Hey welcome to the stream im josh rushing sitting in for me ok today from my home here in Fairfax Virginia think you for joining me now right off the bat if youre watching on you tube you see that chad over there the box those are those are live get your questions in there will try to get him to me and well try to get him in the show as were going i want to be a part of this with me now today were talking about. A chick kids return to school in the u. S. Now on committee from Fairfax Virginia this is one of the 10 Largest School districts in the country all around 190000 students here and i had to make a decision as a parent this week do i want my children for the entire school year either to return to school in person or to do it online and what you made that choice you were pretty much committed to it i have 4 kids in School System here that meant it so were going to kindergarten so were going to high school so were going to miss school on one going into 5th grade and we had to make the choice for all of them remind me of them to show someone and ill tell you what choice we made but it was not an easy choice to make as a parent because the virus in the u. S. Unlike most parts of the world is actually searching for over 3000000 cases over 138000 dead in the present in the United States has come out last week and said he wants schools to fully reopen and what he means by full reopen he means students present in the classroom ill show you a tweet here will quick this is a tweet from the national in the white house statement on this their statement was the science should not get in the way of this. They want kids back in the classroom now that is as all decisions all the white house out of any white house are that is a political decision a Political Choice but as a pair we want to we want the science so we know whats happening with the kids now join with me today i have an exciting panel have to educators from across the country and i have a education reporter from National Public radio and ask them to introduce themselves somebody again with anya i q tell us who you are today good morning many of us on your cabinets im an education correspondent for National Public radio and i cover every opening schools across the country. Thank you julia i am actually a tourist and im a librarian and Language Arts educator in Denver Public schools and i know very well you know money is meant well rustin im a High School History teacher out here in the Los Angeles Area and i also cohost a show about education called all of the above. All of the very cool at the park ass right now working people find that yes its a podcast were going to find out what in its own way as as a you tube channel a o t a show dot com will take into whatever platform they want to get a nice night ok on it so we have a Large International audience can you explain to them how the School System is set up a little differently here i think if youre outside the u. S. And you see trump you know tweeting and going on about schools need to go back fully reopen they may not understand the term doesnt actually control schools in the u. S. Whats it like the situation. Thats a very good point so we have almost 14000. 00 separate School Districts here in the United States and each one of them has some level of local governance and thats why the decision is really devolving to a very large distributed network of authorities when the president eases treys use the bully pulpit to say school should open we should keep in mind he only controls less than 10 percent of the budget for Public Schools in america and most of that money is already allocated to low income schools so you know the only way that the federal government could have really important influence on reopening schools is something they have not done and that is to pass significant. Funding to make up for budget shortfalls that have already happened because of co the 1000. 00 plus all the extra costs to reopen which has been estimated at upwards of 2020250 1000000000 dollars none of that has been allocated so far so i want to bring in. A sound bite from someone in our community this is dr Nicole Turner levy and she just referred to what happened here in the us just could stop go to school in about march and only school year in 0 may or june so they all stayed home because of the lockdown and they went to Online Learning and i dont know anyone in the u. S. That says that that experiment went very well heres what dr turner elise says about moving forward here. Weve found 12 to 15000000 School Age Children out of 53000000 that were without Broadband Access and about 9000000 of them did not even have Home Broadband nor a device according to some recent research by Common Sense Media so what does that mean Going Forward as schools try to consider the best ways to mitigate the spread of the virus while ensuring that theres no disconnect when it comes to learning they need to reevaluate what went wrong in the last few months when it came to Distance Learning im advocating that schools need a 21st century Remote Access plan if theyre going to safely reopen it and ensure there are no disconnects Going Forward as we try to figure out how to slow down the spread of this deadly disease. So may well whats it like at your School District what was it like for the Online Learning that happened in the spring and then what decision have they made moving forward. Sure so the Online Learning that happened in the spring obviously everyone was caught off guard so we were all scrambling to try to make the best city make the best of the situations possible and what we found was even though our students in our district i teach and passed in a unified School District every student has had a school issue chromebook for quite a while but what we found was that in households where there were multiple districts students living in that household in a kind of connectivity was a rule challenge and were here in los angeles so if the los angeles metropolitan area has any kind of corner where wife eye is a very strong where multiple people in one household where that becomes a challenge for y. 5 then you can imagine what its like in communities and in other cities out there so that was really the biggest challenge that even with the technology in their hands soon as had it really hard time connecting in then of course you had the challenge of students having to also watch their younger siblings because i teach mostly High School Students and many of