The Digital Platform for Community Events

Contact:

Dennis Roche

President

Dennis@burbio.com

Direct: 212-729-3611

www.Burbio.com

In Reversal, More Than 60% of U.S. K-12 Public School Students Will Be Attending Schools With In-Person Options By Election Day

Over Twenty Percentage Point Increase Since Labor Day, Led by Sun Belt “Traditional In-Person” and “Hybrid” Options in the Northeast 

Dramatic Differences Across States; Large Districts Beginning to Shift Back

October 21st, 2020 – More than 60% of US K-12 public school students will be attending schools that offer in-person learning by Election Day, up from only 38% at Labor Day, according to an ongoing audit conducted by Burbio.com, a data service that aggregates school and community calendars nationwide.  Specifically, 35.7% of students will be attending schools offering traditional, in-person learning every day while 26.5% will be attending schools that offer a hybrid schedule of 2-3 in-person days per week.  Just 37.8% of students will be attending schools that only offer virtual learning, a drop of almost 25% from the 62% “virtual-only” figure at Labor Day.   A national overview of the data can be found at Burbio's School Opening Tracker.  

“During September we saw many districts in the Sun Belt who postponed in-person starts in August due to rising Covid cases introduce in-person learning,” said Burbio co-founder Julie Roche.  “That trend of Sun Belt openings has continued into October, but we have also seen districts across the Northeast and Midwest introduce more in-person learning after a virtual-only start.” 

Fourteen states have over 90% of their students attending schools offering either traditional or hybrid learning, concentrated across the South and the Rockies.    Conversely, states with over 90% of their students attending virtual-only schools are concentrated in the West and Middle Atlantic, including California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia. 

Traditional, in-person every day learning is the preferred method of learning in the Sun Belt with Texas, Florida and Arizona being the only US states having over 75% of their students attending schools offering every day in-person instruction.  In the Northeast, hybrid is the preferred form with New York, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, and West Virginia joining Idaho as the states with over 60% of their students attending schools with hybrid learning formats. 

Covid-related closures have yet to move the indexes as they generally consist of individual schools reverting to a virtual model for only a short period.   That said, New York recently closed groups of schools for an extended period due to community-wide COVID levels being too high, as did schools in Lowell, MA, and St. Cloud, MN, a trend if widespread through the winter will have an effect on the indices.   Further, various districts across the country are struggling to introduce in-person learning for the first time due to community wide COVID thresholds that must be met, putting a brake on school openings.  

In general, districts that offer in-person learning also offer a virtual-option and the “opt-out” figures vary widely, the highest being found in urban districts and often varying across grade levels.  As the first quarter ends in schools that started in August, some districts in Texas are eliminating the virtual option for all but health-hardship cases, stating concerns about educational progress. 

The approach to re-opening in-person learning can include returning younger students to the classroom for the first week or two followed by older students.  Some districts employ mixed models in which K-5 students attend school every day while middle and high school students attend 2-3 days a week.   There have been very few districts converting from an all hybrid approach to traditional in-person; the few examples involve only K-5 students. 

The 200 largest school districts in the US started the year predominantly virtually and have made a shift towards in-person learning since August, as 57% of all students in those districts now attend either traditional or hybrid learning versus 43% virtual.   The in-person numbers are driven by county-run districts in the South as most urban districts outside of NYC are still virtual-only. 

“Since late August, we have seen districts follow through on transitions to in-person plans and we expect that to continue,” said Roche, noting Burbio’s Election Day projections include planned returns in places such as North Carolina and Virginia.   “We see very few projected in-person returns between mid-November and January 1st and anticipate that future transitions will be slow due to the more conservative approaches to Covid mitigation in the remaining districts.   The transition to a normal school year across the US is quite far away, in particular when you take into account that hybrid-learning is not the optimal educational approach so transitions from hybrid to traditional still need to occur.”   

