SCC-CIVIC-PG Track B: Building PreK-12 School Resilience in the Face of COVID-19

PreK-12 schools reopen for in-person instruction with a set of mitigation strategies that limits transmission of the virus, including cohorting with the same small group of students, spacing between seats, staggered scheduling, creating one way routes in hallways, and closure of communal use shared spaces. However, each district and school, which has unique qualities and varying public health conditions in communities, is left on its own regarding how to implement recommended measures considering its classroom/campus settings, student population, and public health conditions in communities. The vision of this project is thus to build PreK-12 schools' resilience in the face of Covid-19, by empowering school districts to predict, monitor, and evaluate the effectiveness of their mitigation strategies to limit transmission. In particular, this project focuses on physical distancing within the educational environment (e.g., school buildings, transportation buses) as a key strategy for limiting transmission, and its long term goal is to create and validate technological and social tools that help districts and schools to predict, monitor, and enhance physical distancing behaviors of students within the education environment, in collaboration with College Station Independent School District (CSISD) in Texas.

In order to achieve its long term goal, this planning grant will develop the necessary research personnel, research infrastructure, and foundational work, by (1) creating a pilot agent-based simulation model to predict students' physical distancing behaviors; (2) conducting a survey to examine factors influencing students' preventive behaviors; and (3) coordinating community meetings and focus interviews to build an understanding of communities' needs in designing enabling technologies/tools. Ultimately, the successful completion of this project will immediately benefit educational administrators and facility managers in designing optimal operation measures considering their educational facilities and student populations. In addition, the project outcomes will provide guidance in designing and implementing behavioral interventions to enhance students' awareness and compliance to physical distancing practices. This will be critical in reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission and ensuring continuous and safe school operations.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.