The COVID-19 pandemic has changed virtually every aspect of life at school, at home, and in the community, and has highlighted the critical relationship between health and education. School closures have impacted 91% of students worldwide. The Rales Center has developed resources and materials for a variety of audiences below.
School Re-Opening in the Era of COVID-19
Public health principles and practices for school districts
Rales Center Team partners to offer a series of seven web-based learning modules that provide U.S. school & district officials with best practices to reduce COVID-19 risks for kids, teachers, and staff during in-person learning. These educational modules focus on a range of best practices and guidance on topics such as masking, distancing, ventilation, and creating cohorts of students, as well as screening and testing approaches. Access the modules here: https://schoolhealth.jhu.edu/covid19_resources/modules/
Topics include:
- How COVID-19 is transmitted in schools
- How to implement public health mitigation strategies like face coverings, distancing, and cohorting
- COVID-19 screening types and strategies
- COVID-19 testing strategies
- Monitoring COVID-19 inside and outside of school, including data schools need to track
- Communicating with stakeholders about COVID-19
The Rales Center’s Response to COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the critical relationship between health and education. The Rales Center approach, in which health professionals and educators work collaboratively, allowed our team to pivot quickly to support student and staff well-being during distance learning. Our report The Rales Center during COVID-19: Implications for best practices in health and educational integration is now available. We highlight three areas:
- The role of integrated school health and education during COVID-19
- How school health can support students during distance learning
- Innovations and best practices developed for distance learning can they translate to in-person school?
Rales Center Technical Assistance
The Rales Center team has worked collaboratively with KIPP Baltimore to meet the health and social needs of KIPP students during the pandemic. The Rales Health Center has provided telehealth visits, school nurses check on students with health needs, our family advocate helps to connect families with needed resources, and our Wellness Team has developed socio-emotional learning curricula that can be delivered remotely. The Rales Health Center is also offering immunizations to students across the District to make sure that every student is fully immunized in advance of the 2020-21 school year.
Alongside our work in partnership with KIPP Baltimore, Rales Center experts have provided local, national, and international technical assistance for school re-opening. Areas of expertise include public health mitigation strategies to reduce COVID-19 transmission, scientific communication and risk assessment, screening and testing algorithms and best practices, and the role of school-based health centers and school nurses in the pandemic response. See our “news” section for media interviews, webinars, and other work in this area.