Burbio’s data set consists of more than 80,000 K-12 school calendars across all 50 states and is dynamically updated as events are added or changed.  For this initiative, Burbio audits 1,200 districts, including the 200 largest school districts in the U.S.  District plans are reviewed every 72 hours to identify changes and percentages are weighted to reflect the mix of larger and smaller district student populations to calculate local and national percentages.

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About the Methodology

 Margin for error is 2.73% at 95% confidence level.  For detailed methodology visit https://about.burbio.com/methodology/ or email dennis@burbio.com

Contact:

Dennis Roche

President

Dennis@burbio.com

Direct: 212-729-3611

www.Burbio.com

In Continued Rise More Than 60% of U.S. K-12 Public School Students Starting School “Virtually” This Fall 

An Increase of Ten Percentage Points Versus Early August as Large Districts Reverse In-Person Learning Plans

NYC Pushes Start Date Back While Sticking to Hybrid Plan: Less Than 20 Percent of Students Attending School In-Person Daily

September 2nd, 2020 – More than 60% of US K-12 public school students will be attending school remotely to start the school year, up from an estimated of 52% in early August  according to a comprehensive and ongoing survey conducted by Burbio.com, a data service that aggregates school and community calendars nationwide.  Specifically, 62% of students are projected to be learning online to start the year, 37% will be attending in-person either every day or certain days of the week, and just under 1% of students are in school districts that still haven’t finalized plans.   A national overview of the data can be found at Burbio's School Opening Tracker.  

“We continue to see a shift to online learning from previously announced or mandated in-person plans,” noted Burbio co-founder Julie Roche,  noting that districts such as Hawaii, Dallas, Boston as well as  mid-size communities throughout the NY region walked back existing in person plans.   “As start dates got closer districts decided they weren’t ready to bring students in the classroom.”

New York City, the nation’s largest district, on Tuesday pushed its start date back to September 21st while maintaining plans for hybrid learning.   Schools have now started in most of the country. Future changes in the data will be driven by districts that have already opened making changes in one direction or the other.  

Of the 37% of districts having in person learning, 19% are attending school every day and 18% will be attending a hybrid format where students only attend on certain days.  

Even as the majority of changes in the Burbio study involve a shift to virtual learning from in-person, several districts are making transitions in the other direction.   Orange County, FL, and Killeen TX, schools have already transitioned to in-person learning after a remote start.    Burbio estimates over 11 million students across the US are currently attending school in-person either every day or certain days of the week.

“Schools in the Sun Belt shifting to in-person from virtual are an interesting trend,” added Roche. “If they can make a successful transition, we expect to see more changes like that in the month of September.   Many of the districts who postponed in-person plans in late August set goals to start in-person learning early in the Fall.  It’s going to be a very fluid across the US as districts learn what they are comfortable with.”

Burbio’s data set consists of more than 80,000 K-12 school calendars across all 50 states and is dynamically updated as events are added or changed.  For this initiative, Burbio actively monitors districts representing over 35,000 schools, including the 200 largest school districts in the U.S.  District plans are reviewed every 72 hours to identify changes.  School districts in the data set are a mix of sizes and distributed nationally in such a way to represent local decision-making across the country.

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About the Methodology

 Margin for error is 2.73% at 95% confidence level.  For detailed methodology visit https://about.burbio.com/methodology/ or email dennis@burbio.com

Contact:

Dennis Roche

President

Dennis@burbio.com

Direct: 212-729-3611

www.Burbio.com

More Than 50% of U.S. K-12 Public School Students Will Be

Going Back to School “Virtually” This Fall 

“Fully Remote” Becomes the New Normal and Reveals Continued Disruption of Public Education Due to Covid-19

Largest Districts and Urban Areas Are Most Affected; One Fourth of Students Attending School Every Day 

August 11th, 2020 –  More than 50% of US K-12 public school students will be attending school remotely to start the school year, according to a comprehensive, ongoing survey conducted by Burbio.com, a data service that aggregates school and community calendars nationwide.  Specifically, 52% of students are projected to be learning online to start the year, 44% will be attending in-person either every day or certain days of the week, and 4% of students are in school districts that haven’t finalized plans.

