• Schools should aim to reopen for in-person, face-to-face learning with exceptions for teachers and students with health concerns.
   
• All schools should prepare for an outbreak as coronavirus remains active in the country. Instead, school districts should create a plan for reacting to outbreaks, including lining up a testing plan, isolating cases, and contact tracing. 
   
• Masks, handwashing, and social distancing must be in place, as well as additional disinfecting protocols. Previous CDC guidelines covered this in more detail.
   
• Consider "podding up," to keep smaller groups of students together throughout a day or year.
   
• Repurpose school or community spaces to create new classroom space that encourages social distancing. Outdoor spaces are another option.
   
• Schools should make reopening and closure decisions based on discussions with local health officials, as well as local levels of community transmission.*

*The CDC guidelines describe four community transmission levels, including “no to minimal transmission” and “substantial, controlled transmission,” but it is only at the “substantial, uncontrolled” fourth level that the guidelines suggest considering school closures. In other cases, it points administrators back to “mitigation strategies,” such as pods, handwashing, eliminating field trips, closing cafeterias, and other social distancing measures. Director Redfield emphasized during a press briefing related to the guidelines that "the majority of the nation have positivity rates that are less than 5%," meaning below a level he believed should result in a school closure. He also said that a single positive case in a school should not be grounds for closure.

The U.S. remains a coronavirus hot spot with a current surge of cases and hospitalizations sweeping through the southern and western states and a countrywide caseload topping more than 4 million.

"Schools are an important part of the infrastructure of communities, as they provide safe, supportive learning environments for students, employ teachers and other staff, and enable parents, guardians, and caregivers to work.  Schools also provide critical services that help to mitigate health disparities, such as school meal programs, and social, physical, behavioral, and mental health services. School closure disrupts the delivery of these critical services to children and families, and places additional economic and psychological stress on families, which can increase the risk for family conflict and violence."

It also describes studies showing that children, especially younger ones, tend to be at lower risk for COVID-19.

"Children appear to be at lower risk for contracting COVID-19 compared to adults. While some children have been sick with COVID-19, adults make up nearly 95% of reported COVID-19 cases...As of July 21, 2020, 6.6% of reported COVID-19 cases and less than 0.1% of COVID-19-related deaths are among children and adolescents less than 18 years of age in the United States….Early reports suggest the number of COVID-19 cases among children may vary by age and other factors...Data on SARS-CoV-2 transmission among children are limited."