Schools grapple with illness stay-at-home standards amid battle against learning loss

School guidance regarding when students should stay home due to illness has become a key focus point as chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed since COVID-19, fueling learning loss.  

During the pandemic but when schools were open, educators were advising parents to keep their children home at any sign of sickness due to fear it could be COVID-19. Now, guidance is largely back to where it was pre-pandemic, but the switch is not so simple.  

Administrators and health care professionals are adamant about finding a balance between the necessity of letting sick students stay home and the consequences of children missing school. 

“I think we’re back to pre-COVID guidance, so kids — if they have had a fever in the last 24 hours, or if your kids are throwing up or have other stomach issues in the last 24 hours, stay home,” said PJ Caposey, superintendent of the Meridian Community Unit School District in Illinois.  

“If they have a sniffle or a cough, obviously during COVID, all that shifted into symptomatic and they used to stay home,” Caposey said, but now when if it is “sniffles or you have a headache” students can still come to school.

And even in a coronavirus situation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reportedly planning to drop its recommendation that a positive test requires at least five days of staying home from school or work. The new CDC guidance will recommend individuals use clinical symptoms to determine when isolation should end, such as having no fever for 24 hours without the assistance of medication, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The U.S. faced a particularly brutal respiratory virus season this winter, including surges of both COVID-19 and RSV, as well as the standard influenza. At the end of the last week, the CDC’s weekly flu tracker showed five states — Texas, South Carolina, New Mexico, Arkansas and Wyoming — had “very high” levels of influenza, while 18 others had “high” levels.

The discussion about handling sickness and keeping students in school is complicated by a fight against chronic absenteeism — typically defined by missing 10 percent of school days — which has been found to significantly compound soaring learning loss.

A tracker by the American Enterprise Institute found that in 2019, chronic absenteeism was at 15 percent nationwide. In 2022, it was up to 29 percent.

The White House has also put out data that “observed association between absenteeism and test scores is large enough to account for 16-27 percent of the overall test score declines in math, and 36-45 percent of the declines in reading.”

“Ultimately, whether chronic absenteeism is a symptom or a cause — or both — of ongoing academic disruption, the evidence is clear that the road to recovery runs through the classroom,” the White House said. 

School leaders say communication with parents is key with both combating absenteeism and updating health guidance.  

“We have done an intentional campaign with the community at large and engaging that campaign with parent meetings, board meetings, newsletters, and saying ‘attendance can’t get lost’ is one more thing that we were touting,” said Matthew Montgomery, superintendent of Lake Forest Community High School District 115 and Lake Forest Elementary School District 67 in Illinois.

“This is a national crisis, and it is the thing that the district is tackling,” Montgomery added.

Getting students back in class is of course a priority for parents, too. Caposey said that if anything, his district was “slow to get to where our community wanted to be” on stay-at-home standards.

“There wasn’t much explaining kind of going back to pre-COVID routines. I was explaining why we didn’t go back to them sooner,” he said.  

But concerned health experts argue that schools and other locations have overcorrected, becoming too relaxed in their restrictions.  

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends students not go to school if in the past 24 hours they had a fever above 101 degrees or episodes of diarrhea or vomiting. They should also stay home if they are not well enough to participate in class.  

Problems such as a runny nose, cough or slight headache where a student can still participate in class are not a cause to keep a child home, the AAP says.  

“Pediatricians can be a trusted voice and resource for families in understanding the latest science, but also considering the unique needs and circumstances of the individual child and family. Pediatricians and schools together have a great opportunity to educate, engage and empower families in making the best decisions to support their young person to thrive,” said Heidi Schumacher, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Vermont and a member of the AAP’s Council on School Health.

And schools are making efforts to become healthier environments for the students who are present, working to reduce stress while ramping up simple measures such as more hand sanitation stations.

“I think another thing that has happened with the pandemic is a huge investment in school nurses. I’ve seen many more schools have school nurses, and I think that’s something that we may want to really consider: How do we maintain that for the future?” said Hedy Chang, founder and executive director of Attendance Works, adding that when there is medical and dental care on campus, students have to leave less for appointments and illness.  

While Tim Wagner, principal of Upper St. Clair High School in Pittsburgh, recognizes in-person learning is best for students, he says his priority is always making sure students recover from illness first.

“We continually reinforce to students that being well-rested, not being ill — those things matter, and so please, please, take the time to get well. And so, we reinforce that message. A student would come to our health office and our health care staff here at the school would make assessments and collaborate with the family,” Wagner said. “So we just want our children to be well, and if they’re not, to take time they need to get well.”