BWSD: Mathematica Report Shows Hybrid Learning Keeps Students Safe

Press release from the Baldwin-Whitehall School District:

Sept. 25, 2020

Hybrid learning (along with the full remote option), while not optimum, provides a sustainable model for our children at this time. This has been reinforced by newly released data. The Mathematica research group, described as pioneers in research and policy advancements that have transformed the world, have conducted a review of hybrid learning models, expanding on the work they completed this summer for the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The key findings of the report are:

• Precautions such as requiring masks and limiting the mixing of students outside of classes can measurably reduce infection spread in schools.
• Hybrid approaches where smaller groups of students wearing masks attend in person part time dramatically reduce the total number of likely infections in a school.
• Infection rates in elementary schools are likely to be lower than in secondary schools employing the same operating strategies.
• Part-time hybrid operation is far more effective at reducing infections than temporarily closing the school building each time an infection is detected.
• In schools that are using a part-time hybrid approach, quarantining close contacts of individuals with detected infections is sufficient to keep the school's infection rate low, while closing entirely reduces the number of days that students can attend with no demonstrable benefit in further reducing infections.
• Schools using a hybrid approach in a community with a moderate infection rate are likely to experience little or no unplanned disruption in the number of days students can come to school.

Regardless of precautions taken, there is a chance that a school could have an infection on its first day of operation.The full Mathematica report can be viewed here.

This press release was produced by the Baldwin-Whitehall School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.