Pentagon Closing Half Its Classrooms…

WASHINGTON—The Defense Department will offer in-person instruction at half of its U.S.-based schools and all of its schools in Europe during the coming academic year, a recognition of the difference in progress the U.S. and Europe have made in curbing the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision, announced Thursday, is the result of a monthslong assessment of which schools were safe to open and what criteria the military would use to make the decision. Schools assessed to pose a low risk of transmitting coronavirus would be allowed to open as early as this month, military officials said.

“My priority is to open schools in a safe environment for our children, our staff and our teachers,” Department of Defense Education Activity Director Thomas M. Brady told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday. “The continuity of education is important. The best education is face to face in a classroom and so our priority is to open every classroom that we can safely.”

More than 5.1 million Americans have been infected with Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, and 165,000 have died from the virus, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

President Trump has pushed states and local communities to reopen schools for in-person instruction, seeing it as a way to boost the economy and ease a return to normalcy in the country.