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TUESDAY, June 30, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
About two-thirds of U.S. parents say they’ll send their kids to school again this fall, and most also support COVID-19<\/a> testing and social distancing policies for schoolchildren, a new survey finds.<\/p>\n Among parents, only about 12% said they would not send at least one of their kids to school, while 21% were still uncertain about their decision. Many are waiting to hear more about their schools’ plans.<\/p>\n Many parents said they had no choice but to send their children to school because they had to work.<\/p>\n For many families, a surge in COVID-19<\/a> cases would make them reconsider sending children to school, the survey found.<\/p>\n Most did support measures to safeguard kids against the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n Those measures could include fewer children on buses, daily temperature screening, alternating classroom and online learning, testing school staff and requiring staff and older kids to wear masks, researchers report.<\/p>\n For the report, researchers from the Susan B. Meister Child Health<\/a> Evaluation and Research Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, surveyed nearly 1,200 parents in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois in June.<\/p>\n “Families are facing a challenging decision regarding whether to send their children to school for in-person classes in the middle of the COVID-19<\/a> pandemic,” said researcher Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at Michigan Medicine C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.<\/p>\n “On the one hand, sending children to school could increase the risk of COVID-19<\/a> among children and family members. On the other hand, children who don’t return to in-person school may experience disruptions in their education,” Chua said. “Some families simply don’t have a choice because they need to go to work.”<\/p>\n According to the survey, 75% of parents supported daily temperature checks and testing of kids if one tested positive for COVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over 60% supported limiting the number of kids on buses, alternating between in-person and virtual classes, staggering arrival and pick-up times, and random weekly COVID-19<\/a> testing for staff.<\/p>\n Half supported random weekly COVID-19 testing of kids and having children eat meals in classrooms, not in cafeterias.<\/p>\n Most parents supported face masks for staff and middle and high school students, but not for younger children, especially kindergarten through second grade.<\/p>\n There wasn’t much support for closing playgrounds and halting all extracurricular activities.<\/p>\n “Preferences for the number and types of measures vary among parents,” Chua said in a university news release. “But they broadly agree with the notion that schools should take steps to keep children as safe as possible.”<\/p>\n — Steven Reinberg<\/p>\n ![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
Copyright \u00a9 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n
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