As COVID-19 spreads, most states have laws that address how schools should respond to pandemics

UPDATED March 20, 2020: This resource has been updated to include and reflect a regulation adopted by the state of Montana in January 2020 that LexisNexis and WestLaw had not yet included in their databases. As noted below, recently passed legislation and regulation may not have been captured in our initial search. If there are other regulations or statutes that you feel are missing from this compendium, please email dtemkin@childtrends.org. 

The COVID-19 outbreak has led schools across the country to assess their level of preparedness for a pandemic. Forty-nine states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have statutes and/or regulations that govern how schools or school districts should respond to a disease outbreak. This resource from Child Trends and EMT Associates, Inc. provides the text of state statutes and regulations—as well as noncodified guidance from state health and education agencies—that relates to pandemic planning for schools. This tool is designed as a resource for educators, policymakers, and general audiences to learn more about pandemic planning for schools within their states; it is not designed to provide a comprehensive analysis of these policies.

There is significant variation in the prescriptiveness and content of state/territorial statutes and regulations. The vast majority of state policies touch on the following areas:

• Mandatory notification by the school to the health department when a student is suspected of having a contagious disease
• Authorizations to exclude students from school and guidelines related to when they can be readmitted
• Authorization for school closures
• Provisions for teacher paid time off or paid medical leave in the event of school closures
• Provisions for how schools can adjust attendance calculations for state and federal accountability purposes and/or adjust school schedules by adding days or hours

Several states have language requiring schools to develop plans or policies to address aspects of a contagious disease outbreak. However, fewer states have more comprehensive plan requirements that address issues, such as disease prevention, emergency procurement and staffing, flexible or remote instruction, or students’ access to services when schools are closed—for example, Oregon’s law establishing a “Pandemic-related Supplemental Nutrition Program” to provide food for students who otherwise would receive free meals at school. Examples of states with more comprehensive plans include, but are not limited to, Georgia, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia.