The guidance will be challenging, said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association.

“At first glance, the change to three-feet distance for students in classrooms will be particularly challenging for large urban school districts and those that have not yet had access to the resources necessary to fully implement the very COVID-19 mitigation measures that the CDC says are essential to safe in-person instruction, no matter how far apart students in classrooms are,” she said…

“We are so close to being able to ensure that all our schools can be so much safer,” Pringle said. “But as public health officials have rightly cautioned, in the face of new variants and a race to make vaccinations widely available, this is not the time to let down our guard.”