Arguments in favor of school closures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-21

This page captures the main arguments that have been advanced in favor of school closures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These arguments come from a variety of sources, including public officials, journalists, think tanks, economists, scientists, and other stakeholders. We encourage you to share the debates happening in your local community to editor@ballotpedia.org.

There are five main types of arguments for school closures:

• School closures are necessary to prevent the spread of the virus
• Evidence from past pandemics supports the efficacy of school closures
• Reopening Universities will increase COVID-19 spread
• Reopening schools puts people of color at higher risk
• Keep schools closed because COVID-19 outbreaks are inevitable

Click here to read about arguments against school closures.

School closures are necessary to prevent the spread of the virus

Claim: School closures are necessary to slow the spread of the virus

• Neil Ferguson, director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis (CNN): Neil Ferguson, director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, said school closures were important for slowing transmission in conjunction with other social distancing measures.

  "While school closure as a measure on its own is predicted to have a limited effectiveness in controlling Covid-19 transmission, when combined with intense social distancing it plays an important role in severing remaining contacts between households, and thus ensuring transmission declines." - "School closures may only have a small effect on stopping coronavirus, study says," April 7, 2020.

• Eric Boodman (STAT): "A new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association 'shows that closing all of a state’s schools was associated with a drastic decrease in both Covid-19 cases and deaths. And the point at which officials made that call mattered: Those states that adopted the policy while few people were testing positive saw a correlated flatter curve of cases.'" - "School closures in spring linked to drastic decrease in Covid-19 cases and deaths," July 29, 2020.

Claim: School closures are necessary to protect adults and children

• Nicholas Christakis, a social scientist and physician at Yale University (Science): "Proactive school closures—closing schools before there’s a case there—have been shown to be one of the most powerful nonpharmaceutical interventions that we can deploy. ... It’s not just about keeping the kids safe. It’s keeping the whole community safe. When you close the schools, you reduce the mixing of the adults—parents dropping off at the school, the teachers being present. When you close the schools, you effectively require the parents to stay home." - "Does closing schools slow the spread of coronavirus? Past outbreaks provide clues," March 10, 2020.

• Don Rose (Chicago Sun-Times): "There is no question that large numbers of teachers will be put at risk needlessly — but the threat goes beyond teachers. It goes to the kids and their families as well. This is the hard reality despite the importance of getting all kinds of challenged kids back to classroom learning, especially in Black and Latinx areas. Okay, the experts say that schools are not super-spreaders, particularly in the first five grades when the youngsters are least likely to be infected. But many children may be asymptomatic, meaning they can nevertheless spread the virus. Consider the example of an asymptomatic youngster who unknowingly infects a classmate, who then goes home and infects Mom or Grandma in a multigenerational household." - "Reopening Chicago’s schools during the peak of the pandemic is a dangerous folly," December 7, 2020.

Claim: School closures protect teachers and staff who are not vaccinated

• Former US Rep. Joe Cunningham (Charleston Post & Courier): "We need to get students back in the classroom, but it is our moral responsibility to take every reasonable safety precaution available while doing so, and that includes vaccinating teachers. Should teachers continue to be pushed down the vaccination line instead of being treated like the essential workers they are, we run the risk of another school year being upended by this virus. The toll that will take on our children is truly unconscionable, especially when we can prevent it." - "To reopen South Carolina schools, we must vaccinate teachers," February 12, 2021.

• Chris Fulton, Pinellas County teacher (Tampa Bay Times): "Adhering to proper social distancing guidelines in schools is, on the whole, impracticable. And with an influx of face-to-face students this second semester it won’t, pun intended, even be close. The kicker is that, to accommodate these students, the district has stipulated that all who currently teach strictly online, regardless of advanced age and/or health issues, need to return to their classrooms, thereby placing the most at-risk instructional staff perilously in harm’s way." - "Coronavirus and my Pinellas classroom," January 13, 2021.

• Marianna Stepniak, daughter of Howard County (MD) teacher (Baltimore Sun): "Rushing the school reopening process is not the answer. Disregarding and delegitimizing the concerns of teachers and teachers unions is not the answer. The board had previously adopted plans to ensure a safe return to school for teachers and students. The context has not changed enough for those plans to change. The board can ensure the safe return to in-person instruction by assuring that educators will be fully immunized and returning to the previously adopted plans. Any plans to rush in-person instruction unnecessarily puts the lives of students, educators and their families at risk." - "My mom is a conscientious Howard teacher, so why are you risking her life?," February 17, 2021.

