Strings. They have created rules around exactly when money gets sent out, how much, and exactly what School Districts need to do to receive that money. The last thing is that if congress decides to provide more bailout money for School Districts, they would have to agree to give the strings to betsy devos to decide when and how to dole out money. One of the things i want to point out is federal money is targeted toward low income schools. What betsy divorce is saying is devos. Y divorce host we talk about what is being proposed in the heroes act that are being pushed right now for future additional aid. Act, theder the cares School District can get 13 billion which is really a drop in the bucket. Was targeted they wanted it to spend it on last years costs when they had to shutdowns close in march, purchasing laptops for kids, wifi, etc. The heroes act which has been proposed in the house, that would provide 60 billion for schools. Again, most education advocates are saying they would need around 200 billion to reopen schools. Alexander whotor runs the Senate Education committee, he is talking about possibly providing 70 billion for schools. That money would be geared toward reopening costs such as ppe, transportation, etc. School districts need to pay their staff. ,he reopening costs might help but really what districts need is enough money to survive the school year. What i should really emphasize federal dollars are only 10 of funding. Majority of districts rely on local and state aid and state aid has plummeted. Host we showed it article last segment we were talking about school reopening. Report, reopening means an additional 1. 8 million in cost for the average School District. There are other numbers out there. Can you dive into those numbers . Guest sure. I have talked to several administrators about some of the logistical challenges and financial challenges with reopening. The Superintendents Association s estimate was for the district the size of 15,000 students and 2 million. They are talking about the hardware of schools. Ppe and equipment, they were estimate and that masks cost one dollar each. But because there is a shortage aboutipment, masks cost two dollars or three dollars now. I actually think that they might have underestimated how much it will cost. Costs aree other big trying to reduce class sizes which you would actually have to hire more teachers and professionals to do. If you want to do social distancing three or six feet, you would have to go out with more facilities. You would have to take the kids to a local stadium or take them to the local Convention Center in order to conduct classes and that costs more money. I heard more recent estimates in which these numbers can really climb into the 2 million or 3 million. I spoke to a superintendent and he was saying that for a district with hundred thousand kids on masks alone, you would have to spend 10 million. I think the big fear is that they might purchase that equipment and there will be an outbreak and now this equip it is sitting in a facility somewhere and they cannot use it and it would be a waste of tax dollars. Host Daarel Burnette, School Finance or here. School financier. Phone lines. Parents can call in at 202 7488000. Educators, 202 7488001. All others, 202 7488002. Are talkingtte, you about potentially hiring more teachers and yet this was the headline for the story that you put out is this week, thousands of educators being laid off already due to covid19 and more expected. Guest yeah. This is a thing that nobody is talking about. Districts are really on the cusp of a recession in which more than one quarter of their funding could evaporate. We are already seeing a handful of states, massachusetts, michigan, nevada, their legislature is talking about cutting a quarter of their thisng by 125 Million School year which would lead to mass layoffs. We have not seen this historically. School districts are pushing against the economic headwinds. I have counted more than half of School Districts are heavily reliant on income tax revenue. Now that the economy has shut down in the last couple of weeks and shut down twice in the last six months alone, you are going to see budget cuts at a scale that we have never seen. Once Congress Ends their session next week, we will start seeing legislatures reconvene and cutting budgets and cutting big chunks out of their budgets weeks before the school year starts. We could possibly see midyear layoffs which i think can be very traumatizing for a community. It could be academically destructive for students. Host when you are talking to these districts, what are they telling the teachers . Are they saying that these are temporary or permanent cuts . Guest they are telling them that if Congress Gives them money, they might rehire them. Otherwise, they should find another job. Host Daarel Burnette with education week. Taking your calls. Cameron is first from charlotte, michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am a grandparent. I just wanted to make a comment, listening to this man talk about the billions that the School District may ask for from congress. There is a disparity in that small number and the trillions being given to the corporations that were bailed out in the first week of this situation. Now that we are in the midst of this terrible social experiment, they want to send children back to School Without giving folks enough money to do the job. Just pointing this out as a disparity. Im sure it is striking everybody else as being apparent. Now we are talking billions and they have already thrown out 5 trillion from congress. Host Daarel Burnette, who else is pointing out that disparity . Aest i talked to superintendent last week about potential layoffs and he decided to furlough himself this summer to avoid teacher layoffs. His reasoning was interesting. This was in michigan, a Rural College town in michigan. The School District there is the Third Largest employer. That town has a 30 Unemployment Rate. Once School Districts start laying people off, this will have a compounding effect on the economy. We saw this during the last recession. It could actually spark another recession. This is one of the things that i think a lot of people are not really thinking holistically about the roles that schools have. They are huge employers. They employ around 7 million. Eople, 3. 