VA Senate Passes Bill Requiring In-Person, Virtual School Options

RICHMOND, VA — The Virginia Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would require every local school system across the state to make both virtual and in-person learning available to students. Although state lawmakers are pushing to get students back into the classroom as soon as possible, the bill would not take effect until July 1.

The Senate passed the bill, SB 1303, in a 26-13 bipartisan vote. The bill was sponsored by Republican Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, who represents parts of Henrico and Hanover counties.

“We must open schools,” the Republican senator said. There is no evidence to support keeping children out of in-person school, argued Dunnavant, who warned that vulnerable children are being left behind.

The bill says that each school division must make virtual and in-person learning available to all students “by choice of the student’s parent or guardian.”

The bill garnered support from several senators who represent Northern Virginia, including Democrats John Bell, Janet Howell, Chap Petersen, Richard Saslaw and Scott Surovell and Republican Jill Holtzman Vogel.

Among the Northern Virginia senators who voted against the bill were Democrats Jennifer Boysko, who represents parts of Loudoun and Fairfax counties, Adam Ebbin, who represents parts of the city of Alexandria, Arlington County and Fairfax County, and Barbara Favola, who represents parts of Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties.

Certain school districts in Northern Virginia, including Fairfax County and Loudoun County, are planning to resume in-person learning later this month before all teachers have been vaccinated.

In response to the school district's decision to resume in-person instruction, the Loudoun Education Association said Wednesday in a statement that it believes collaboration with the community "is vital to the successful and sustained reopening for in-person learning."

"If our community truly wants schools to reopen, then they are obligated to control community spread," the teachers' group said. "We believe educators, students, and families all need a safe workplace."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention does not have figures on the number of teachers who have died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, said it knows of at least 530 teachers who have died.

Senators who opposed the bill warned about creating mandates for school districts and raised concerns about the well-being of teachers and school support staff.

"I voted against the mandate for virtual and in-person learning by July 1, 2021, because such a bill would permanently require a full-curriculum two track system that school boards would have to implement and maintain going forward,” Sen. Favola said in an email to Patch.

The authority for making decisions about in-person and virtual learning currently rests with local school boards. “And that is where the decision should remain,” Favola said.

The senator also emphasized that no additional funding was earmarked in the bill to assist with the mandate for both in-person and virtual learning, and there were no waiver options to address unique situations that certain localities may be facing.

“Access to reliable internet service is not universal in the Commonwealth and some school systems are suffering teacher shortages,” Favola said. “The state needs to assist local school boards with guidelines, scientific analysis of the pandemic and additional funding to help schools reopen as soon as possible.”

Sen. Ebbin emphasized that he wants to see students back in classrooms as soon as it is safely possible. “While I would like to see in-person instruction resume, I want it to be done safely, and I want it to be directed by the local school boards,” the senator told Patch.

“As the bill was presented, it would require in-person or virtual instruction upon request regardless of the severity of any future health emergencies,” Ebbin said.

The bill also appears to preclude the option to go fully virtual as an alternative to closing for implement weather, he said.

“It’s not that I don’t feel a sense of urgency to provide our schools with what they need to get back to in-person instruction," he explained. "But I didn’t think that bill was a solution.”

Ebbin noted that vaccinations of teachers and staff are not a prerequisite for most school districts to return to in-person learning. “However, I believe vaccinations are an important factor in addressing the concerns of staff upon returning to buildings as is evident by the high participation rates among educators so far,” he said.

Across the nation, more than 2.8 million children have tested positive for the coronavirus. In most states, children are defined as 18 years of age or younger. In some states, children are defined as 14 or under. The total number of children who have contracted the coronavirus accounts for 12.8 percent of all cases in the United States.

Fewer than 200 children in the United States have died from the coronavirus, a fraction of the 451,000 Americans who have died from the disease as of Feb. 3.

For the most part, children typically experience no symptoms or mild symptoms from the coronavirus. Studies show that children under 10 are not big spreaders of the disease, while young people in the age group 10 to 18 are slightly more apt to spread the virus. The biggest spreaders of the coronavirus in the U.S. are adults aged 20 to 49.

After schools reopened last October, an estimated 72.2 percent of infections originated from the 20-49 age group, while less than 5 percent originated from children aged 0-9 and less than 10 percent from teens aged 10-19, according to a new study in the journal Science.