Va., in which one person was arrested and another was injured. A local TV reporter posted video of a portion of it:

In Ohio, a school board member reportedly received a piece of hate mail that said, "We are coming after you and all the members on the ... BoE [Board of Education]. ... You are forcing them to wear mask—for no reason in this world other than control. And for that you will pay dearly." Threats have prompted school board members, many of whom are volunteers, to resign.

Turning Point USA, a group closely aligned with former President Donald Trump, maintains a website called School Board Watchlist, which includes the names and photos of members of school boards around the country who have adopted mask mandates or anti-racist curricula. The group maintains a similar website targeting professors for liberal views that has been linked to several incidents of harassment.

Most of the school board protests have been over mask mandates. There have also been disruptions over vaccines, policies toward LGBTQ students and the way race and history are taught in schools, which right-wing activists have misleadingly labeled critical race theory. Critical race theory, as this letter points out, is an advanced topic taught in law schools and undergraduate sociology courses.

The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that it would send roughly $148,000 to one Florida school district, Alachua County Public Schools, reimbursing it for money that has been withheld by the state.

The award is the first under the department's new Project to Support America's Families and Educators (Project SAFE) grant program and the latest salvo in an escalating fight over masking in schools between Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and President Biden's secretary of education, Miguel Cardona.

At the end of July, DeSantis signed an executive order banning school districts from requiring that students wear masks. Nevertheless, several school boards voted to require masking in defiance of the ban. In response, the state moved to penalize two of those districts, in Alachua and Broward counties, by withholding state funding equivalent to the monthly salaries of the school board members who voted to defy the mask mandate ban.

So far, the state has withheld two months of board member salaries.

Alachua County Public Schools Superintendent Carlee Simon learned this morning, in a phone call with Cardona, that Alachua would be the first district to receive a Project SAFE grant. In a statement Simon expressed gratitude for the funding "but I'm even more grateful for [the Biden administration's] continued support and encouragement of our efforts to protect students and staff and to keep our schools open for in-person learning."

"With these grants, we're making sure schools and communities across the country that are committed to safely returning to in-person learning know that we have their backs," Cardona said in a statement.

Most kids around the country are back in classrooms by now, but this school year isn't quite the return-to-normalcy that everyone had hoped for. Covid-19 cases are surging again, and many school districts have already closed due to outbreaks. Others are offering remote learning options. This school year is already feeling uncertain and anxiety ridden for many students.

"Teacher, kids, everybody thought we were going to come back this year and everything would be back to normal," says Dr. Nicole Christian-Brathwaite, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and a senior vice president at Array Behavioral Care. "And now that it's not, how do we prepare kids for another potentially challenging year?"

That's a question she's been getting a lot from schools in recent weeks. So what do you do? Christian-Brathwaite and other mental health experts gave NPR some tips that parents, teachers and all adults can use to help kids cope better in these uncertain times.

1. Adults, take care of your own well being first.

"There are no healthy children without healthy adults," says Christian-Brathwaite.

It's important for adults in charge of kids to take care of their own mental health, she says, so they are able to better manage whatever comes their way.

Practice things that will support your resilience, advises child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Vera Feuer, the associate vice president for school mental health at Northwell Health.

Feuer suggests doing calming activities like yoga and meditation. In fact, any physical activity can help, she adds, like hiking, dancing or playing sports. It will help you manage your emotions better and stay calm during stressful times, she says. And in the process you can teach your kids or students these important skills, too.

"Kids and parents should understand that we all have anxiety and stress in our lives, and the goal is not to eliminate it, but to learn to manage it," adds Feuer.

Christian-Brathwaite suggests incorporating calming activities like meditation into the school day — either at the start of the day, or during transitions between classes.

"Something as simple as a regular practice of meditation or mindfulness, it decreases our stress response," she says. "It brings kids out of that fight, flight or freeze, and it brings the adults out of it as well."

2. Talk to kids about their concerns — and validate their feelings

It's important to start talking to kids about their emotions and their mental health early, and before things reach a crisis point.

Families should "provide kids with open spaces to discuss their concerns," says Feuer. "This generation is changing in terms of their view of mental health. And there is a positive shift in the stigma issue in terms of kids being more willing and able to come forward and talk about things. And really, adults need to continue to support that."

The same advice goes for schools, too, says Dena Trujillo, interim CEO of Crisis Text Line, which has created a toolkit called Mental Health School Supplies to help kids cope better during these times.

"Some of these things seem basic, but they're really important," she says.

And when kids express their concerns, say about being back in school, or fear of infections, parents and teachers need to accept their concerns as valid, says Feuer, and then teach them tools to manage their anxiety and stress, like yoga, meditation and mindfulness.

Even better: practice these skills as a family.

"Combining that with family time to give parents the opportunity to implement these practices, but to open the door for dialogue," says Christian-Brathwaite.

And be on the lookout for changes in behavior like sleeping and eating patterns, she adds.

"Just being aware of those behavioral changes: Is there a decrease or increase in eating? Is there a decrease or increase in exercise? Who are they hanging out with? What are they doing?"

All of those can be indicators of a child starting to struggle emotionally.

3. Be ready to provide extra support to students and teachers

"I really recommend that you just assume that everyone has experienced some level of pain," says Chirstian-Brathwaite. "Every child that you engage with has some level of trauma."

But children's pain and emotional struggles often come out in the form of behavioral problems, like being disruptive in a classroom or inability to focus and learn.

For kids being disruptive in class, she advises against disciplinary action.

"I'm really asking schools not to implement suspensions or detentions immediately and to really take a more trauma sensitive lens," says Christian-Brathwaite. "Instead of focusing on the behavior, disciplining them, sending them out of school, leading to more disruption in education, let's focus on what's behind that behavior. Where is this pain coming from? What was the catalyst for this child to act out? What's happened at home that may lead this child to misbehave?"

