Financial needs of schools planning to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. Also a look at the recent rise of covid19 cases with dr. Drake deutsche dr. Drake dr. Jake deutsch. It isgood morning, thursday, july 16, 2020. A three hour washington journal is ahead. We begin on decisions being made in School Districts around the country about when and how children will go to school this fall. With the coronavirus creating debate over in person versus Virtual Schools and concerns about School Funding shortfalls areteacher shortages, we opening our phones to hear from educators and parents this morning. What is your biggest concern when it comes to School Reopening . Phone line split up. Educators, 202 7488000. Parents, 202 7488001. You can also send us a text. That number is. That number is 202 74880 2 3. Otherwise catch up with us on social media at facebook. Com cspan. A good thursday morning to you. You can start calling you now as we show you education secretary betsy devos reiterating what she believes is the need for students to be back in the classroom this fall. [video clip] kids in lowrom income situations, vulnerable backgrounds, those are the ones most negatively impacted by not having that School Routine and that focus on continuing to move ahead and learn. We talked about what some of my observations were. That absolutely the case today parents have a much clearer understanding of what their childrens experience was this spring. They have a better perspective on how their particular school did with continuing to provide Education Opportunities and they are looking for that leadership on the part of education leaders to ensure their kids can go back to a Forward Movement and learning new material with the backtation that when we go , there is going to be fulltime learning, fulltime operations, acknowledging that if there is an area where there is a flareup, there may need to be a pivot for a period of time to a distance environment. Host education secretary betsy devos, the keynote speaker at georgias 2020 legislative policy. The idea of students being back in school fulltime, the focus of the trumpet ministration for the last week or more. The president tweeting about it. Saying now that we have witnessed it on a largescale basis and firsthand, Virtual Learning has proved to be terrible compared to in school or oncampus learning. It is not even close. The president said on july 10 schools must be open in the fall. If not why would the president give funding . It will not. Education, the Los Angeles School district is one of the latest to say they are not going back to school in the fall. Mistake. What you tell parents and teachers who feel it is unsafe to go back . I would tell parents and teachers you should find yourself a new person, whoever is in charge of that decision, it is a terrible decision. Children and parents are dying from that trauma. They are dying because they cannot do what they are doing. Mothers cannot go to work because they have to stay at home and watch their child, and fathers. There is a tremendous strain on that side of the equation. Is a balancing act. It is a balancing act but we have to open our schools. Ont that was the president tuesday. Yesterday this was Speaker Nancy Pelosi talking about how democrats have disagreed with the president and his administrations approach on this issue. [video clip] children want to go to school. We want them to learn. Parents want them to go to school. We cannot risk the health and safety and the lives of anyone that they might bring this home. Our teachers, our custodians, our people who work in Public Schools need to be protected. We cannot follow the attitude of this administration if you do not open up, we will not give you money. No. We will give you money so you can open up. It is in the heroes act. Theannot follow the lead of secretary of education who said why shouldnt children take risks, astronauts take risks. Maybe when they are an astronaut they can decide to take that risk. We have to decide going to school is not a risk to their health and safety. Host nancy pelosi yesterday. The heroes actually refers to, the democratic bill for the next Coronavirus Relief package, congress promising more relief tocome, but have not come agreement on what that will look like. The speaker referencing the democratic version of that bill. Askingrst hour, just teachers, educators, and parents what your biggest concern is when it comes to School Reopening. Educators can call in 202 , 202 0, and parents 7488001. Todd is a teacher out of brentwood, california. You are up first. Caller i am a retired teacher. Questionee rand pauls of dr. Fauci on this topic in the senate . Host i do remember that. He was talking about the statistics of School Reopenings in other countries and the infection rates of children. We played that the next day afterwards. Caller excellent. Showed statistics from 11 countries in europe. The Washington Post covered it. They said generally in europe and asia schools have been reopened and there had been no spikes. Dr. Fauci agreed with this. Point. Eded rand pauls did you see the numbers in florida where the state of florida is reporting that dozens of Testing Facilities have reported zero negativity. They tested 7200 people and found 7200 positive and zero negatives. Dozens of Testing Facilities throughout florida. Did you see that . Host get your point on this. Your idea is that they need to go back . Caller certainly. What i am saying is we are looking at florida and getting all of these alarmist headlines, but certainly the numbers in florida are extremely unreliable , extremely dubious. 