Here’s how CPS says it’ll decide if it’s safe to go back to school

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct a misstatement by CPS CEO Janice Jackson.

Chicago would need to average 400 new daily COVID-19 cases over the span of a week or otherwise see a dramatic spike in infections or hospitalizations for officials to consider entirely closing schools again, according to new health guidance released Wednesday.

Chicago Public Schools on Wednesday codified Public Health Commissioner Allison Arwady’s 400-case threshold, which she first mentioned last week, with a more detailed explanation of how the district would make its determination on school reopening. Other than the 400-case number, CPS could move to full remote learning if the city is averaging more than 200 cases per day while seeing a rapid increase of positive tests or inadequate hospital capacity, the district said.

The city has crept toward continued school closures in recent days. Using a 7-day rolling average, as of Thursday, Chicago is seeing 255 new cases per day, with an average positivity rate of 5.9%, according to city data.

CPS’ guidelines made no mention of the positivity rate as a consideration for reopening. Though schools chief Janice Jackson said in a WBEZ radio appearance Wednesday that Arwady has concluded a 5% positivity rate would mean the virus is not in control, representatives for CPS and the Chicago Department of Public Health clarified Thursday that Jackson misspoke.

What Arwardy actually sees as the worrying rate, officials said, is an 8% rate, which aligns with the metric used by the Illinois Department of Public Health when considering when to move back into a more restrictive phase of closures.

City officials have said the threshold at this point has not been met for schools to remain closed, but has been reached for other locations, such as bars. Two weeks ago, Arwardy said officials would re-enforce stricter restrictions once the city passed 200 daily cases on a 7-day rolling average, which CDC guidelines say is an indicator of high incidence of coronavirus spread in Chicago. That reasoning was used for a renewed shut-down of indoor seating at bars.

Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey took umbrage at that perceived discrepancy once CPS’ guidelines were made public Wednesday, calling the school reopening criteria “not acceptable” and noting officials’ previous criteria of 200 cases. The CTU has been adamant that the school year should start in a remote setting because it’s the safest way to prevent the spread of the virus.

Jackson has left open the possibility that CPS could delay implementation of its framework for most students to be in school two days a week, meaning children would instead start the year in full-time remote learning.

Officials have said a final decision on whether to return to in-person learning will be made in late August.

Jackson said that “this is a plan that’s in place for whenever in-person instruction resumes.”

“We’re going to work with Dr. Arwady and our partners at CDPH in order to make a decision about when we do that effectively,” she said.

Officials would consider full in-person instruction if the city reaches fewer than 100 new cases per day for at least four straight weeks with no rapid breakouts or hospital capacity concerns. Or in a preview of a condition more likely to be met sometime in 2021, CPS said it would weigh a full-time return when there are fewer than 400 cases daily and a vaccine is widely available. If students and staff at an individual school have largely been vaccinated, that school might also be able to return sooner than the rest of the district.