Biden’s COVID Plan for Schools

Caroline Michailoff, Editorial Director, Junior

Schools have been in a limbo for the past ten months between in-person and virtual learning. In response to this, the Biden Administration released a plan to get schools back up and running for fully in person learning for K-8 schools. With President Joe Biden only having been in office for a few days, he has already released his new proposals for the United States to get the coronavirus pandemic under control. He does this by addressing school openings, virus testing, accelerating the administering of the vaccines, and providing more funding for educational institutions. 

Biden’s first 100 days in office have a goal to administer 100 million vaccines, which would get 50 million people vaccinated. He has developed these objectives with experts in the field such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of Biden’s COVID-19 response team. 

In his first full day in office, Biden used his executive powers to direct the Department of Education as well as the Department Health and Human Services to collect national data on school closures and provide guidance on reopening. 

According to Biden’s administration, a newly formed Covid response team will, “…work to ensure that testing materials, support for contact tracing, and vaccinations for teachers are equitably provided to support in-person care and learning.”

Schools are now allowed to access the disaster relief funds from FEMA (The Federal Emergency Management Agency) for Covid-related expenses for any type of COVID protective equipment and precaution expenses. In addition, Biden called on congress to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to school and state relief funds to help districts cover budget shortfalls and provide additional resources. 

Biden is also dedicated to getting all educators vaccinated, considering them essential workers.

“Hospitals are out of beds. Businesses are closed for good. Schools are caught in between,” Biden said. “And while the vaccine provides so much hope, the rollout has been a dismal failure thus far.”