São Paulo Announces Gradual Reopening Plan for Schools, Starting in September

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The governor of São Paulo, João Doria, and the Secretary of Education, Rossieli Soares, on Wednesday announced the “post-covid” plan to reopen public and private education institutions, aimed at the return of 13.5 million students to the state’s classrooms.

The plan determines that the institutions may be opened as soon as all of São Paulo’s cities complete 28 days in stage 3 (yellow) of the São Paulo plan to relax economic activities. The idea is that the resumption should occur evenly in all of São Paulo’s municipalities. To date, no municipality has reached this relaxation stage, but the government plans to reopen schools on September 8th.

“The plan is well-established, gradual, careful, and safe,” Doria said. The Secretary of Education, who introduced the protocol by videoconference because he is recovering from Covid-19, explained that the first stage of reopening will follow rules based on social distancing, personal hygiene, sanitation of environments, communication with families and monitoring symptoms. To comply with the “golden rule of 1.5 meters distancing”, as the secretary called it, the first stage will release the return of up to 35 percent of students in the state.

In this context, the Government provides for safety measures such as the organization of entrance and exit times, where everyone will need to have their temperatures checked; the resulting interdiction of people with a temperature above 37.5º C; the ban on exhibitions, lectures, and sports competitions; the rotation of breaks and recess between classes; the mandatory use of protective masks within the institution; and the individual use of water bottles or mugs. Soares pointed out that there is no state protocol prioritizing ages or grades in the initial return of 35 percent of students, as this decision will be left to each region.

The second reopening stage, which allows the return of up to 70 percent of all students in the public and private systems in São Paulo, is expected from the moment that 60 percent of municipalities record 14 consecutive days in stage 4, the green stage. Finally, the third stage, called the “new normal” by Rossieli Soares, provides for the return of 100 percent of students to in-person classes as long as 80 percent of cities reach 14 days in stage 4. If any region or municipality regresses in the stages during the resumption of education, an exception will be made to uniformity and local specificities will be addressed individually.

João Doria stressed that “education has not stopped in São Paulo”. According to him, there are currently three million students taking online classes in the state, with in-person public and private education stalled since March. Soares is concerned about the recovery of learning from students who have already been and will still be impacted by their distance from the classroom

“Our research shows that the H1N1 epidemic, which paralyzed schools for 15 days, had an impact on four points in our evaluation of state education. That is why our recovery plan is very long, until the end of 2022″, he said. The social and emotional support of students who have spent months in quarantine is provided in the plan, as well as the improvement and intensification of learning and the prevention of school dropout and evasion.

On June 16th, the University of São Paulo (USP) announced that it will implement distance learning in undergraduate and graduate courses until the end of 2020, with the second semester starting on August 18th. UNESP (São Paulo State University) and UNICAMP (University of Campinas), the other São Paulo state universities, announced that they would follow USP’s path, but all confessed that they were waiting for the São Paulo government’s guidelines and could change their strategy depending on a favorable epidemic situation.

“The universities are at the state level and aligned with our plan but, given their autonomy and peculiarities, the deans advised us that they will release their plans adjusted to each one’s reality”, said the Secretary of Economic Development, Science, and Technology, Patricia Ellen.

During the same press conference, José Henrique Germann, São Paulo’s Secretary of Health, updated the numbers of the Covid-19 pandemic in the state. São Paulo recorded 9,347 new cases, which total 238,822 since February, in addition to 284 deaths from the novel coronavirus, which adds up to 13,352 deaths. The ICU bed occupancy rate stands at 65.4 percent in the state, which represents 5,455 patients hospitalized in intensive care, in addition to 8,547 hospitalized in wards, among confirmed and suspected cases. Last Tuesday, the social isolation rate stood at 46 percent in the state.

Source: El País