Claim: School districts are not prepared to safely re-open schools

• Melissa Cropper, Ohio Federation of Teachers (Ohio Capital Journal): "The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have set clear recommendations for how schools can reopen safely, covering everything from the level of community spread where the school is located to how mask-wearing, physical distancing, and testing is handled within the school. Without these prerequisites for opening and precautions after opening, our schools are at risk of becoming super-spreader sites, with children, teachers, and staff getting infected and bringing COVID-19 home with them." - "Without taking proper precautions, reopening schools carries some big risks," August 21, 2020.

• Dr. Rajiv J. Shah and Randi Weingarten (American Federation of Teachers) (USA TODAY): "COVID-19 testing must become a way of life in schools: We need to test regularly and rapidly. Testing is an early warning system, particularly for a virus that transmits asymptomatically. Even after effective and safe vaccines become more widely available, regular testing is going to be needed to avoid outbreaks and protect children, and their families, because children do not yet have a vaccine approved for use. Based on what we’re seeing, a risk-based protocol could involve testing as frequently as twice a week for teachers and staff, and once a week for students." - "With robust testing, we can open schools this spring before the vaccine is widely available," January 24, 2021.

• Lisa Delano-Wood, Andrea Lehman, Elizabeth Shulok (San Diego Union-Tribune): "In order to analyze exposure and transmission in schools, you have to actually be collecting data in schools. The best way to collect data would be to do surveillance testing for all students each week, like the San Diego Unified School District plans to do when it is safe to reopen schools. Unfortunately, these types of datasets do not exist since almost no schools nationwide do such testing, thus making any inference about the extent of COVID-19 spread in schools impossible to know. The vast majority of available studies show strong evidence of spread in schools throughout the world, and it’s disingenuous to say that this virus only spreads in homes." - "With new coronavirus variants and high case rates, it’s too soon to reopen San Diego schools," February 11, 2021.

• Fairfield CT School District Teachers (Hartford Courant): "It’s time for state leaders, local school superintendents and local boards of education to stop trying to stuff very new issues, needs and situations into a very old and broken box. It’s not working! The concerns that teachers had at the beginning of the school year are being realized every day, and fixing the situation is beyond the work that teachers can do within their local districts. We need consistent and bold action from you to keep our schools safe and, quite literally, save lives. Your failure to act will have lifelong consequences for teaching and learning throughout the state and a negative impact on a generation of students." - "Opinion: Why we don’t want to teach your children, in person," December 13, 2020.

Claim: Re-starting school year with on-line instruction is the safest solution

• Christine Vaccaro, New York City teacher (USA Today): "We cannot know when it will be safe for a full return. The most practical path to sustainable education lies in developing thoughtful, substantial and all-inclusive distance learning practices to use now that will undergird a more flexible in-school model later. It is not a perfect solution, but it will keep people alive." - "America's schools: Teachers like me don't feel safe enough to return to the classroom yet," July 13, 2020.

• Rebecca Martinson, Washington State teacher (The New York Times): "More than 75 New York Department of Education employees have died of Covid-19. CDC guidelines say a return to traditional schooling with in-person classes would involve the ‘highest risk’ for Covid-19 spread. But even in-person classes with students spaced apart and prevented from sharing materials are categorized as leading to ‘more risk.’ The ‘lowest risk’ for spread, according to the CDC, is virtual learning. I can’t understand why we would choose more risk than is necessary." - "I Won’t Return to the Classroom, and You Shouldn’t Ask Me To," July 18, 2020.

Evidence from past pandemics supports the efficacy of school closures

Claim: Evidence from past pandemics supports school closures

• Aaron E. Carroll, professor of pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine (The New York Times): "It’s not just children that we need to worry about. Plenty of adults work in schools: teachers, janitors, food preparation workers and more. They’re all being put at risk by keeping schools open. Arguably they’re more at risk than many other workers at businesses that have already been shut down. Closing schools can make a big difference in flattening the curve, evidence from past epidemics shows. A study in Nature in 2006 that modeled an influenza outbreak found that closing school during the peak of a pandemic could reduce the peak attack rate, or speed of spread, by 40 percent. Another study in 2016 in BMC Infectious Diseases found that, based on the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, closing schools could reduce the attack rate up to 25 percent and the peak weekly incidence, or rate of new cases, by more than 50 percent." - "Is Closing the Schools a Good Idea?," March 17, 2020.