them became sudden babysitters and many of them were essential workers too so in some cases even with the Technology Strong and intact there was still the challenge of getting students to engage in the learning because the reality of trying to survive in a pandemic so was a plan for the fall so for the fall we initially had a hybrid plan that was proposed and then we heard back from a lot of teachers and parents saying that they want an online only option and then as cases began to rise across california the decision was made to go fully on line in fact our governor declared that any county that doesnt have a decrease in case this is going to have to start off the school year fully online so were starting off fully online august 17th and havent you do it what do you whats your School District in the fall. So we were told that we needed to come back in person on august 10th and at the 1st day for students was going to be late so i think its going to be august 24th. My understanding and i also have children in the School District and theyre in a different School District still in colorado and what we see is that the School Districts tend to band together and do the same thing when theyre centered around the same metropolitan area even though the circumstances that students are facing can be drastically different for example i live in the suburbs and life in the suburbs is very different from play for people in denver proper so what it looks like right now for my own children at hole is that we have the option to do completely online or we can come back in person and theres a date by which you have to notify the district which you would like to do for your students similar to what similarly to what we experienced in the spring if its changing weekly if not david so i know that theyre sending out notifications saying that they want to keep up with the science and that theyd like to keep up with recommendations from state Health Officials and government Health Officials and just let us know kind of what the research is saying but before we had anything set in stone so right now it seems like enormous to have an online only track and person track and thats what im noticing in my own district as well lets go to ruth bader shes a p. H. D. With an m p a which is a masters in Public Health and she said johns hopkins. Children who are already disadvantaged prior to the pandemic have separate the most and these kids living in poverty and children in remote rural areas children of color and children with differential learning styles Homeless Children these children. Desperately need allocation of resources to them to meet show or at least to try to keep the cattle existed before that risk widened by the pandemic not widening further. Sonia President Trump is tweeted about cutting the funding to schools if students dont return in full you mentioned before that thats not a time we talk about like 9 percent of funding comes from the federal government but theyre putting tools to go to the poorer schools right so schools that are ready would be the most economically challenged dear in these times might be looking at less funds coming from the federal government want to just go to widen the gap that was talked about enough by 30. You know i do think that that particular threat is probably going to turn out to be empty but what we are seeing right now is that states because of their balanced budget amendments are being forced to cut education budgets and thats happening all across the country and so even as districts are heading into these unprecedented semesters where they have to both plan and execute remote teaching as well as hybrid teaching and do all this overhaul their infrastructure teachers are getting laid off at the same time and schools are having to be asked to do basically twice as much with fewer resources because of the hurt in revenue at the state level and i just have to mention once again that the house passed a bill with billions of dollars in additional funding for schools that bill was passed in may and the senate has yet to act so theres a very very large gulf here between the kinds of statements that are coming from leaders in government about what they would like to see happen versus the money to pay for it. I want to get some you tube comments here we got one from it looks like its this ray ray this is a this is what happens when you elect a Game Show Host as president were now living on survivor island from bluejay Quebec Canada tried and after 23. 00 students the staff got the virus they shut the stupid idea down. And name marina a question for the panel as the u. S. Government laid down a plan to prevent a coronavirus surge in schools they if they reopen controlling children is pretty difficult thats a good question for the pain almost set that up here with what the c. D. C. Is saying so we can go to my computer im going to show you this kind of chart that the c. D. C. Has it says should you consider opening and it says you know will it be consistent with state and local waters is a school ready to protect the children in them ploys i want to talk about that a lot here in a 2nd are you able to screen students and employees if any of these are now do not open you move to the next set are there recommended health or safety actions in place were talking about the hand washing the wearing the p. P. E intensify cleanings are you able to keep social distancing with the kids if any of those are nodes you need to meet those safeguards 1st of all those are yes then you go on to is their ongoing monitoring place now how schools are going to do that it all comes down to money at the end of the day. And here is what is what will it cost to reopen schools when you look at how much were talking and p. P. And Hand Sanitizer in the the cleaning and the additional staff were looking at a bounty on this 1800000. 00 per School District this is at a time when School Districts are facing cuts this is a time where teachers spend their own money on their pockets bringing in the pencils for the classroom and some School Districts and now are saying that you need 1800000. 