Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday, Feb. 16 again urged school districts to resume in-person learning with updated guidelines and a state-sponsored testing program for students and staff.<\/p>\n
For months, public health experts have said bringing students back to the classroom — in phased reopenings, with safety measures and a hybrid schedule — has been safer than previously predicted and hasn’t caused an increase in community-wide transmission. Last week, reports from the state Department of Health<\/a> and the federal Centers for Disease Control<\/a> and Prevention echoed that sentiment.<\/p>\n “We know that in-person instruction is the best way to do instruction, and we know that this can be done safely,” Inslee said during a Tuesday news conference. “This is tremendous news for our state.”<\/p>\n The governor then outlined his “Learn to Return” plan, which aims to accelerate in-person education by offering districts state-funded COVID testing for students and staff, through the nonprofit Health Commons Project.<\/p>\n Each district is assigned a consultant to develop a strategy for on-site testing. That could include only testing people experiencing COVID symptoms, or doing random asymptomatic screening.<\/p>\n The new tool is intended to build confidence in teachers and families, Inslee said.<\/p>\n Statewide, more than 60 districts have already signed up for the service.<\/p>\n All costs are picked up by the state Department of Health.<\/p>\n Some have argued that teachers should be vaccinated before they return to work, which would delay the return to in-class instruction for months.<\/p>\n But remote learning isn’t working for the state’s students, Inslee said, especially those experiencing poverty or who live in rural districts.<\/p>\n “Despite our best efforts, that has been the fact,” Inslee said. “Schools provide nutrition and many other services that kids can’t get at home. … If these students can safely return to class, we should feel a sense of urgency to answer this paramount duty to our students.”<\/p>\n Additionally, the federal report found that schools can safely reopen without vaccinating teachers.<\/p>\n Herald writer Jerry Cornfield contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n Joey Thompson: 425-339-3449; <\/em>jthompson@heraldnet.com<\/em><\/a>. Twitter: <\/em>@byjoeythompson<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The ‘Learn to Return’ plan is intended to speed school reopenings with an added layer of confidence. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":628,"featured_media":48866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,24],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-48865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-northwest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48865"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/628"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48865"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=48865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}