Most Schools Have Long Had Pandemic Plans. But a Watchdog Warned Years Ago That Half of All Districts Had No Real Strategy for How to Operate If Classrooms Remained Closed

The 74 Million – Mark Keierleber

“The coronavirus pandemic isn’t the first time in recent memory an outbreak forced schools to close. It was just a decade ago that the swine flu killed thousands of Americans and shuttered hundreds of K-12 campuses in 24 states. Though far less disruptive than the latest pandemic, the 2009 outbreak should have been a “wake-up call” that widespread school closures could sweep the nation, said Thomas Chandler, a research scientist at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness.” (more)