00 per average School District i know my School District that number will be much much higher because of the size so it will do you feel like your school is doing enough to keep well your going online let me switch this to julian because theyre asking you guys to come back into the buildings do you feel like theyre doing enough to keep you safe. Well i will say that i dont have all of the information that id like to have before i go back in person id mention to you that im a Language Arts teacher and a librarian my responsibility my primary responsibilities for the library and i dont have any kind of chair educator as distance i dont have any other librarians working with me the population the student population in the building is to around 2000 students so even if half of them came back that would be a 1000 students in the building my library is right in the middle. I am not really sure what circulation would look like ive been encouraged to circulate the books circulation of titles which have over 18000 titles so we have a gigantic ebook circulation. Process and whats wonderful is that our students do feel comfortable checking books out audio books and ebooks but as far as Classroom Teachers go i dont have a classroom a classroom is the library so typically at any point during the day there are lots of people in there either Holding Classes meeting with students one hour winds i dont know that that is possible or even a good idea i dont think its a good idea even if just half the student population up to come back i also are very concerned about the student population that is in holmes where the primary languages are not english and im not just talking about spanish and english we have many students who are from the Marshall Islands we have many students who are from west african nations and the predominant language spoken at home is branch weve got some who speak im hard and arabic at home so communicating it in english with me rapid changes has been a challenge i cannot imagine communicating rapid changes in other languages with families in a timely efficient manner thats going to make conditions equitable for all so my concerns right now are about just the. Just sticks of how we are going to make school work and it so its very straight feel safe no absolutely not but i also dont feel safe way to the Grocery Store even though they tell folks that they need to wear masks because theres so many people still Milling Around and many people still choose not to wear masks and then just deal with the consequences somebody tells them that they need to and then as a black woman im aware that Health Care Disparities would make it so that if i were to contract the virus im not even guaranteed that i would achieve health care that would seek me away and i know that there are some places where people are all of floor unable to get hospital beds so all of these things are kind of Milling Around in my mind and the general attitude toward teachers is that we need to make sure that we put students 1st and any people if think about what that really needs what does it really mean to put students 1st because i think if some shit is that that means that only down my life or that i have serious concerns i would soon be asymptomatic at school as a librarian pass it to somebody adults come to the school all the time give it to somebody whos then going to take it home i mean just because children as far as some people say are not the primary contractors or disseminators of the barrister which we dont even know for a fact we dont even know that for a fact its did you know you bring up a good point they just did a study in florida that said one in 3 children tested here i had this headline pulled up if we want to go to my computer in a 2nd one in 3 tested in florida the children came back positive with covert there seems to be this argument that look the kids dont get it when they do its not serious man what do you what do you think about that argument and i want to add to this that we say to kids dont get it thats not true for 175000 children under 17 years old in the u. S. Who have gotten covert and its probably call comfort to the families of the to her. 28 children who have died from it already this year and well what do you think with when its well the kids really dont get it so its safe for them to return it back and i said to some i want to give you this a bite from a meet us today hes at the university of virginia and lets hear what she has to say that were going to come to you right after were going to all the imperial data suggests that schools can reopen safely without significant risk to teachers or students master in schools just like in hospitals could significantly eliminate their arrests that schools could be a source of Community Outbreaks schools need to reopen not in spite of kogan but because of that code it is a disaster like none other most of us have seen in our lifetimes and schools play a Critical Role in Disaster Recovery especially for the most vulnerable among us who need not just the education the teachers provide but the Services Provided by schools so that they and their families can weather this pandemic and overcome the disadvantages that they east before it even began. Their well what do you think. The key word in that was significantly which means yeah maybe all those protections can decrease the number but they cant get rid of the number in significantly isnt enough i dont think theres any number of students that anybody is out there ready to lose or to risk for me myself im most concerned with my the fact that my students live in extended households i mean they have a lot of them have grandparents in the home uncles aunts and i dont want my kids. Just even take the risk of going home and spending it there and also even with all those protections if you think masks possible face shields physical distance seeing if im a teacher in the classroom that means im not having group work im not circulating materials a kid needs a pencil i guess i cant just give them a pencil and when you take all those factors but them all into place then youve got to ask yourself the question is that condition of learning that much better then Distance Learning a course as a teacher i dont like the Distance Learning model i sign up for this profession to be in my classroom with my students loving and learning and going through the content but when you put all those protections in place its not that anymore so then i got to ask the question is it worth the risk to put them all in the classroom or even have the students in the classroom with all those protections and that some sort of model that does even mimic really our true learning model is that much better than Distance Learning i i would venture to guess that its not especially if students are in class worried about what might be spreading