Causes, characteristics, and patterns of prolonged unplanned school closures prior to the COVID-19 pandemic-United States, 2011-2019.

INTRODUCTION: Outside of pandemics, there is little information about occurrence of prolonged unplanned K-12 school closures (PUSC). We describe here the reasons, characteristics, and patterns of PUSC in the United States during 8 consecutive inter-pandemic academic years, 2011-2019. METHODS: From August 1, 2011 through June 30, 2019, daily systematic online searches were conducted to collect data on publicly announced unplanned school closures lasting ≥1 school days in the United States. Closures were categorized as prolonged when schools were closed for ≥5 unplanned days (approximating one full workweek), excluding weekends and scheduled days off per school calendars. RESULTS: During the eight academic years, a total of 22,112 PUSCs were identified, affecting over 800,000 teachers and 13 million students that resulted in 91.5 million student-days lost. A median of 62.9% of students in PUSC-affected schools were eligible for subsidized school meals. Most affected schools were in cities (35%) and suburban areas (33%). Natural disasters (47%), adverse weather conditions (35%), and budget/teacher strikes (15%) were the most frequently cited reasons for PUSC; illness accounted for 1%, and building/facility issues, environmental issues and violence together accounted for the remaining 2%. The highest number of PUSCs occurred in Health and Human Services Regions 2, 3, 4, and 6 encompassing areas that are frequently in the path of hurricanes and tropical storms. The majority of PUSCs in these regions were attributed to a handful of hurricanes during the fall season, including hurricanes Sandy, Irma, Harvey, Florence, and Matthew. CONCLUSIONS: PUSCs occur annually in the United States due to a variety of causes and are associated with a substantive loss of student-days for in-school learning. Both these prior experiences with PUSCs and those during the current COVID-19 pandemic illustrate a need for creating sustainable solutions for high-quality distance learning and innovative supplemental feeding programs nationwide, especially in disaster-prone areas.

COVID-19-associated school closures and related efforts to sustain education and subsidized meal programs, United States, February 18-June 30, 2020.

Pre-emptive school closures are frontline community mitigation measures recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for implementation during severe pandemics. This study describes the spatiotemporal patterns of publicly announced school closures implemented in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and assesses how public K-12 districts adjusted their methods of education delivery and provision of subsidized meals. During February 18-June 30, 2020, we used daily systematic media searches to identify publicly announced COVID-19-related school closures lasting ≥1 day in the United States (US). We also collected statewide school closure policies from state government websites. Data on distance learning and subsidized meal programs were collected from a stratified sample of 600 school districts. The first COVID-19-associated school closure occurred on February 27, 2020 in Washington state. By March 30, 2020, all but one US public school districts were closed, representing the first-ever nearly synchronous nationwide closure of public K-12 schools in the US. Approximately 100,000 public schools were closed for ≥8 weeks because of COVID-19, affecting >50 million K-12 students. Of 600 districts sampled, the vast majority offered distance learning (91.0%) and continued provision of subsidized meal programs (78.8%) during the closures. Despite the sudden and prolonged nature of COVID-19-associated school closures, schools demonstrated flexibility by implementing distance learning and alternate methods to continue subsidized meal programs.