School administrators should take a similar approach toward teachers, she adds. If a teacher is late, or having a hard time, she suggests that the school principal or superintendent ask the teacher what additional support they need to be successful.

4. Help kids embrace structure and routine

In a world filled with so much uncertainty, structure and routine are one's friends.

"Some of what is helpful is actually making a schedule," says Trujillo. "As you go back into this new way of living, structure is helpful. Writing down that schedule or having it in your calendar so that you have that sense of control and stability."

Feuer suggests working ahead of time with your child to come up with a structure and stick to it. "Be consistent," she says.

And if a child is worried about past experiences that have stressed them out, she suggests "collaborative problem solving."

"Just talking to kids about what they [can] do if that were to happen and how to manage it and how to talk about what skills they can use in terms of managing it," says Feuer.

5. Know where to turn for help

If a child is struggling emotionally, or in crisis, know beforehand where to reach for help, suggests Trujillo.

The easiest option for kids or their teachers or families is the Crisis Text Line, by texting HOME to 741741 and connecting to a trained counselor.

If you know a child struggling with thoughts of suicide, you can call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1(800) 273-8255.

Students in Louisville, Ky., have been back in classrooms for a month this school year, and already parents are pressuring the governor to address the district's rising COVID-19 case numbers. As of Tuesday, Jefferson County Public Schools has reported 379 positive cases among staff and 2,866 positive cases among students, with 13,346 students being quarantined in a district of about 96,000 students.

After a special session last week, Kentucky's legislature passed a bill reversing the state's school mask mandate, giving the decision-making power to school districts instead. JCPS superintendent Martin Pollio has said the district-wide mask mandate would remain in place.

JCPS teacher Penelope Quesada sees over 100 students a day between her six classes at Semple Elementary School. The majority of students at Semple qualify for free or reduced-priced school meals, which is a commonly used measure of poverty. Quesada said she has spent nearly $600 of her own money on cleaning supplies and other precautionary measures.

She's taught for 18 years, and said this year has been more stressful and emotional than any other year.

"Even with all the precautions, having the risk of students getting COVID or passing it to each other, it's almost like a life and death situation that I didn't have before. We care a lot about these kids and these families. I'm worried about the kids and their caregivers. We have a lot of grandparents that take care of the kids," she explained.

In addition to its current mask mandate, JCPS offers voluntary weekly testing for students and staff, and on Tuesday the school board approved a requirement that employees either be vaccinated or submit to regular testing. The school board decision comes after President Biden announced new steps to encourage K-12 schools to mandate masks for all, require vaccines for employees and step up testing for COVID-19.

Quesada said it feels like they're 100 days into the year, instead of just a few weeks.

Earlier this month, photojournalist Natosha Via spent a day with Quesada to see what being in school looks like right now:

Natosha Via is a freelance photojournalist in Louisville, Ky.

From a political and legal standpoint, the battle over whether mask wearing should be enforced in schools is still raging. But from a scientific standpoint, there's little debate: Masks really do help curb the spread of the coronavirus in school.

While there are still some non-believers ...

This week, a spokesperson for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was asked to comment on a lawsuit challenging Florida's ban on mask mandates in school. The spokesperson told NPR, "The assertion that forced-masking all children ages 2 and up has any impact on school safety vis-a-vis COVID-19 is not data-driven and is not reflective of a scientific consensus." Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte expressed similar doubt last week. He called existing research "inconclusive" and announced a new rule that encourages schools to give parents the final word on whether their kids don masks.

... the research is conclusive

Several studies over the past year have shown that widespread masking can significantly curb transmission from student to student.

For example, one study in Wood County, Wisconsin, last fall found that schools that required masking had a whopping 37 percent lower incidence of COVID-19 than the surrounding community. Another study, conducted in Salt Lake County, Utah, last winter, found that high levels of mask wearing among students helped keep the rate of in-school spread of the coronavirus to under 1% — even as COVID-19 cases were surging in the wider community.

Now, in all those examples, schools were also using other protective strategies that experts strongly recommend layering on — like physical distancing and opening windows.

But studies show that even in situations where these other measures aren't being used, masking makes a big difference in keeping the virus from spreading. That was one conclusion of the ABC Science Collaborative, a major research initiative involving nearly 1 million students from 100 school districts and 14 charter school in North Carolina. It found that universal masking policies helped keep transmission rates of the coronavirus within schools to under 1% last fall and spring.

"The science clearly shows us that masking is an effective strategy to prevent within-school transmission when COVID-19 is circulating and when vaccination is not yet available for all children," Dr. Kanecia Zimmerman, co-chair of the ABC Science Collaborative, said in a statement reviewing those findings.

Even with the delta variant, within-school spread is low

Now, most of those studies were conducted before the highly contagious delta variant began its current sweep across the U.S. But unpublished data, gathered during this past summer school session in North Carolina, shows that transmission was indeed a bit higher as delta spread in the surrounding communities. But even then, thanks to universal masking and other mitigation strategies, the rate of within-school spread was under 3%, says Dr. Ibukun Kalu, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Duke and also a member of the ABC Science Collaborative research team.

But, again, proper masking is key

Not masking could be disastrous for schools, says Julie Swann, a department head and professor at North Carolina State University who leads a COVID-19 forecasting team funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a recent modeling study from Swann's lab, without masking policies or other interventions in place, within the first three months of school, the delta variant could infect more than 75 percent of susceptible kids – those who aren't vaccinated and haven't previously had a bout of COVID-19.

"It's shocking, right?" Swann says. "And I'm the parent of two school-age [children]."

Swann says her model's projection represents "pretty close to a worst-case scenario" – a situation where kids are wearing ill-fitting masks that don't filter well, and mask wearing isn't reliably enforced. But, it doesn't have to be that way.

