The Trump administration has issued new manuals designating teachers as ‘critical infrastructure workers’, potentially removing the way to exempt them from quarantine requirements.
Health officials in South Carolina also appointed critical infrastructure teachers, according to The Associated Press. The school board in Greene County in Eastern Tennessee meanwhile voted to give the designation in July. Several other districts of Georgia and Tennessee have also announced that they intend to bring asymptomatic teachers back to instruction.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) has said his administration will accept the federal designation and individual districts can follow it.
“The decision is from the neighborhood,” he told a news conference Tuesday, according to the AP. “If they make that decision, we have given them guidance that they must follow when choosing that critical infrastructure designation.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp
Brian KempThe Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Facebook – Trump goes further again; no deal on COVID-19 package Overnight health care: First Chamber leaves until September without coronavirus relief deal | American records deadliest day of summer | Georgia’s governor launches Atlanta’s mask mandate Georgia’s governor drops lawsuit over Atlanta’s masked mandate MAYThe (R) administration, meanwhile, said it was evaluating whether the federal guidance should be included in its own rescheduling plans.
“We’ve had some superintendents ask where the administration is on this issue,” Kemp spokeswoman Candice Broce said. “We’re in submission mode.”
“It essentially means if we’re exposed and we know we can be potentially positive, we still have to get to school and at that point we might be carriers and distributors,” said Hillary Buckner, who teaches Spanish to the Chuckey. Doak High School in Afton, Tenn., Told the AP.
Buckner, secretary of the National Education Association’s branch, said the guidance put teachers in a position to potentially infect students with the new coronavirus. While data indicate that children are less vulnerable to adulthood than adults, public health officials have expressed concerns about them in turn passing them on to other adults.
AP data indicate that Georgia has the highest prevalence per capita of the virus. A handful of schools in both states have already reopened, only to close again after outbreaks. One such case involved a Georgian school where an image of a packed hall went viral. Nine people tested positive at North Paulding High School shortly after the photo was circulated.
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