São Paulo mandates full in-person classes despite student health concerns

On Wednesday, October 13th, São Paulo's state government announced a shift that would reshape the coming school year: starting Monday the 18th, every student in public and private schools would be required to attend classes in person. No more hybrid options, no more flexibility. The only exemption would be a medical note.

Thais Ayrala, seventeen years old and a senior at Escola Estadual Reverendo Jacques Orlando Caminha D'Avila on the city's south side, read the announcement and made a quiet decision. She would not go back. Her grandmother lives with her—a woman with diabetes. Her sister has respiratory problems. The math was simple to her, even if the state government saw it differently. "I never want to put the people I love at risk," she said. "I could fail the year because of this. I still prefer not to endanger my family."

She was not alone in her worry. Giovanna Moura, also seventeen and at the same school, had already felt the strain when classrooms were at seventy percent capacity. Now, with a mandate for full occupancy, she saw something approaching chaos. Her parents were in their late thirties—an age group that, statistically, had seen relatively few deaths from COVID-19, but she knew the virus did not always follow statistics. She wanted to finish her studies, to learn what her teachers were offering. But she also wanted her parents to stay alive. The conflict was not abstract.

The state's education secretary, Rossieli Soares, laid out the rules at a press conference. Students could stay home only if they had a medical justification or fell into specific categories: pregnant women or those in the postpartum period; people with underlying conditions aged twelve and up who had not completed their COVID vaccination series; children under twelve in high-risk groups or with serious health vulnerabilities. Everyone else would return to their desks.

The mandate affected roughly 3.5 million students across more than 5,400 public schools statewide. Private schools would be given time to adapt, with deadlines set by the education council. The state had already loosened distancing requirements in August, reducing the mandated space between desks from 1.5 meters to one meter. By November 3rd, even that requirement would disappear. Masks would remain mandatory for students and staff, as would hand sanitizer and protective equipment for teachers.

UNESCO weighed in to support the reopening. Marlova Noleto, the organization's representative in Brazil, pointed to the documented damage of remote learning—the connectivity problems that had left vulnerable families unable to afford data plans, the cognitive losses that distance education had inflicted on students across the country. "Nothing replaces in-person teaching," she said. The organization had been sounding alarms about the educational catastrophe unfolding in classrooms that existed only on screens.

But the Sindicato dos Professores do Ensino Oficial do Estado de São Paulo, the state teachers' union, saw the mandate as reckless. Schools lacked the staffing to maintain proper hygiene protocols. Many buildings did not have enough cleaning workers to keep surfaces sanitized. The union called the decision unnecessary, inappropriate, and dangerous.

Giovanna found herself caught between two fears. She worried about bringing the virus home to her parents. But she also worried about failing her final year—about losing the chance to graduate on time because she had refused to attend. With only two months left until she finished, she reconsidered. "Everything can change in two months with a decision like this," she said. "I'll have to go to school." Thais, meanwhile, held firm. Some risks, she believed, were worth taking.

By mid-October, São Paulo had vaccinated more than eighty percent of its adult population with a complete series. The state had administered 67.1 million doses total. Yet vaccination rates, however high, could not resolve the dilemma facing students like Thais and Giovanna—the gap between what public health policy demanded and what their own families' survival seemed to require.