With proper masking and other interventions in place, she says, schools may still see some outbreaks because of delta's highly infectious nature, but far fewer than they would otherwise.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The on-again, off-again ban imposed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to prevent mandating masks for Florida school students amid the ongoing coronavirus outbreak is back in force.

The 1st District Court of Appeal ruled Friday that a Tallahassee judge should not have lifted an automatic stay two days ago that halted enforcement of the mask mandate ban.

The upshot is that the state could resume its efforts to impose financial penalties on the 13 school boards currently defying the mask mandate ban. Those have included docking salaries of local school board members who voted to impose student mask mandates.

The U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday it has begun a new grant program to provide funding for school districts in Florida and elsewhere that lose money for implementing anti-coronavirus practices such as mandatory masks.

DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw said in a tweet that the decision means "the rule requiring ALL Florida school districts to protect parents' rights to make choices about masking kids is BACK in effect!"

DeSantis has argued that the new Parents Bill of Rights law reserves solely for parents the authority to determine whether their children should wear a mask to school. School districts with mandatory mask rules allow an opt-out only for medical reasons, not parental discretion.

Charles Gallagher, attorney for parents challenging the DeSantis ban, said he is "disappointed" by the appeals court decision.

"With a stay in place, students, parents and teachers are back in harm's way," Gallagher said in a tweet.

The back-and-forth legal battles stem from a lawsuit filed by parents represented by Gallagher and other lawyers contending that DeSantis does not have authority to order local school boards to ban mask mandates.

Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper agreed in an Aug. 27 order, then on Wednesday lifted a stay that had blocked his ruling from taking effect. The appeals court now has put that stay back in place as the governor seeks a ruling making his mask mandate ban permanent.

The appeals judges noted that a stay is presumed when a public officer or agency seeks appellate review of a judicial order.

"We have serious doubts about standing, jurisdiction, and other threshold matters," the appeals judges wrote in a one-page decision. "Given the presumption against vacating the automatic stay, the stay should have been left in place pending appellate review."

In his previous order, Cooper said the overwhelming evidence is that wearing masks provides some protection for children in crowded school settings, particularly those under 12 who are not currently eligible for vaccination. The court battle comes as Florida copes with the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus that has overrun hospitals across the state.

On the Parents Bill of Rights, Cooper said his previous order follows the law that reserves health and education decisions regarding children to parents unless a government entity such as a school board can show their broader action is reasonable and narrowly tailored to the issue at hand.

The next stage of the legal fight will test whether Cooper's conclusions are correct.

On Thursday, President Biden announced a series of actions aimed at getting control of the surging pandemic. Alongside new vaccine requirements for private businesses, he announced new steps to encourage K-12 schools to mandate masks for all, require vaccines for employees and step up testing for COVID-19.

Coronavirus safety measures like these have become political flashpoints, and nowhere more than in schools. There have been violent confrontations at school board meetings over mask requirements, and states including Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah have all tried to stop districts from requiring masks. This comes as the highly contagious delta variant is causing a rise in cases among young people, and those under 12 are still not eligible for vaccines.

The United States has a long tradition of local control and funding of its 13,000-odd school districts. The federal government has limited oversight powers, and provides around 8 % of total funds spent on public schools. However, the president seems to be leaning heavily on both the carrots and sticks he does have. The actions announced on Thursday include:

• Some districts are opposing their states to strengthen COVID-19 safety measures. Alachua and Broward counties in Florida, for example, recently defied the governor to require masks in schools. Now, President Biden promises to fill in any gaps in funding that result. This goes above and beyond the $122 billion set aside for school reopenings in the American Rescue Plan. According to the White House, "Local school districts will be able to apply to the Department of Education in the coming weeks to restore funding withheld by state leaders ... when a school district implemented strategies to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in schools." The Department of Education announced that the new grant program will be called Project SAFE (Supporting America's Families and Educators), and it will be funded under Title IV of the Every Student Succeeds Act. 
• Teachers and staff directly employed or funded by the federal government — including those at U.S. Department of Defense schools, Bureau of Indian Education-operated schools and Head Start and Early Head Start preschool programs for children in poverty — are now subject to a vaccine requirement. This requirement covers nearly 300,000 school staff serving more than 1 million children. 
• Biden's plan also highlights his intention to use the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights to go after states that, in the federal government's view, discriminate against students with disabilities by banning mask mandates. There are already investigations open in five states. 

In addition, Biden's plan calls on states to require vaccines for all school employees. There was no reward or sanction explicitly attached to this effort. For now, the president is simply "asking" states to follow the example of places like California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The Los Angeles Unified School District — the second largest in the U.S. — has approved a measure mandating that students 12 and over be vaccinated against COVID-19 if they want to attend in-person classes.

The move could potentially invite legal challenges — but it could also pave the way for other districts to follow suit.

One by one, the eight-member school board on Thursday cited scientific evidence regarding the efficacy of the available vaccines, tried to assuage fears about past wrongdoings against communities of color by medical experts, addressed misinformation and underscored the importance of in-person learning. The final vote was 7-0, with one recusal.

"This is a tough decision," Board Member Mónica García said before declaring a vote in favor of the mandate. "This action is not about violating anybody's rights. This action is about doing our jobs" and providing the best and safest education possible, she said.

"LAUSD is leading because we must," García said.

Board member Jackie Goldberg recalled firsthand experience with the polio epidemic, which led to students losing limbs.

"Polio was ravaging Los Angeles when I was growing up. And you know what stopped it? Vaccinating everybody!" Goldberg shouted.

"I see this as a community necessity to protect the children under 12 who cannot be vaccinated," she said. "It is our moral, ethical, political, religious — pick a word — it is our ... responsibility to protect those children."