5 million teachers in some towns, they are the largest employer. Not only teachers working in schools, professionals, custodians, administrators, afterschool care workers. There is a whole workforce around schools. Focus ona lot of corporations and their survival. There is less focus on Public Schools but Public Schools play a very essential role in the economy. A parentnda, michigan,. How old are your kids . Caller they range from oneyearold to 39 years old. Host what is your concern for schools this fall . Caller my concern is kids with asthma and medical conditions going back to school. I know a lot of the schools do not have air conditioning. It is hard in there, for children to breathe with masks on. Teaching the are children right now, the parents do not understand it because they have changed to other countrys ways of math. I think children should stayathome right now until they get everything under control. Host Daarel Burnette . Guest the first time i was on this show, i was talking about school facilities. The infrastructure of Public Schools there is a crisis. It is a longrunning crisis. We vaccinated 1 trillion worth of maintenance costs. One of the things about a recession is schools freeze upgrades to facilities. All of the schools that have water pump issues, mildew in the gets putetc. , all that on the backwater for schools to basically pay salaries instead. One of the things i wanted to thet out as greatgrandmother pointed out, schools have a difficult time School Administrators have a difficult time stopping kids from kissing in the hallways, from fighting in the hallways. When we talk about schools trying to keep kids six feet very all day long, it is difficult. I think this is one of the arguments that a lot of administrators have been making the last couple of weeks as secretary betsy devos and donald trump have taken on this mission to reopen schools. Publicrt of Americas School system is local control. Every town has a unique scenario. There are some towns in america some former coworkers in memphis in which the infection rates are 30 . They have people dying on a frequent basis. The fear of the coronavirus is very real, very tangible. There are some committees in america in which they have brandnew schools, they have courtyards in which kids can work. There are some areas in which the climate is cool all day long and they can take the kids outside and have class outside and that is perfectly legit. K12 evidence writers have been arguing that dish inistrators have you been have been arguing that this should be a local decision. 2018, actually not your first time on this program, we had you three years ago almost to the day back in 2017 talking about teacher evaluations. All of his appearances on this program are available on our website. The search bar at the top of the page is your friend and you can find his and all guest appearances. Susan, new york, you are up next. Good morning. Caller grandparent. Is thereuestion, anyway that the local School System can link up with Online Education whereby if you have to make up at least 180 days, is there any way that they can link up . Online is usually ahead of advance. If you were in the six grade, we would get eighth grade education. You could print out the information and send it in online rather than mailing it in. Yeah. School district did do Online Education starting in march of last year. There were some bright spots. There was a lot of frustration amongst teachers and administrators, especially for the younger grades. Really higher ed has figured out Online Education. K12 is lightyears behind higher ed. Everything from not all students have access to wifi, not all students have access to laptop computers. Not all teachers have access to wifi. We found teachers who were sitting outside of schools trying to connect to School Buildings wifi. It is a big logistical hurdle. This summer a lot of schools purchase moreo and improved software and they are really trying to roll out more comprehensive online learning. As my colleagues reporting has is not easy. It is very difficult. There is a growing consensus amongst k12 communities that increase in learning, a teacher standing in front of a child, works best. I think it is really interesting that betsy devos six months ago was touting online learning. Now she is demonizing it. I think a lot of k12 administrators are saying which one is it. I think, like everything in k12, it is nuanced. There are some bright spots. There are potential areas of growth. Overall, it is nowhere close to as effective as the Person Learning is. She pointed out printing out materials. I was talking to administrators in wisconsin. Last year, their students do not have access to wifi or computers. Millionnt around 1 printing out curriculum. And then they spent another 1 million delivering it to kids because they had to buy all of put laptop and computers and paper in the mail to parents. Another very expensive hurdle. Million in salary of 10 teachers. Host you mentioned Virtual Learning and betsy devoss comments. This was the president last week saying on twitter, now that we have witnessed it on a largescale basis, Virtual Learning has proven to be terrible compared to in school or oncampus learning. It is not even close. Schools must be open in the fall. Why would the federal government give funding . It wont, is what the president promised. You talked at the beginning of this segment, you cannot take away funds from federal schools that have already been appropriated and distributed. Keratin sticks can the president and betsy devos pulpit . Des the bully guest they will have to work with congress. My colleague has talked to several experts about this. I think the department is scrabbling to figure out how to actually do this. It is very complicated once you and the the legalities powers that the executive branch has over school funding. Passedgo, the Government Law was also that there was a broad consensus under the Obama Administration that the president and secretary of education should not have oversight over Americas Schools. We have concluded that local control reigns. It is interesting that the president and betsy devos have taken on this role that they want to tell district what they can and cant do. Their tenure has all been about will control to the point that administrators have been crying