100 positivity and dozens of Testing Facilities. That is not possible. California, we have more alarmist headlines thats 8000 people tested positive. A new record. 26 , mortality rate is that would lead to 17 deaths. Diabetic,to be morbidly obese, people in hospice. We are getting all of these headlines. Half of these new cases are under 35 and a symptomatic. Be ready to go back to school this fall if you were still teaching . Caller certainly. 35, the mortality rate will be driven lower than. 26 . We are looking at a rate that is below the flu mortality rates. Host taught in california. This is bob in massachusetts, a parent. You are next. Caller good morning, how are you today . Host i am doing well. Caller my point would be i think the kids can stay home and take their education online. I believe that information that they are doing poorly online is false. The reasoning for that would be when i have my kids doing their homework and their schoolwork, they do not want to do it, they mess around. If they want to play a game and they want to learn math through their game, they can break down math and all of that through these games. If they get interested in something they can pick it apart and learn everything you want. It is like anything else. Online learning can become a lot more interesting when youre not being harassed in a classroom. Our classrooms today are putting special ed kids inside the classroom with all the kids and that kid acts out the whole time. 10 minutes of learning is happening in a 45 minute period. This kid is acting out and they say no kid left behind. Host how old are your kids . Caller my kids are adults but this happened when they were children in schools. My wife works in the School System right now and we watch it happen every day. We used to watch it when school was in. Host what is your wife tell you when will she feel comfortable going back . Caller everybody here feels comfortable going back now. They think this is a waste of time. The dr. Fauci eight went to t to thedr. Fauci wen wuhan lab host we will hold off on the conspiracy theories. Dr. Fauci he was talking to students and young people about what they can do to mitigate the risk when it comes to coronavirus and also asked about School Reopening. This was dr. Fauci. [video clip] we should try as best as possible to keep the children in school for the reasons that the unintended downstream Ripple Effect consequences of keeping the kids out of school and the impact on working families and on other aspects of society can be profound, not to mention the negative effect on the children. Should try towe get the kids to stay in school. However, that will vary from where you are in the country and what the dynamics of the outbreak are in your particular region. That is the reason why, although is fundamental principle they have one other guiding principle that is overriding, it is the safety and welfare of the children and the safety and the welfare of the teachers. You have to take that into consideration. If you are in the part of a country where the dynamics of the outbreak are minimal, if at all, than there is no problem in giving back. If you are in a situation where you are in outbreak mode, then you leave it up to the local individuals in certain california schools, certain florida schools, in making a decision based on the judgment of making sure safety in the children and safety and the teachers are paramount. Lets try to get them open to the extent we can, but lets take a look at the dynamics of the infection in the area you are in. Att dr. Anthony fauci Georgetown University back on tuesday. Heres a story from todays Washington Post about what is happening on the ground in this part of the country, joining a growing National Push against reopening Public Schools, Prince Georges CountyPublic Schools in maryland will start with 100 remote construction this fall and keep it in place at least through january. That is the proposal out of Prince Georges County. Recent surveys show significant support for distance education across the country. The Washington Post story noting more than half of educators and administrators responding to a june survey prefer that approach, as did 46 of parents, despite pressure and threats of lost funding from the white house. Some of the nations largest School System have announced plans to stick with the all Remote Learning, including districts in los angeles, san diego, atlanta, houston, and elsewhere. Prince georges county in maryland is among the countrys largest and one of the largest majority black systems. The chief executive of Prince Georges County announcement this week came a day after marilyns two largest teacher you get marylands two largest teacher unions urge students not go back to campus this fall. North carolina, this is a parent. David. How old is your kids . Caller he is 11. This instance shows how we could start revamping our transportation issues. Most communities only cater to certain crowds, and not all of the Community Like we need to. We need to start a bus route that goes from Fire Department to Fire Department to the grocery store, you know, the main city. We have compartments on our buses that are more modernized, that hold three people, because they can be sanitized easier than our personal cars at this point, and every time we try to get a good discussion on how to revamp the bureaucracy around our community, we always have something diverse from the real discussion