Another board member, Nick Melvoin, noted that a COVID-19 vaccine would be one of many vaccines already required for students to attend public schools, including vaccines against rubella, mumps, diphtheria, measles and chicken pox, among others.

The new rule takes effect in January. Students 12 and up will need to show they've received their first dose by Nov. 21 and their second dose by Dec. 19. However, students in extracurricular programs face an earlier Oct. 3 deadline for their first dose and "no later than Oct. 31" for the second.

Angry parents spoke out against the mandate

Prior to the vote, angry parents pushed back against the idea of a mandate, arguing that district leaders are stripping them of their rights as parents and caretakers.

"None of you have school-aged children," one woman said during a public comment statement. "This a family decision. ... It is not up to you to make this decision for us."

Others called the mandate premature, given that none of the vaccines has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for 12- to 15-year-olds. The agency has, however, expanded emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to those 12 to 15 years old.

Megan Reilly, interim superintendent for the district, said she was moved to support the vaccine requirement based on existing medical evidence about the efficacy of the inoculations, the alarming spread of the delta variant among children and a recent interaction with a high school senior.

"We owe this child his senior year and to have a senior year with his friends, with his water polo team, with graduation, with prom. Everything that senior year should encompass in a childhood," she said.

Reilly also underscored the importance of face-to-face learning from teachers and interactions with other children.

"As the second-largest district in the country with a very diverse student population, we know the impacts of COVID-19 are varied among students and their families." But, she concluded, "vaccinations are an essential part of the multilayered protections against COVID-19."

Faculty and staff already had a mandate

About 600,000 children are enrolled in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

LAUSD already requires all faculty and staff members to be vaccinated as a condition of their employment with the district — a step further than the state, which allows staff members who refuse to get the shots to take regular coronavirus tests instead.

In K-12 school settings countywide, between Aug. 15 and 29, there were 5,207 COVID-19 cases among students and 729 staff cases reported, with the vast majority occurring at LAUSD, which tests everyone weekly. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health does not report the number of school cases by age group.

Last month, neighboring Culver City Unified became the first school district in California, if not the nation, to enact its own student vaccination mandate.

Brittany Schwaigert says her 13-year-old son, Greyson, needs his peers to wear their masks.

Greyson has tuberous sclerosis complex, a rare genetic disorder, which means contracting COVID-19 could send him into renal failure among other complications. He is also behind in school due to developmental delays.

"He doesn't understand that he's in danger and so therefore he doesn't understand he has to [put on a] mask." Schwaigert says. "Those kinds of advanced concepts are out of his grasp. So, it requires everyone around him to protect him."

He attends school at Collierville Municipal School District in Tennessee. In mid-August, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, issued an executive order that allows parents to opt their children out of mask mandates.

As of Aug. 20, 16% of students in Greyson's district were opting out. Schwaigert is a lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit challenging the governor's opt-out policy. On Friday, a federal judge temporarily blocked Lee's order from being enforced, but that ruling only lasts until Sept. 17.

Schwaigert says Greyson can only get the special education services and socialization he needs in the classroom. But the opt-out order, she adds, would put her son in danger when he is at school. "We cannot rely on other people's parenting to protect our special needs child. That's absurd."

In a wave of lawsuits in nearly half a dozen states, families of students with disabilities are joining the legal battle over masks in schools. Complaints filed in Tennessee, Florida, Utah, Texas and South Carolina argue that restrictions on mask mandates infringe on disability rights and that children with disabilities are being forced to choose between their health and their education.

"We hear all the time, 'Oh, only kids with preexisting conditions are the ones that get sick and die,' " Schwaigert says. "Well, that's my kid. That is my child. He has a lot of preexisting conditions, and he matters."

The U.S. Department of Education has also said restrictions on mask mandates may be discriminatory against students with disabilities. On Aug. 30, the department's Office for Civil Rights announced it is investigating mask mandate restrictions in five states, including in Tennessee, Utah and South Carolina.

A choice between safety and education

With restrictions on mask mandates in place, disability rights advocates are arguing that students with disabilities are putting their lives at risk to attend school.

Parents must "make the impossible decision of deciding whether to pull their children out of in-person learning or risk severe reactions or death as a result of COVID-19," the complaint in Tennessee says.

The suits aren't demanding that schools institute a mask mandate. Instead, parents such as Schwaigert want schools to have the capacity to require masks on the basis of regional health metrics.

"Gov. Lee doesn't take into account that not all children are going to survive this decision," Schwaigert says. "He's making a broad strokes decision for every child in Tennessee."

Lee's office did not respond to NPR's request for comment.

The federal Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act guarantee that children with disabilities have access to an inclusive public education. They also require schools to provide "reasonable accommodations" to help make that education accessible — and the complaints argue those accommodations can include masks for everyone.

A Florida lawsuit was the first to argue that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis' mask mandate ban is in violation of federal disability rights law. Matthew Dietz, one of the lawyers who filed that lawsuit, says mask mandates meet the benchmarks for a reasonable, necessary accommodation.

"If they don't get that mask when they go to school, they're at higher risk of death. So yes, it's necessary," Dietz says. "Is it reasonable? It's a piece of cloth, it's not difficult. Would it cause a fundamental alteration or an undue burden to the school system as a total? Not at all."

Dietz adds that it's just as reasonable as accommodating peanut allergies, which schools have been doing for years.

In a separate lawsuit, a Florida judge has already ruled that DeSantis cannot enforce a ban on mask mandates. Nonetheless, the governor is withholding money from two school districts that are requiring face coverings.

A spokesperson for DeSantis, who is named in Dietz's suit, told NPR, "The assertion that forced-masking all children ages 2 and up has any impact on school safety vis-a-vis COVID-19 is not data-driven and is not reflective of a scientific consensus."

