Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) praised the CDC’s recommendation that students can be 3 feet apart. | Courtesy Photo
Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) praised the CDC’s recommendation that students can be 3 feet apart. | Courtesy Photo
A congressman from Illinois is hailing the benefits of a recent update about how in-person schooling should be conducted in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.) touted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance that students in kindergarten through grade 12 should keep at least 3 feet apart in classrooms, a decrease from 6 feet.
The CDC also recommended that universal mask-wearing should still continue.
"This is good news. Full-time, in-person learning is critical to our children's education and mental health," LaHood said in a March 19 post on his Facebook page.
The CDC based the new recommendation on a recent study looking at the impact of students' physical distancing in elementary, middle and high school students.
The 3-feet recommendation, however, should not be applied to all situations, the CDC said.
"Middle school students and high school students should be at least 6 feet apart in communities where transmission is high if cohorting is not possible," the CDC press release said. "Cohorting is when groups of students are kept together with the same peers and staff throughout the school day to reduce the risk for spread throughout the school."
The Illinois State Board of Education's and the Illinois Department of Public Health's Revised Public Health Guidance for Schools included the new social distance guidelines, ISBE's March 9 Facebook post said.
"Social distance for in-person learning is now defined as 3 to 6 feet for students and fully vaccinated staff," ISBE's Facebook post said. "Maintaining 6 feet remains the safest distance, but schools can operate at no less than 3 feet in order to provide in-person learning. Unvaccinated staff should maintain 6 feet social distance as much as possible because adults remain more susceptible to infection than children."
The CDC is not recommending the new social distancing guidelines for every school, Erin Christine pointed out in response to LaHood's March 19 Facebook post.
"It's dependent upon community spread of COVID," Christine said. "It's also important to recognize that while full-time in-person school is better for some children, it's worse for some and not much different for others."
As of March 22, 359,887 students were participating in in-person learning out of nearly 2 million students in Illinois schools.
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