“We have seen a dramatic shift to online only learning in the past three weeks,” said Burbio co-founder Julie Roche.   “Large districts such as Chicago, and Sun Belt cities such as Houston and Miami along with large suburban districts such as Fairfax County Virginia were all setting plans to return with in-person learning and shifted to fully remote.”  

Burbio’s data set consists of more than 80,000 K-12 school calendars across all 50 states and is dynamically updated as events are added or changed.  For this initiative, Burbio actively monitors districts representing over 35,000 schools, including the 200 largest school districts in the U.S.  District plans are reviewed every 72 hours to identify changes.  School districts in the data set are a mix of sizes and distributed nationally in such a way to represent local decision-making across the country.   

Size of district is a big factor in the approach districts are taking.  The 200 largest districts are 66% virtual.    The survey assumes New York City, the largest school district in the country, holds in-person schooling as announced and recently approved by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.   

Breaking down the 44% in-person, approximately 19% of students nationally will be attending a hybrid format where students only attend certain days.  Twenty five percent will go to school daily, meaning one quarter of K-12 public school students in the country will be attending school every day to start the year.  

“We expect this situation to stay fluid for the entire academic year and we will continue to measure it,” said Roche.   “Many districts have thresholds for Covid-19 levels that could result in converting back to remote learning. Other districts are planning to revisit the ‘on-line’ decision as soon as September and could convert to in-person models.”

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About the Methodology

Margin for 2.73% at 95% confidence level.  For detailed methodology visit about.burbio.com/methodology or email dennis@burbio.com

Contact:

Dennis Roche

President

Dennis@burbio.com

Direct: 212-729-3611

www.Burbio.com

Burbio “Community Activity Index” Shows Smaller States and

Counties Re-Opening Fastest

Oregon and Rhode Island Join South Dakota, Idaho, and Utah as “most open”

Chambers and Government Sponsored Activities Opening First

June 23rd, 2020 –   As the US reopening accelerates post-lockdowns, it is less populated states and counties that are leading the way in opening up in-person community life for residents, according to Burbio.com’s Community Activity Index, which measures in-person community life across over 150,000 community groups in all 50 states. 

Burbio’s index, which is updated daily based on real-time activity,  measures community life across five areas in every county in the US:  Chambers of Commerce, government, libraries, arts and recreation, and civic and volunteer organization, scoring each county based on the level of activity and then population weighting the counties to get indices at the state and national level.   

Nationally, the index sits at 20.8, having been at zero in late May, up from 15.9 seven days ago.  The states with the highest indexes are South Dakota (50.4), Rhode Island (47.1), Idaho (45.7)  Utah (41.2), and Oregon (38.3)   The lowest are Kentucky (6.1), Maryland (7.7) Montana (8.3),  Hawaii (8.4) and New York (8.9).  The District of Columbia sits at zero.  

The average index of the ten lowest population states is 24.2 while the average of the ten largest population states is 18.7.  The “small versus big” trend can be seen at the county level, as well, with counties over 1MM in population having an average index of only 16.5, counties from 500,000 to 1MM averaging 19.9  and those with populations between 250,000 and 500,000 averaging 26.2.

Nationally, Chambers of Commerce have the highest activity levels of all the sub-groups, along with government activities, driven by things like street fairs, markets, and youth activities.   Libraries are the lowest “open” category; only a handful across the country having in person events as most libraries introduced “virtual” programming during the lockdown and are not reopening as quickly. 

“We expect the trend of smaller states and counties being more ‘open’ to continue over the course of the summer as these tend to be areas where the COVID-19 had less impact,” said Burbio co-founder Julie Roche. “That said, larger metro areas are starting to open up so we should see the gap narrow.”   