In fact, several studies have shown that universal masking in schools can reduce the spread of the virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends indoor masking for everyone in schools, regardless of vaccination status, with the exception of children younger than 2 years old.

A court hearing for Dietz's lawsuit over federal disability rights is set for Wednesday.

Running out of time

The legal battles over masks come as millions of children are heading back to school.

In addition to launching civil rights investigations in states that ban mask mandates, the Education Department has thrown its support behind school administrators who choose to ignore those bans. But even then, Dietz says, the federal government has been slow to act.

"There's no time for investigation," he says. "By the time they do investigations, we're going to have dead children."

In Utah, parents are challenging Republican Gov. Spencer Cox over the mask mandate ban in state court, rather than in federal court. Greg Skordas, an attorney on the case, says that with schools starting and children already returning to buildings without masks, they're running out of time.

He expects to hear back from the court within the next month. His complaint claims a mask mandate ban is in violation of the Utah Constitution, which guarantees all children access to free and fair public education. But for students with disabilities, he argues in-person school is too dangerous without a mask mandate.

A spokesperson for Cox declined to comment on the lawsuit because it is pending litigation.

"Our case is very much like others that are brought across the country. Some are raised in federal court, some are in state court. But the fundamental provisions are the same," Skordas says. "We have gone so far as to preclude the ability of schools and medical professionals and health care providers to impose masks that effectively a lot of our young people are really in a difficult position."

For now, there isn't much that parents of children with disabilities can do except wait and see how the courts rule.

Hurricane Ida has closed schools for more than 250,000 students across Louisiana, according to a tally by NPR. Districts in some of the hardest-hit areas, including Orleans and Jefferson Parish, have not yet announced a reopening date. School leaders have had their hands full so far trying to make sure staff and students are safe, whether they stayed in town or evacuated, and assessing damage to their buildings.

Like students around the country, Louisiana's children became well-versed in virtual learning during the coronavirus pandemic. But as member station WWNO reports, virtual learning isn't an option for many students right now: The hurricane caused widespread power outages, and service is being slowly restored across much of New Orleans. Cell and internet service is also spotty. Plus, New Orleans educators tell NPR, the storm formed so quickly, and over a weekend, that even at the best-resourced schools, students and teachers weren't able to plan ahead and take Chromebooks or hotspots home with them.

Elizabeth Ostberg runs a network of alternative public high schools and a middle school in New Orleans. The schools are collecting money to distribute $100 to families for immediate needs, including blue tarps for roofs, gas for cars and generators, food, water and temporary shelter. Ostberg's next goal is to get at least one of her school buildings open both for learning and as a cooling center during these hot summer days, with the highs around 90 degrees.

"Distance learning would only work right now with staff and students who evacuated far enough away to have power, and have computers and Internet," she wrote in a text message after a cell phone call with NPR failed. "We got all our students these [things] last year, but not this year because school was in person. So it's not that we don't want to provide it, it's that it feels impractical right now."

In early August, New Orleans Public Schools began the school year with no virtual learning. WWNO's Aubri Juhasz reports that some parents have been pushing for the return of a remote option because of fears about the delta variant. But Superintendent Henderson Lewis has stuck with his decision, citing the urgency of getting children back in classrooms to avoid losing "a generation of students."

Now, in-person learning has been interrupted yet again for a different reason.

Douglas Harris at Tulane University has researched the effects of both COVID and Hurricane Katrina on student learning. He estimates that, realistically, it could be awhile before most students in the New Orleans metro area are back in classrooms. The power needs to come back on; students have to return if they evacuated; and in some cases they may need to quarantine if they've been traveling or in close quarters in shelters or hotels.

"Possibly we have five or six weeks of essentially no learning happening, which is worse than Katrina," Harris says, in the sense that many students re-enrolled elsewhere within two weeks or so after evacuating from the 2005 storm.

This was already shaping up to be an incredibly challenging school year. After so much disruption and loss, schools were just starting to get to know their students again . Existing concerns about mental health, engagement and missed learning are now multiplied. Harris says teachers will need to triage their curriculums due to the lost time. And his research shows there are some students who, once separated from school, don't come back.

"Dropouts are my biggest concern," Harris explains. "You have a lot of students who are already on the margin of staying in school. And you're making it really difficult for them to be in school."

Patrick Dobard, the CEO of New Schools for New Orleans — a nonprofit that assists charter schools with matters like professional development, curriculum and data — echoed this concern, noting that enrollment in New Orleans was down in fall 2020-2021, and down even further at the beginning of this school year. To compound the problem, schools are staring down their Oct. 1 "count date," which will determine their funding from the state based on enrollment, unless waivers are granted.

Elizabeth Ostberg says her group of alternative schools, which she founded after Katrina, is entirely focused on preventing dropouts and empowering students who have not been successful elsewhere. She says this new school year had started out brightly.

"Kids were really excited to be back in person. Classes were going well. It actually felt really good."

She's hopeful that she'll be able to keep in touch with students and get them back on track when the power comes back on.

It's the kind of news story that keeps parents of school-age children up at night: Kids go to school, dutifully wear masks, and still half the class ends up infected with the coronavirus.

That's what happened this past spring at an elementary school in Marin County, Calif. The school seemed to be taking all the right precautions against COVID-19 transmission. Teachers and students were required to be masked while indoors. Student desks were spaced 6 feet apart. Doors and windows were left open.

Still, when an unvaccinated teacher who had mild allergy-like symptoms briefly removed their mask to read out loud to the class, the result was a classroom outbreak. All told, 27 cases were identified, including infections in other classrooms. None of the infections resulted in severe cases, and no kids were hospitalized.

"For me, the takeaway of this story really is that even just momentary short, brief lapses in, you know, taking off a mask can open up an opportunity for delta to escape through," says Tracy Lam-Hine, the Marin County epidemiologist who authored the report on the outbreak.

