U.S. Schools Are Short Two Things for the Reopen: Staff and Cash
- Budgets to shrink, layoffs mount even as virus adds new costs
- Most districts shun full in-classroom reopening urged by Trump
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Getting students safely back into the classrooms during a pandemic means taking the kind of measures –- like shrinking class sizes, adding bus routes and providing computers to families who don’t have them –- that call for extra staff and money.
But it looks like America’s schools will have to manage with less of both. Even before Covid-19 struck, staff levels hadn’t recovered from the last recession. Now, hundreds of thousands more jobs have disappeared -- and there’s probably more to come.