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U.S. schools shuttered by the coronavirus should pursue a carefully phased reopening only after public health benchmarks are met, and summer camps should be limited largely only to children from the immediate area, federal guidance recommends. The guidelines, released late on Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), come from a set of suggestions for specific settings, including restaurants, mass transit systems and employers with workers at high risk. (Brice, 5/20)

As communities consider a gradual scale up of activities toward pre-covid-19 operating practices in centers for learning, such as K-12 schools and summer day camps, CDC offers the following recommendations to keep communities safe while resuming peer-to-peer learning and providing crucial support for parents and guardians returning to work. (Strauss, 5/21)

California has a major goal to meet before schools can reopen: acquiring masks for teachers and more than 6 million students. Local school districts will decide when they will welcome students back to physical classrooms and the state is not mandating a common opening date, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said Wednesday. But he made one thing clear: Personal protective equipment is a must. (Mays, 5/20)

The decision on how and when to reopen California’s public schools will be made by each school district, but students and teachers will likely be required to wear masks and classrooms will be sanitized several times a day, the state’s top education official said Wednesday. Superintendent of Schools Tony Thurmond made the announcement in a virtual news conference Wednesday morning, a day before he is scheduled to meet virtually with leaders from the state’s 1,000 school districts and discuss how to resume classes in the fall while continuing to battle the coronavirus outbreak. (Cabanatuan and Serrano, 5/20)

Europe has two problems when it comes to reopening schools. First, there's weighing the risks of opening the gates again against the potential damage done by keeping them closed, whether to economic recovery or mental health. Even more challenging may be convincing anxious parents that now is the time to send their children back to school. (Furlong, 5/20)

In Sangamon County in central Illinois, a father whose 10-year-old receives occupational and vision therapy at school was already concerned about how remote learning would affect his son and other students with disabilities. Then he got a letter from his son’s school district that made him worry even more. The letter asked parents to either accept the remote learning being offered, which amounted to a scaled-down version of what was provided when children were at school, or decline and acknowledge that they were “voluntarily waiving” their rights to a “free appropriate public education” and the ability to seek services from the school later. (Cohen and Richards, 5/20)

When will it be safe for children to return to the classroom? That is the question being debated from the Oval Office to the dining room table, and the implications of doing so successfully will mark a significant turning point as societies look to emerge from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. (Bruggeman and David, 5/20)