And because delta is so contagious, more than twice as contagious as the original strain of the virus, according to studies, experts say it's more critical than ever that schools deploy multiple layers of precautions to curb the spread of the virus.

Here are some of the strategies experts recommend for safer classrooms:

1. Create a protective cocoon around children - with vaccines: Because children younger than 12 are still not eligible to get a covid vaccine, public health experts say it's essential that anybody who spends time indoors with kids in this age group get vaccinated. That includes adults and vaccine eligible children age 12 and up. This creates a kind of protective cocoon around unvaccinated kids. Lam-Hine says the California elementary school outbreak underscores why this is so important. The teacher at the center of the outbreak was not vaccinated. If they had been, "that potentially could have prevented some of this," says Lam-Hine.

Dr. Jason Newland, a pediatric infectious disease physician at Washington University in St. Louis, points to data from Israel showing that the more adults got vaccinated, the fewer kids got the virus. "They actually drove down their rates [of infections] in kids, which I think just goes to show the cocooning thing works," Newland says.

2. Enforce mask wearing – and wear good masks: When schools enforce universal masking, studies show they can successfully curb the spread of the virus. Unpublished data from summer schools in North Carolina found that good masking helped keep transmission of the delta variant down to below 3%, according to Dr. Ibukun Kalu of Duke University, one of the researchers on that project. Because the delta variant spreads much more easily, experts say it's more important than ever that kids wear good masks – ones that are comfortable, fit properly (without big gaps around the face) and do a good job of filtration. Here's a list of some kids masks recommended by aerosols experts at Virginia Tech.

3. Improve indoor ventilation: The coronavirus spreads primarily through the air. Viral particles can accumulate indoors and linger, sometimes for hours — think of it like cigarette smoke, says Jose-Luis Jimenez, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and aerosols scientist. When a smoker lights up, at first the smoke just hovers around them. "But after half an hour ... the whole room is filled with smoke," he says.

If you want to clear smoke from a room, you open the windows and doors. The same thing holds true when it comes to dispersing infectious particles – opening windows and doors creates cross ventilation.

Jimenez recommends that every school test how well each room is ventilated by using a portable nondispersive infrared (NDIR) carbon dioxide meter. That's because CO2 is a useful proxy for infectious aerosols. People are constantly exhaling CO2, and, like aerosols, the gas can get trapped inside a room. So if the CO2 levels are too high, that means not enough air is flowing in and out of the room. You want to keep indoor CO2 levels under 700 parts per million, Jimenez says. If the levels are much higher, turn to other strategies to improve the room's ventilation, like keeping windows and doors open whenever students are in the classroom.

The cost of a good NDIR CO2 meter starts at roughly $90, Jimenez says. Cheaper CO2 monitors that don't use NDIR technology are available, but he warns that they don't really work.

4. Use portable air filters: Portable HEPA filters are effective at removing virus particles from a room, Jimenez says. Make sure the air filter you buy is large enough for the classroom, keep it at the highest setting and, he says, place it in the center of the classroom.

You can also buy several smaller air filters and put them around the classroom, he says. (For more on buying high-quality air filters and improving classroom ventilation and filtration, check out this in-depth post from Colorado Public Radio.)

5. Take things outdoors whenever possible – especially during lunch: Jimenez and many other experts urge schools to have activities outdoors as much as they can — especially during lunch, a vulnerable time when kids are unmasked en masse. If kids must eat indoors, open windows, use portable air filters, reduce eating time and space students out as much as possible. Also, try to keep them from talking.

6. Physical distancing still matters: Experts say that schools should continue to keep three feet of distance between students. But, they note, in many public schools that have reopened at full capacity, that's just not happening. Which is one more reason why schools should focus their energy on these other strategies, they say.

"I think our foundational protective element here is vaccination," Kalu says, "and we're layering other things on top of it in schools."

Students across Illinois will be able to take up to five excused mental health days starting in January.

Under a bill signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker last month, students who decide to take a mental health day will not be required to provide their school with a doctor's note and will be able to make up any work that was missed on their day off.

"Having this now for all students across the state will be really beneficial, especially with what's going on with COVID," State Rep. Barbara Hernandez, who co-sponsored the bill, told the Journal-Courier. "Many students feel stressed, and have developed anxiety and depression because they're not able to see teachers and friends, and may have lower grades due to remote learning."

Child psychiatrists say they expect more children will need help

The pandemic has placed unique strains on children, and as a new school year begins, child psychiatrists say they expect to see a surge of kids who need help.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between March and May of last year, hospitals across the country saw a 24% increase in the number of mental health emergency visits by kids aged 5 to 11 years old, and a 31% increase for kids 12 to 17.

"The younger school-age kids are more anxious about separation from their parents and caregivers," child and adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Ujjwal Ramtekkar at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio, told NPR. "They're worried about getting sick," or their parents getting sick.

For teens, the challenges can be somewhat different, according to Ramtekkar. Most teenagers are struggling with social and academic anxiety, he said, as most are worried about socializing with their peers again and adapting to full-time in-person learning.

The new law is designed to help kids get care

With the new law in Illinois, Hernandez says students will have more of an opportunity to get the care they need.

"I am really excited for this. I think it will help students, parents and teachers, and can help them understand what's going on in their students' lives," Hernandez said.

Once a student requests a second mental health day, a school counselor will reach out to their family and the student may be referred to get professional help, according to the bill.

Hernandez says that after students take their second mental health day, they should understand that a conversation with an adult is needed about whatever it is they're going through.

"Many students are going through a lot mentally and emotionally and they need support," Hernandez said.

Several states have taken similar steps

School districts across Illinois will have until the end of the year to come up with a specific plan to execute the new law ahead of its effective date in January.

