WASHINGTON, D.C. (KRON) – Some school officials in Washington, D.C. are considering shifting indoor classrooms outside this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The consideration comes after a similar model achieved success in Denmark, which became one of the first countries in Europe to reopen primary schools and daycare – with new health and safety guidelines- after several weeks on lockdown.
The Local reported in May that school schedules were changed to keep classroom sizes small, with an emphasis on outside learning.
“The morning is spent doing maths or science, where we include children who are still at home via Zoom,” Claire Astley, a teacher at a school in Vester Skernige, told The Loca. “Then we’ll go outside and do activities like digging in the school garden, getting tadpoles from the lake or going on bike tours to the forest or beach. We don’t tell the children off if they get too close to each other. We let them be kids.”
Health officials have said that the chances of COVID-19 infection decrease outdoors because it’s easier to maintain social distancing outside, and the virus has to navigate the elements of heat, wind, and humidity between people.
EmpowerEd, an organization that seeks to enhance and improve the self-advocacy of low- and moderate-income D.C. residents, has launched a petition for school leaders to consider outdoor education.
“You can really have equity of access by using public parks, by using outdoor space, by closing streets around our schools to make sure that all schools have access to be able to use that,” Scott Goldstein of EmpowerED told WUSA. “The more space you have, the more creative you can be about things like inclement weather.”
Here in the Bay Area, most schools will continue distance learning in the fall, or combine a mix of distance learning and limited time physically in the classroom, with proper health safety measures in place.
Latest Stories: