With no actual plan or fact-based methodology, Trump thinks he can bully states to fully reopen schools without a care for the health or well-being of students, teachers, staff, their families or communities. He is once again projecting onto others the charge that governors, local officials, educators who refuse are only doing it to make him look bad (along with the 184,000 people who died to hurt his election), when the reality is that the only reason he wants schools reopened is to project the notion that the devastating coronavirus is conquered, the doors to economic growth flung open.
“The Dems think it would be bad for them politically if U.S. schools open before the November Election, but it is important for the children & families. May cut off funding if not open!” Trump tweeted.
Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Education Secretary Betsy Devos dismissed the CDC guidelines as too onerous and costly, indicating they are merely “suggestions,” and are pressuring the already politicized center to change the guidelines to accommodate their political objectives. This is despite the fact that one-fourth of all teachers are in that vulnerable demographic and it is not yet known to what extent children can be asymptomatic spreaders.
“In the end it’s not a matter of if schools will open but how,” Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said. “They must fully open.”
Did Trump or his imbecile of an Education Secretary Devos offer any guidelines, best practices, or, gasp, resources (PPE, money for teaching aides or to convert spaces into classrooms, make structural improvements to promote safety or even provide thermometers)? Of course not
As Lily Garcia, president of the National Education Association, the country’s biggest teachers’ union, said on NPR, “Why was it so easy when it was Shake Shack that needed extra money? … And now it’s a public school at a time when our funding sources, the taxes that fund us, have fallen off a cliff. We are looking at upwards of a million teachers and support staff being laid off. And something that was going to be very difficult to do is now impossible.”
Trump needs schools to reopen to serve as child care so parents can go back to work, getting down the unemployment numbers and boosting GDP. But like so much of the specious claims the Trump administration makes, schools can’t reopen in places where coronavirus is rampant because workplaces would also be in some state of lockdown. You can’t get the economy going if you don’t secure public health. But the federal government has no legal authority to withhold funding for schools despite Trump’s threats.
“School reopenings are a state decision, period. That is the law, and that is the way we’re going to proceed,” asserted Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “And this is a redux because he poses a false choice, and that he’s posed the false choice that is one of the reasons this nation is now in the situation that it’s in.”
He continued, “Everybody wants the schools open. School reopening also ties to the economic reopening because you can’t really reopen the economy fully if you have the schools closed. Schools are important, not just for education, socialization of young people, we don’t even know what this means to have kids who are out of school for this period of time. So, yes, we all want to open schools. But we want it to be safe.”
Cuomo, whose science-based approach to controlling COVID has proved successful while Trump and the Republicans’ method has so tragically failed is applying the same data-driven process as he did to the phased reopening to reopening schools across the state: Schools in a region can reopen if that region is in Phase IV of reopening and if its daily infection rate remains below 5 percent or lower using a 14-day average since unPAUSE was lifted. Schools will close if the regional infection rate rises above 9 percent, using a seven-day average, after Aug. 1. The state will make the formula determination during the week of Aug. 1-7. (See finalized guidance and guiding principles for reopening schools: https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/governor.ny.gov/files/atoms/files/Pre-K_to_Grade_12_Schools_MasterGuidence.pdf).
Cuomo left the specifics of how school districts would function – virtual, in class or hybrid – up to the school districts. Plans to reopen schools are due on July 31.
And while the decision to open schools, just as to re-open the economy, must be at the state and local level, the federal government (if we had a functioning one) has a vital role to play:
• Federal funding to public schools (not diverting billions to private and religious schools) to assist in the modifications, the PPE supplies, construction materials, HVAC improvements, paid for by federal disaster aid
• A national program to stop community spread, including testing, tracing and isolation.
Instead of scheduling half-time in school and half-time remote (because of demands of social distancing) which won’t work for kids, teachers or working parents, some other ideas so there can be a full regular schedule:
• Vulnerable teachers and students should be able to stay online – if a teacher only has one or two students, it should be as effective as in-class, while reducing capacity in the classroom.
• Need space – utilize outdoors for classes as much as possible – even set up tents with ventilation; in crowded areas like New York City, there is talk of taking over streets outside of the buildings. Maybe school districts could even take over some hotels that are being underutilized.
• School buildings need rigorous sanitizing (perhaps install UV lighting or these new UV robots to assist with after-hours cleaning).
• Keep classroom windows open, use fans to ventilate (wear jackets inside if necessary); require masks, hand-sanitizer, better coordination of students passing in hallways, address food service and class schedules to reduce congestion; check temperatures on entering the building.
• Employers may have to accommodate working parents with more flexible hours, shorter days so parents can come home to be with kids since there won’t be after-school sports, clubs.
