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In reply to the discussion: All K-12 schools in Pennsylvania shut down for 2 weeks amid coronavirus outbreak [View all]BumRushDaShow
(146,823 posts)And one of the problems is that the state fiscal year ends June 30, so that has been their "hard" date where schools cannot be held past that date until the regular "new" school year starts AFTER a budget is passed and implemented... (I guess unless they pass some legislation to delay it, which has happened in the past, although in this circumstance they might also require a change in the state Constitution, which has its own set of criteria to execute). And as it is, they are already fretting about how to even deal with the state budget process given the current events.
You also have the issue where most of the urban areas in the state have families without internet access and/or computers to go online. There has been some movement thanks to philanthropic gestures, where there is now an effort to purchase chromebooks for Philly public school children who have no at-home computer (latest was an attempt to purchase 50,000 of them). But then that also means getting internet hookups to those households (Comcast has indicated that they would offer 3 months of their "Internet Essentials" service to those in need but not sure of all the details for that either).
And with respect to holding school in the summer - probably 70% of the schools have no air-conditioning. The idiot School Superintendent who came here from wealthy Prince George's County, MD, had no clue and "assumed" that the schools here were new or recent construction like down there, whereas there are dozens and dozens that are in century-old piece of junk buildings that were old and piece of junk even when I was going to them 50 years ago. They "tested" opening schools the week before Labor Day the year before last and ended up closing the schools 4 of the 5 days (with that one day a half day) due to a heatwave and few schools with any AC - or even window units. Alumni orgs of some schools were even purchasing window ACs for their school (where the article notes "40% without AC" but that was a School Superintendent WRONG assumption - it was 70+%) and attempts last year to buy more had to stop due to lack of money.
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