Reopening Universities will increase COVID-19 spread

Claim: Reopening universities is a near-term decision to prevent financial collapse of colleges and universities, but ignore public health and long term financial risks

• Benjamin Goldfrank, Seton Hall University (NJ.com): "Without a federal plan to stop COVID-19, infections will remain uncontained throughout the country, and outbreaks on college campuses will continue, despite the numerous safety precautions under discussion. Even if universities require students to wear masks, install plexiglass in classrooms, and encourage distancing, they cannot control human behavior off-campus or in dorm rooms, especially that of young adults, the main source of new cases in New Jersey now." - "Re-opening universities will contribute to the spread of COVID-19," July 28, 2020.

• Andrew Timon (World Socialist Website): "Students and teachers must oppose efforts to distort science in an effort to foster illusions that schools can open safety—as long as masks are worn, six feet of distancing is maintained, and hand washing occurs. The reality is that schools are vectors of COVID-19 transmission and must be closed to stop the spread of the virus and save lives. . . An outbreak in a school affects workers in every workplace and industry. Emergency action must be taken for the immediate shutdown of all schools, universities and nonessential production." - "Reopening of Boston colleges threatens escalation of COVID-19 crisis," January 28, 2021.

Reopening schools puts people of color at higher risk

Claim: Covid-19 has greater health and economic impacts on Latino and Black communities—reopening schools and colleges will continue these trends

• Nsenga Burton, Courier (Courier): "In addition to placing everyone who may be forced to return to public schools (including colleges and universities) at avoidable risk, Black and brown educators, students, and parents face greater danger of severe illness and death." - "The Risk of Reopening Schools Is Far Greater for Black and Brown Americans," July 17, 2020.

• Durryle Brooks, Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners (Baltimore Sun): "To call for school re-openings without understanding the real consequences of systemic racism — that Black and brown people will fair much worse and will pay a greater price if they become ill with COVID-19 — is the opposite of educational equity; it’s educational injustice. My lived experience teaches me that it only takes a parent or one caregiver to become sick with COVID-19 for another child to slip deeper into poverty." - "Reopening schools puts families at risk," January 21, 2021.

Keep schools closed because COVID-19 outbreaks are inevitable

Claim: Re-opening schools will create disruption when Covid-19 outbreaks inevitably occur

• Middletown (NY) Times-Herald Editorial Board (Times Herald-Record): "As unprecedented as it may seem to keep students home for the remainder of this calendar year, it will be far less disruptive for students and families than following the schedules that many schools have already proposed and even less disruptive than reacting to what seems inevitable, an outbreak that sends students home not as part of a plan but as a reaction to an emergency that really will come as no surprise." - "Keep schools closed until we have a vaccine," August 21, 2020.

• Petaluma (CA) Argus-Courier Editorial Board (The Press Democrat): "Distance learning is the safest way to start the school year until we can actually flatten the infection curve, or until we have a vaccine. If we rush to reopen schools against the advice of health experts, we could end up in the same position after we reopened businesses at the end of May — right back where we started, with a third wave of coronavirus cases." - "Don’t rush to reopen schools," July 28, 2020.

• Rhea Powell, Philadelphia physician (Philadelphia Inquirer): "Although rates of SARS-CoV-2 cases are decreasing, they are still objectively high, and the rise of new variants makes possible future surges in COVID-19 cases. Given these risks, we must ensure that all school staff can be fully vaccinated before we ask them to return to school buildings. Ensuring all school staff are able to be vaccinated before opening schools can also help manage school disruptions and reduce uncertainty until COVID-19 rates are down. . .By vaccinating teachers and school staff before reopening schools, we can keep them safe and ensure that when schools reopen, they stay open." - "Philly schools should not reopen until all staff can be guaranteed a COVID vaccine," February 17, 2021.

See also

• Arguments against school closures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-21
• Taxonomy of arguments about school closures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020
• Debate over school closures during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020