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Anxiety over the uncertainties of going back to school or participating in sports or other extracurricular activities is hitting young people in the gut. Children’s Health in Dallas is currently seeing an increase in patients with stomach issues, including chronic diarrhea and constipation, caused by high levels of anxiety. (Tarrant, 8/18)

Parents across America are facing the pandemic school year feeling overwhelmed, anxious and abandoned. With few good options for support, the vast majority have resigned themselves to going it alone, a new survey for The New York Times has found. Just one in seven parents said their children would be returning to school full time this fall, and for most children, remote school requires hands-on help from an adult at home. (Cain Miller, 8/19)

Nearly 12 million grade-schoolers will be learning remotely this fall, and that number is expected to keep growing. It's a major source of stress for America's working parents. Some who can afford it are turning to an option called learning pods. (Evans, 8/18)

A long-time public health adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio warned Tuesday that sending kids back to school in the fall could accelerate a second wave of the coronavirus, as City Hall tries to manage the herculean task of partially reopening schools come September. New York City, once the national epicenter of the coronavirus crisis, has maintained low Covid-19 transmission rates since June. But public health experts are girding for a resurgence when temperatures drop this fall and more people stay indoors. (Eisenberg, 8/18)

With three weeks to go until schools reopen, the state is addressing one of the major issues families are trying to resolve for the school year: child care on remote learning days. Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French said Tuesday that 46 of the state's 60 school districts have announced plans for a hybrid learning model where students would attend school for two or four days and have remote learning for the remaining days of the week. He also said three districts have announced plans to go fully remote. (Barton, 8/18)

Kentucky schools will be given 24 hours to communicate any positive COVID-19 cases to families before those numbers are reported publicly, Kentucky's chief public health official said Tuesday. Dr. Steven Stack said schools will be expected to work with their local health departments to identify cases, but it will be up to the schools themselves — not the health departments — to contact all those potentially affected. (McLaren, 8/18)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his administration are doubling (or tripling?) down on opening schools during the coronavirus pandemic and keeping them open even when cases of the disease are diagnosed. On a phone call with school district superintendents late last week, Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran urged them to be “surgical” when dealing with covid-19 cases, as opposed to “sweeping” — and told them not to close a school without calling state officials first to discuss it. (Strauss, 8/18)

This isn't the first time leaders have struggled with deciding whether to keep schools open in a pandemic. During the influenza pandemic in 1918, even though the world was a very different place, the discussion was just as heated. That pandemic killed an estimated 5 million people worldwide, including 675,000 Americans, before it was all over. While the vast majority of cities closed their schools, three opted to keep them open -- New York, Chicago and New Haven, according to historians. (Waldrop, 8/19)