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Contact:

Dennis Roche

President

Dennis@burbio.com

Direct: 212-729-3611

www.Burbio.com

Burbio Announces “Community Activity Index” to

Measure Local Life Post-COVID-19 Lockdowns

South Dakota and Utah are Highest State Indexes

Counties in Texas, South Carolina and Wisconsin most “open”

“Zeros”  for NYC, LA, Chicago

June 10th, 2020 –  Burbio.com, the  industry leader in aggregating community event information for digital media, consumers and civic partners, today announced the launch of a Community Activity Index that measures in-person community event activity as the country emerges from the COVID-19 lockdowns.

“As stay-at-home orders took hold across the US, in-person activity for local government, non-profit and community groups came to a halt along with things like going to restaurants and movie theaters,” said Julie Roche, Burbio co-founder. “Many groups moved to virtual offerings, but now we are seeing the re-emergence of traditional community activities.”

Burbio’s technology reads source sites for over 150,000 school, government, library, art, volunteer, and civic organizations from all 50 states.  For the Community Activity Index, Burbio measures library, government, chamber of commerce, arts & recreation, and civic & volunteer groups at the county level and calculates an index on a 0-100 scale based on the level of groups having live events.  The county-level indices are population weighted to create state and national level indices.  All indices are updated daily based on live events being announced. 

Burbio’s national index was zero as of Memorial Day as only a handful of local Chambers and scattered community organizations were active.   Since then the index has grown to 11.4% and is growing daily. Chambers and government sponsored recreation programs for children have been the fastest growing categories, and life has emerged fastest in less populated areas of the country. 

States with the highest overall index are South Dakota (46.7), Utah (30.3) and Idaho (27.3).  At the county level, Kendall and Comal County, TX, are tied with blocks of counties in Wisconsin, South Carolina and South Dakota as the most “active” in the country.     

As expected, the lowest scores for community life – zero – are concentrated in regions hit hardest by the virus and/or with the strictest lockdowns.  In addition to NYC, Cook County (Chicago), LA County, San Francisco County, and King County (Seattle) are at zero, as well as many of their surrounding suburban counties.    

“These numbers are a measure of community health,” said Roche.  “Engaging with these institutions is the way residents support their communities and socialize with neighbors.  They act as a source of mental and physical well being for everyone from children to senior citizens, and are a source of economic vitality.”

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Contact:

Dennis Roche

President

Dennis@burbio.com

Direct: 212-729-3611

www.Burbio.com

Burbio Announces Virtual and Online Event Resource Featuring Community Content From Across the US

April 30, 2020 - Burbio.com, the industry leader in aggregating community event information for digital media, consumers and civic partners, today announced the launch of a virtual events resource featuring a database of tens of thousands of virtual and online programs from local community organizations across the United States.

“As stay-at-home orders took hold across the US, traditional local life as we know it came to a halt,” said Julie Roche, Burbio co-founder. “After a few days, we noticed a transformation in the way community organizations engaged and entertained residents as they introduced a wide variety of creative and engaging virtual programming.”

Burbio tracks public event information across all 50 states from over 100,000 library, arts, government, volunteer, and recreation organizations - plus K-12 schools - automatically updating for changes and additions. The Burbio.com website and mobile app allow consumers to follow important local calendars, sync personal calendars, and receive updates via email about changes and upcoming activities. Burbio also delivers content to digital media and civic partners to keep residents informed.

With this new feature, Burbio.com users can search for online events from groups in their towns or nationwide, by interest, as well as events running at a specific time or always available. Programming is wide ranging, from virtual tours of national parks, foreign countries, and monuments, to exercise and meditation, foreign language instruction, art history, book club discussions, open mic nights, story times, zookeeper discussions, children story times, and music and singalong events led by local performers.  

“It was both fun and inspiring to see all the energy and innovation that went into all this great programming appearing – much of it literally overnight,” said Roche. “We fully expect in-person community life to resume in the coming weeks and months, but we also think that many of the great innovations around remote programming that have been developed will continue long after this crisis has past.”

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