something diver t bus from the terrorism happening around this nation. Host are you more concerned about your kids ending to school once they get to the classroom . Caller i do not want them inside. We need to think about new innovations to implement in society all around to consolidate services. Bus routes need to be at every Fire Department and we need to get the amenities upgraded because we do not have a cohesive system and the School System schedule does not fit the working american schedule before the pandemic. Host david in North Carolina. This is john in maryland, a parent. How old are your kids . Caller hello. Host how old are your kids . Caller my kid is 14 and going into ninth grade. Notid ok online but i would say it was stellar teaching. I would prefer he stay out this i am very concerned for my health, i am an older parent, that he might bring something home to me, and also one third of teachers are of the riskhey could be at high for contracting the coronavirus. Ok. you said he did what was good about the distance and what did not work for your 14yearold . I did not think they had enough facetoface where they theyally check in had google classrooms, but it was not like they took attendance. Who go to the Prince Georges CountySchool System, and they said they did more of the zoom system. When President Trump says he will not give anybody any money if they do not go back to school, i would suggest he needs to give more money to the schools to adapt to the Online Learning because a lot of these teachers i know teachers, people who still teach, i used to be a teacher, and i know they are working very hard on powerpoint. Some of them are not young and maybe not as proficient on the community on the computer as some of the other teachers. They are putting power points up and trying to adapt to this new system. It takes a wild to get adapted. I think it takes more funding, not less. Host you say used to be a teacher. What did you teach . Caller i taught elementary in Prince Georges County. And dohen did you retire you have colleagues who are making that decision right now about retiring or sticking around . I have colleagues who are still teaching and they are saints as far as i am concerned. Teachers some great to transmit the learning to these kids. They are working very hard to andt to the online methods some of them are doing a great job. I think Prince Georges County has stepped up very well with the new system, just talking to my friends who have kids in the system. I am in the Anne Arundel County system. My son could have done a better job. And this eighth grade whole year was difficult. Friends,ot visit their so they put on the headset and whatever, and they were able to socialize with their videogames in some , but i am not so sure about rand paul statistics and i think the numbers in the countries where they opened up are a lot lower than what they are in our country. I am not sending my boy back, even if they do open anne arundel up. I am an older parent, like i said. I am the sole provider. Risk getting sick and losing income. He can wait a year to get ninth grade as far as im concerned, if that is what they want to do. Host thanks for the call from maryland. John talks about the cost of Online Education and more investment in that. This is a recent report from the association of School Administrators, a report on what it would cost to actually reopen schools, to put in the health and safety steps needed to reopen schools while combating coronavirus. That report estimating 1. 8 million on average for a School District in this country. Questions about where that money would come from. We will talk more about those issues with Daarel Burnette of education week, a School Finance reporter, who will join us in a little over half an hour. Until then, your phone calls just for teachers and parents talking about your biggest concern when it comes to reopening schools this fall. Mike in illinois, teacher. What do you teach . It is caller interesting because the kids today could learn much better from home on the computer. Think about this. You have the best teacher in the world teaching your kid. In Chicago Schools you have teachers that are not very good, lets be frank, and they are protected by the unions. Right now if you can have your child learn from home on the computer, there been studies done, especially in the universities. Children are afraid to ask questions, especially in the large lecture halls. In the chat rooms, they are asking questions constantly. The ta is firing off all of the answers. So you have a hall of 200 kids. The ta is answering the questions of 50 to 60 kids. If you do not have online, you would have maybe five kids asked questions because they are intimidated. Host what you teach . Caller i am a high school teacher. Today what you have to understand is the whole system needs to be changed. This was all set up when the summersld be off in the , to help their parents farm the land. We are so behind the times it is incredible. What we have to do is let the people know how much money their tax dollars would go down if we closed all of these schools. Remember, in every town you have beautiful Park Districts. They say the kids need socializing. After they do their learning online, they can go to the Park District and they can play soccer and baseball and tennis, and they can interact with their friends and they can have their lunches and all of the things that supposedly these people think are missing if we close the schools. You are not missing these things. Schools