Illinois joins states such as Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Virginia that have passed similar bills over the last two years allowing students to be absent from school due to mental or behavioral health reasons, according to The New York Times.

Fewer students transferred between colleges over the 2020-2021 school year, and new data show that trends in who is transferring between colleges — and where they're going — may be exacerbating existing inequity.

Nearly 200,000 fewer students transferred last year compared to the year before — an 8.4% decline, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse.

"In normal times, the transfer plays a very important role," says Mikyung Ryu, director of research publications at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Transfer options provide students with "more accessible educational pathways to bachelor's degree attainment, particularly for students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or low income communities or racial and ethnic minorities."

Students might start at a 2-year college and transfer to a 4-year school, or make the switch to a community college to take the last classes they need for a degree.

When the pandemic began, many predicted that transfer rates would spike. "There was a lot of concern that the pandemic would disrupt students' education plans, not just by keeping freshmen out of college, but also by causing continuing students to switch schools unexpectedly," says Ryu.

But that didn't happen.

"Lateral transfers" — a term used to describe the switch from similar types of schools, like one 2-year school to another, or from one 4-year school to a different one — declined 11.9%. Meanwhile, "reverse transfers" — from a 4-year university to a 2-year community college, for example — dropped by 16.2%. Overall, enrollment for Black transfer students dropped the most, though white students, Native American students and Latinx students also saw large declines. The decline in transfer enrollment for men was also double that of women.

What this means, Ryu says, is that students who may have opted to transfer in previous years have instead stayed put at their schools or withdrawn altogether. Previous students who might have opted to re-enroll in pre-pandemic times didn't do that.

The National Student Clearinghouse reported recently that one in four freshmen who started college in the fall of 2019 didn't return to school in the fall of 2020. The rate of students who came back to school dropped two percentage points from the previous year. Undergraduate college enrollment has been falling for a decade, and the pandemic has only exacerbated that problem. Community colleges saw the highest enrollment drops over the past academic year.

Despite the declines in transfer students, the number of "upward transfers" — from 2-year to 4-year colleges — fell only slightly, consistent with patterns before the pandemic. One outlier: Transfers to highly selective colleges jumped, reaching record rates in the spring. While rates of growth for each racial and ethnic group grew, "white students drove that growth at these institutions," according to the report.

She and other researchers will be tracking these transfer students to learn more about how they fare, and she says ensuring they stay enrolled in school should be top of mind for institutions over the coming year. "We need to really pay attention to persistence and timely progression toward the degree completion for these particular students who took this pandemic as an opportunity to go into 4-year institutions from 2-year schools," Ryu says.

So far this fall, children heading back to school have faced many obstacles: battles over masks, vaccines, delta-variant surge fears and mental health needs. Now, in many places, there is a last-mile problem — quite literally.

In a new nationwide survey, half of student-transportation coordinators described their school bus driver shortages as either "severe" or "desperate."

In Chicago this week, 70 bus drivers, about 10% of the workforce, abruptly quit over the district's new COVID-19 vaccine mandate, according to WBEZ's Sarah Karp. The move left some 2,100 students, a little less than half of them in special education, without a way to get to school.

And in Pittsburgh, the public schools notified families that they are short almost 650 bus seats for the first day of school on Friday.

Curt Macysyn is executive director of the National School Transportation Association, which conducted the survey with two other trade associations. He said the shortages are unprecedented. "This back-to-school period is nothing like the previous periods we've seen," he told NPR. "In previous years, we've seen regionalized driver shortages, but nothing to the extent that we're seeing today."

He says there are many reasons for the shortage.

Many drivers were furloughed during the COVID-19 school closures in 2020, while others took the chance to retire. Respondents to the survey were most likely to say that the pay they were able to offer was a major factor affecting their ability to recruit drivers. (Salary.com reports the median school bus driver earns $35,421 per year, which varies by region.)

Brand-new bus drivers can't be hired on the spot like retail or fast-food workers; they need commercial driver's licenses. A second factor in the shortage, Macysyn pointed out, is that in many places over the past year and a half, departments of motor vehicles were closed or had limited operations, so people couldn't get their road tests or update their qualifications.

A third concern cited was safety. School buses are full of children, and children under 12 can't yet be vaccinated against COVID-19. Macysyn says that while measures such as distancing and opening windows seem to be pretty effective, "we certainly understand if folks have those concerns," especially if they have risk factors.

Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, is reportedly talking to ride-share companies like Lyft or Uber, or even paying parents to drive their own children to school. In the meantime, Macysyn says, schools and private school-bus contractors will continue to try to recruit drivers who are civic minded and appreciate the part-time hours and spending time with children. "There's a segment that just love doing what they do. We say they bleed yellow."

Despite a judge's ruling last week declaring that the Florida governor's ban on mask mandates in schools is unconstitutional, the State Board of Education has forged ahead with its threat to withhold school board members' salaries in districts that require the face coverings in classrooms.

Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced that school board members in Alachua and Broward counties will not be getting paychecks from the Department of Education this month, saying their mandatory face mask policies violate parental rights. The board will hold onto the funds until each school board complies with Gov. Ron DeSantis' now-overturned executive order.

"We're going to fight to protect parents' rights to make health care decisions for their children," Corcoran said in a statement Monday. "They know what is best for their children."

"What's unacceptable is the politicians who have raised their right hands and pledged, under oath, to uphold the Constitution but are not doing so. Simply said, elected officials cannot pick and choose what laws they want to follow," Corcoran said.

It's unclear if others counties will be penalized

Local reports indicate that several other school districts have implemented mask mandates, including Orange, Duval, Miami-Dade, Hillsborough, Sarasota, Palm Beach, Indian River and Leon counties. It is unclear whether school board members in those counties will also have their pay withheld.

