The Pittsburgh Public School District said Friday that it will close its schools and implement a remote instruction model for all students until at least January as COVID-19 cases continue to rise sharply in the region.
The move comes after the district reopened to some students this week for the first time since March, when schools across the country closed in an effort to slow the spread of the pandemic.
“While it was a joy to actually see children and teachers in our buildings again, the safety of our students, staff and families is a top priority,” Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said in a statement. “We cannot ignore the continued growth of COVID-19 in our area.”
The district opened the 2020-21 school year in a fully remote model after the school board voted unanimously to keep students home for the first quarter. Then in October, the board decided to allow select students who would benefit the most from in-person instruction to return Nov. 9.
That decision still meant that the majority of the more than 20,000 district students remained in the remote instruction model, where they were expected to stay until at least January.
The 804 students who returned across the district this week included special needs students and English language learners.
In addition to students, the district instructed staff members to work remotely unless their supervisors told them otherwise.
In an interview Friday before the district announced its decision to close, the president of the Pittsburgh Federation of Teachers said she believed all city schools needed to transition to remote instruction.
“We’ve been open for four days and a number of our schools have already closed,” Nina Esposito-Visgitis said. “There is a problem.”
She implored the district to follow the guidelines put forward by health officials.
The state health and education departments recommend that schools implement a fully remote model of instruction when the COVID-19 incidence rate is more than 100 out of 100,000 residents or greater than 10% in a county over a two-week period.
According to data updated Thursday by the state Department of Health, Allegheny County had an incidence rate of 138.7 out of 100,000 residents and a percent positivity rate of 7.7% during the past seven days.
During the previous seven days, the county had an incidence rate of 68.4 out of 100,000 and a positivity rate of 4.3%.
“While the nearly doubled percent positivity growth from 4.3 to 7.7 percent is moderate, the acceleration of the incidence rate from 65.9 to 138.7 indicates a substantial level of community transmission,” the district said.
On Thursday, the district said it would close the Arsenal school facility after two staff members tested positive for COVID-19 in the past week.
The Conroy Education Center, which was supposed to reopen Monday with other district schools, remained closed all week because a staff member there also tested positive for COVID-19.
The Pittsburgh Public Schools was not the only district to experience closures this week as COVID-19 forced the shut down of in-person instruction at numerous schools across the region.
The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh announced Friday that Central Catholic High School in Oakland would close until at least Dec. 1 after a fourth person involved with the school tested positive for COVID-19. The diocese said there was no indication of internal spread at the school.
The diocese also said Butler Catholic and St. Wendelin elementary schools in Butler would transition to remote instruction until at least Dec. 1 because of the substantial spread of COVID-19 in Butler County. No cases were reported at either school.
COVID-19 also is forcing the suspension of in-person instruction beyond southwestern Pennsylvania.
School systems in Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis and Philadelphia are among those that are closing classrooms or abandoning plans to offer in-person classes later in the school year, and New York City may be next.
Weekly reports by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association show there have been more than 900,000 COVID-19 cases in children and teens in the U.S., and they have been steadily rising. Almost 74,000 cases were recorded during the week ending Nov. 5, an all-time high.
Severe illness among children and teens is rare, particularly in younger ones, but they can often spread the disease without showing any symptoms. When schools are disrupted, it’s often because teachers, staff and other adult employees have gotten sick.
The academy has stressed the importance of in-person education but says uncontrolled spread in many areas means that cannot happen safely in many schools.
Schools overseas are dealing with similar issues.
In Europe, most schools reopened to a degree in September, only to see the virus spike and hospitals start to fill with COVID-19 patients. Greece reluctantly closed all but elementary schools this month, while Italy kept high schools on a partial schedule.
France, which has suffered more infections than anywhere else in Europe, kept schools open even after closing restaurants, bars and all but essential stores. The number of children under 19 testing positive has dropped markedly since the semi-lockdown began on Oct. 29 but remains high.
Andrew Goldstein: agoldstein@post-gazette.com. The Associated Press contributed.
First Published: November 13, 2020, 7:26 p.m.