Coronavirus and School Closures

As things currently stand VA staff are on a 60 day travel ban effective today. If you have compliance surveys scheduled with VA employees please be watching your email and/or phone messages for contact regarding those surveys.  Our national ELR/ECSS conference next month has also been postponed so some of the issues that I mentioned yesterday that I had hoped to receive additional guidance on at that conference will also be on hold.

VA Central Office has advised the following:

NOTE: Due to the new relaxed rules in place for determining when a hybrid course is considered resident training, if a course were to change from resident to online after the first day of a term those CH33 students’ BAH payment would not be affected as only one standard class session is required for resident training.  If a course changes to solely online before the first day of a term VA only has the legal authority to pay the online rate.

A Natural Disaster was issued several years ago by VA Central Office that takes into account the CFR quoted above and that Procedural Advisory is still in place.  Unless additional/different guidance is issued VA will follow that Procedural Advisory for Coronavirus related closures.  If a school temporarily closes due to a natural disaster the CFR allows VA to continue to pay students who continue to attend classes through the end of the term or up to 28 days, whichever occurs first.

If a school is closed more than 28 days those closures must be reported.

VA management has stated that if you have students who are participating in a Study Abroad program who are sent home due to the Coronavirus that VA Central Office will be handling those inquiries.  If you have a student in that situation please let me know and I will forward that inquiry to VACO.