The bitter fight is playing out as a rash of coronavirus infections sweeps across Florida, including among children who are not eligible for vaccination. On Monday, officials reported 18,608 new cases.

DeSantis' opposition stems from the lack of parental control. He argues that under existing Florida law, parents must be free to opt out of student mask requirements. However, the rules in place in Alachua and Broward counties only allow for a medical exemption from a doctor.

DeSantis, who barred the mask mandates on July 30, warned that "there will be consequences" for districts that defy the ban.

A judge said DeSantis' order lacked authority

But on Friday, following a four-day trial, Judge John Cooper ruled in favor of parents who sued, arguing DeSantis overstepped his authority in forbidding the face covering requirement and said it cannot be enforced. He noted that face mask mandates that follow guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are "reasonable and consistent with the best scientific and medical opinion in this country."

Cooper also added that DeSantis' order "is without legal authority."

DeSantis is appealing the decision and on Monday called Cooper's ruling "obviously problematic."

The move could potentially garner federal attention

The decision to withhold funding from Alachua and Broward counties could open the state up to further legal troubles.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights announced it had launched an investigation into five states "exploring whether statewide prohibitions on universal indoor masking discriminate against students with disabilities."

At the time, the office said it had refrained from opening investigations in Florida, Texas, Arkansas or Arizona "because those states' bans on universal indoor masking are not currently being enforced as a result of court orders or other state actions."

However, officials said they would continue to monitor those states and take action "if state leaders prevent local schools or districts from implementing universal indoor masking or if the current court decisions were to be reversed."

It is unclear if Florida's decision not to pay school board members will trigger an investigation. The Education Department did not immediately return NPR's requests for comment.

A Nevada school board member said he had thoughts of suicide before stepping down amid threats and harassment. In Virginia, a board member resigned over what she saw as politics driving decisions on masks. The vitriol at board meetings in Wisconsin had one member fearing he would find his tires slashed.

School board members are largely unpaid volunteers, traditionally former educators and parents who step forward to shape school policy, choose a superintendent and review the budget. But a growing number are resigning or questioning their willingness to serve as meetings have devolved into shouting contests between deeply political constituencies over how racial issues are taught, masks in schools, and COVID-19 vaccines and testing requirements.

In his letter of resignation from Wisconsin's Oconomowoc Area School Board, Rick Grothaus said its work had become "toxic and impossible to do."

"When I got on, I knew it would be difficult," Grothaus, a retired educator, said by phone. "But I wasn't ready or prepared for the vitriolic response that would occur, especially now that the pandemic seemed to just bring everything out in a very, very harsh way. It made it impossible to really do any kind of meaningful work."

He resigned Aug. 15 along with two other members, including Dan Raasch, who wondered if his car and windshield would be intact after meetings.

The National School Boards Association's interim executive director, Chip Slaven, said there isn't evidence of widespread departures, but he and several board members reached by The Associated Press said the charged political climate that has seeped from the national stage into their meetings has made a difficult job even more challenging, if not impossible.

School board members question their jobs, and safety

In Vail, Arizona, speakers at a recent meeting took turns blasting school board members over masks, vaccines and discussions of race in schools — even though the board had no plans to act on, or even discuss, any of those topics. "It's my constitutional right to be as mean as I want to you guys," one woman said.

The board moved on after more than an hour, only to be interrupted by more shouting. Board member Allison Pratt recalled thinking that if she weren't already on the board, she wouldn't aspire to be.

"There is starting to be an inherent distrust for school boards, that there's some notion that we are out to indoctrinate children or to undermine parents or things like that, when we are on the same team," said Pratt, who has been on the board six years. "We are here to help children."

Pratt said she strives to view issues from the perspective of even the most extreme members of the community, and she has no plans to resign. But she has stepped up security at her home.

Police have been called to intervene in places including Vail, where parents protesting a mask mandate pushed their way into a board room in April, and in Mesa County, Colorado, where Doug Levinson was among school board members escorted to their cars by officers who had been unable to de-escalate a raucous Aug. 17 meeting. "Why am I doing this?" Levinson asked himself.

Kurt Thigpen wrote in leaving the Washoe County, Nevada, school board that he considered suicide amid relentless bullying and threats led by people who didn't live in the county, let alone have children in the schools. "I was constantly looking over my shoulder," he wrote in July.

Susan Crenshaw resigned from the Craig County, Virginia, school board this month with more than a year left in her term after being "blindsided," she said, by her board's decision to defy the state's mask mandate in a move that she said felt more driven by political than educational considerations.

"This is something that's come into play against government overreach and tyranny and other things that have absolutely nothing to do with the education of children," said Crenshaw, who taught for 31 years and whose district has just 500 students. "It's a bigger issue than the mask. I just feel like the mask is the spark or trigger that got this dialogue started."

Conflict also shows the crucial role school boards play

While experts say the widespread use of masks can effectively limit virus transmission in school buildings, opponents say they restrict breathing and the ability of children to read social cues. Conflicts over masks have put some boards in Florida, Texas and Arizona at odds with their Republican governors.
In several states, embattled board members who do not resign are facing recall efforts. Ballotpedia lists 59 school board recall efforts against 147 board members in 2021.

Vail board President Jon Aitken is among them, targeted by critics who say the mental and physical health of students has declined under pandemic restrictions. The Arizona board has faced contentious issues in recent years, including the Red for Ed movement three years ago, when 50,000 people rallied at the state Capitol for increased education funding. But he said this is different.
"That was a very real issue, with legitimate concerns on both sides," Aitken said. Much of what is said today, is false or simply made up, he said.

Even so, Slaven said many sitting board members are more enthusiastic than ever because their work, amid a public health crisis, has taken on new importance.

"You actually now know what you do is important. The decisions you make as an elected official have ramifications," he said.