and then also going to want to salute kimberly subs. Lopez byrd she was one of 3 arizona teachers who are assigned to one room for summer Online Learning and they followed all the protections just 3 adults in a room no kids masks sent izing all that stuff and kimberly lost her life after 38 years of service in Public Education if its not safe for 3 adults in one room following all the guidelines i dont know what its going to look like when you add students to the mix and of course even if students arent spreading it if if thats true and we dont know if thats true. You have all the other adults you have your library and you have your ministers you have the counselors its just not worth the risk there is not one student that we should be willing to sacrifice in the name of getting back in the School Building in if that learning in the School Building with all those protections isnt optimal then really were talking about school just being there for the babysitting not for the money in a school is there for the babysitting i would argue that we should have stronger social safety net so that we dont need our schools to be babysitters and you yeah i really want to get in here and just and just speak a little bit to these concerns are extremely legitimate and every educator has a right to be very concerned about their own health in this situation when we talk about not one childs life you mentioned 228 children who are victims of current virus and thats too many in this country over a 1000 children every year are murdered by their families and when we have children that are at home socially isolated sometimes think left to their parents or going out to work in essential jobs theyre not under the eyes of teachers that are mandatory reporters theyre not getting access to meals to health care to potentially to housing to jobs there are very legitimate Health Concerns on the other side of the ledger that we really need to be considering also Students Mental Health ive talked to psychiatrists for teenagers who are saying theyre going to see a Mental Health crisis in the fall as it sinks in for these teens and weve already had a suicide crisis in this Country Building for several years among our youngest children especially girls from 10 years old and up so there are no good answers here theres no easy answers but when we say wrists the reason that the National Academy of sciences and the American Academy of pediatrics have come down her pee diddly on the side of holding in Person School when and where it is safe is because there are legitimate serious life and health risks to keeping kids at home as well. With such a population of students it often doesnt get brought up in this conversation and thus those with additional challenges remembering him. As a disability rights advocate check this out its especially frustrating as a disability rights advocate because students with disabilities are being left behind and its not always because people arent trying its just so complicated to teach them through Distance Learning but also if we were to send them back. You cant have no students with disabilities distancing from people many of them one on one support with handover hand interaction many of them dont understand or cannot physically keep a mask on for extended periods of time many of them just need that intervention and they need that up close and personal. About a minute a half love to hear what he would do you say about some on his concerns about some areas concerns pepto population of students there is talk about there and then i see that you know theres a smaller side of schools kind of a social safety net but what do we do with that so i was recently on n. P. R. And i did speak a little bit about this because in the in the spring that was the group that i was the most concerned about if there are students who never reported in for Virtual Learning at all they didnt come and there are many students who moved or relocated because their parents lost their jobs so we need to be thinking about housing insecurity we need to be thinking about our people i think for us in special education students if there is in Person Learning i think those are the students that should be paying overtime because those are the ones who im most concerned about why dont i believe that a lot of them did not get the benefit of the last quarter we did bite splint porters a lot so quarter 4 they basically just missed that learning and so before we move on to move ahead with educating everyone else we need to figure out where folks are. I think youre ignoring it in and on that note moving on to moving ahead this is a tough decision i can tell you for my wife and i brought up in the beginning a show we had to make the choice this week we chose. To give up kindergarten year for our son and keep our 4 kids at home this year because we just dont know the facts of this are some kids in the long term i dont think were worried about that ive got to take all my guest today really credible informative conversation with a really tough issue well see you next time. Oh all. Business leaders just want to find a brush pile. With. Business leaders as well to buy no bras paul. A conflict that is now considered to be the worlds worst humanitarian crisis how many did not all have to die like this stock is hard says all are really for sale and investigation into how billions of euros are made from supplying arms to saudi arabia a leader of the Coalition Fighting a war in the south the case is interesting to watch because the amount of money involved yemen war profiteers on aljazeera there is no channel by coverage of world news like legion the scale of this camp is like nothing youve ever seen as a Child Marriage what we want to know is how do these things affect people we revisit places and stay even when there are no International Headlines aljazeera really invests in that and thats a privilege as a journalist. Around 10 in london the top stories are now jazeera theres been a breakthrough in the urgent search for a Coronavirus Vaccine here in the u. K. An experimental treatment developed at the university of oxford has shown promising early results and appears to be safe if humans open reports from oxford phase one really could have gone much better for the oxford Team Positive signs now confirmed in the published research this is an important milestone on the path but were now moving rapidly forwards to try to evaluate whether the vaccine actually protects the population