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Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said Sunday that the country is at a “fork in the road” when it comes to opening schools amid a resurgent coronavirus wave. “We're clearly at a fork in the road in this country,” Cardona said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “You're either going to help students be in school in-person and be safe, or the decisions you make will hurt students. While I understand the argument around not wanting to wear masks because we're fatigued, without question student safety and staff safety come first.” (Greene, 8/8)

The head of the country’s second-largest teachers union said Sunday that COVID-19 vaccines should be required for educators before they return to the classroom. “As a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates and all their vaccine policies,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, to NBC’s “Meet the Press.” (Salo, 8/8)

Pediatric hospitals are filling up with children in the latest COVID surge. Children's hospitals in Tennessee will be completely full by the end of this week, the health department projected, and the number of children admitted to a Jacksonville, Florida, hospital in July was more than four times the number admitted in June. In Austin, Texas, kids with symptomatic COVID-19 are also coming in sicker, with more serious symptoms than previous waves of the disease. "It shouldn't be happening," said Dr. Meena Iyer, chief medical officer at Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas. (Aspegren, 8/9)

Several metro Atlanta school districts returned to in-person learning last week amid the surge of the Delta variant in Georgia. The Cobb County School district has confirmed over 185 cases of COVID-19 just one week into the school year. Gwinnett County Schools reported 166 cases over the course of just two school days, according to official reports from the district. (8/7)

As young people across the country prepare to return to school, many are struggling to recover from lingering post-Covid neurological, physical or psychiatric symptoms. Often called “long Covid,” the symptoms and their duration vary, as does the severity. Studies estimate long Covid may affect between 10 percent and 30 percent of adults infected with the coronavirus. Estimates from the handful of studies of children so far range widely. At an April congressional hearing, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, cited one study suggesting that between 11 percent and 15 percent of infected youths might “end up with this long-term consequence, which can be pretty devastating in terms of things like school performance.” (Belluck, 8/8)

The University of Virginia is requiring everyone on campus to wear face masks indoors starting Monday in the wake of rising coronavirus infections from a highly contagious variant. ... Virginia Tech also announced late last week that all instructors and students will have to wear face coverings in classrooms and laboratories when classes begin Aug. 23. (8/8)

Gov. Brian Kemp Friday defended his decision not to impose mask-wearing or vaccination mandates on Georgians to stem the latest surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths. “I don’t believe we need to have a dictatorship in government telling what local school systems need to do, what private businesses need to do, what nonprofits need to do, or what individuals should do,” Kemp said during an appearance at Ball Ground Elementary School in Cherokee County to mark the start of a new school year. “Individuals need to make the best decision they can.” (Williams, 8/6)

Texas schools are not required to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing in the event that an individual tests positive, according to new guidance from the Texas Education Agency. Schools are required to report positive cases to their local health departments, but the TEA said contract tracing is not required because data suggested that transmission rates in classrooms and between children are low. (Gonzalez, 8/7)

School districts, local officials and hospitals are pushing back on Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order barring mask and vaccine mandates, setting the stage for legal showdowns over coronavirus safety measures just as cases are surging in Texas and hospitals are filling up. Houston ISD signaled its intention to require face coverings when students return this month. The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston requested an exemption to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for staff, but was denied. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins required face masks at a meeting this week; he’s now being sued. Abbott, a Republican facing reelection in 2022, shows no sign he will change course. At a conference in Dallas this week, he declared that going forward “there will not be any government imposed shutdowns or mask mandates.” (Morris, 8/6)