for leadership. When thes ago coronavirus first began, the askedstrators explicitly donald trump and betsy devos to tell them whether or not they should be open or closed. Betsy devos said it was a local decision, you decide. So, how things change. Host next out of indiana, a teacher. Good morning. Caller good morning. Ask youi would like to a question about teachers hey. I am an instructor. Teachers pay. Im wondering how you see that playing out in higher ed and also those that proliferate through k12 as far as teachers pay. Thank you. Hest it is interesting that called from indiana because teachers pay there is an ongoing crisis with the governor, the legislature, the teachers union. This is one of the things that have colleague and i wrecked our brains about. The political momentum behind teacher pay again, 8 months ago, nine months ago there was a huge movement. Decked inof teachers legislaturestate to increase teacher pay. It was a broad consensus amongst the general public, not only the teachers, the general public that teachers were underpaid. I talked to teachers who were 26,000 to 27,000 per year. These states are dealing with these huge budget crises, the first thing that will go is teacher pay. All of the initiatives to raise teacher pay was thrown out the door. We were tracking which states were and were not going to increase teacher pay. We conclude that this would be the year in which they would hundreds of over millions of dollars to increase teacher pay. Or 6,000. It 5,000 all of those initiatives are gone now. To district that does decide raise teacher pay such as denver and there are districts in florida doing this, all of that money is coming out of a savings account. All of that money will be gone next year. That means that the layoffs will be twice as bad as they would have otherwise been because you raise your teacher pay, teacher pay takes 80 of the budget. You will not be able to afford those costs year. Every year, teachers climb the ladder. Next year they will have to be than 3000 for 4000 more this year. This is gobbling up district deposit budgets. I have not even talked about pension crisis. By march, pensions had lost about 1 trillion in value because the market plummeted. Pensions have recovered since. But this is one of the areas in which states will try to skip the payment this year. That payment will cost even more next year. The more you raise teacher pay, the more teachers that retire, this has a compounding effect on how much states will have to dole out for School Districts. Host one other factor that you pointed out in a recent story. Policies, some cities are reckoning on spending priorities. Guest im glad you brought that up. This is one of the things i find to be so fascinating about the black lives Matter Movement and the kinds of conversation that is has sparked in several communitys across the country. There are lots of committees who spend more on police and they do on schools. Years, a lot of advocates in majority black School Districts have been asking their mayors, city counselors, county commissioners, why are we or 700 600 million million more on police and schools. Policet of committees, officers paid more. Teachers have masters degrees. Police officers have been through the police academy. We know the detrimental effect of over police committees in which people are being fined every day, being harassed by the police, etc. There are communities in which andhave way too many police too few teachers. There are lots of communities,ochester, new york, memphis indianapolis, denver, seattle, in which they are saying lets take the money we are giving to lease and invest in the schools. One of the concerning things that adam touched on, we came across several districts that are laying off social workers, the counselors. These are the people who are going to be doing the hard work when schools finally do reconvene to basically mitigate all of the crisis that comes along with what communities have been through these past couple months. Thousands of people dying from the coronavirus, high Unemployment Rate which leads to more domestic violence. Social workers are the ones who spot this first, not police officers. A lot of communities are having a moment about where priorities are. Host about 20 minutes left with Daarel Burnette. If you want to join the conversation, parents it is 202 7488000. Educators, 202 7488001. All others 202 7488002. Rent, good morning. Caller morning. I am a grandparent. I live in a multigenerational home. I am a custodian. I have been working for about five years. We have major problems getting custodians. Custodians. On top of that, my main point is i work in a brandnew school. The air conditioning and heating system doesnt seem to work properly, ok . Upstairs its really hot, downstairs its really cold. The teachers have to bring in fans. Besides that, im wondering what they are going to do. When the kids go to the bathroom , they will have to have someone outside the bathroom, onduty all the time, in other words, to go in there and clean these bathrooms. I believe its probably one of the worst places for the kids to pick up a disease. Instead of going in three or four times a day during my shift, i think someone will have to be posted outside so that they can go in there maybe every 15 minutes to clean up. My wife is a schoolteacher on top of that, retired. I used to work in heavy industry and i needed things to do and i saw they were having problems getting janitors, so i went to the school and decided to be a janitor, they hired me, but we are shorthanded. I dont understand how they will be able to reopen schools safely. I would like to thank both of e for having this open conversation. Host thank you. Ofst that call, that is one the more unexplored areas of this crisis. Has already been an outbreak in schools. We have already seen it, we dont have to theorize about it. Joplin, missouri, they had a Summer School there and they had, you know, they had kids and teachers in the school, they had an outbreak and had to shut the school down and for two weeks straight they had to wipe down that entire building. A financial, logistical, political hurdle. From a science standpoint, you will have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on bleach. I was talking to a superintendent in california. She bought all of these backpacks