School districts throughout the state have been preparing for a more robust Online Education program than theycould offer in the spring when the pandemic for struck. At that time teachers and parentdistruggled with ance learning from simply getting online to getting assignments done. Tonight we consider the challenges a opportunities the new school year brings, when instruction shifts online. Joining me now v Senior Editor of education julia mcavoy. Also joining us his doctor alicia smith the executive director of the Education Trust west. Thank you bo for joining us. It to be here. Julia lets start with you. Most of californias schoolchildren are going back to school this month but online only. There is a process to get a waiver for elementahool kids. Can you tell us about the criteria . Schools and districts which are in counties where the caseload is under 200 per 100,000 residents, they can apply. Than they have to meet all s so safety criteria, plants were Distance Learning, small cohorts of kids, a coclea parents. Plan with what they will do if a , case servicere are a lot of things they had to plan for including the labor if their Public Schools before they can get approved by their local Public Health authority. A leh i wantto talk to you about a poll you conducted wi the advocacy organiza for california students. You conducted a couple of surveys, one parents of school ed children through 12th grade another from zethrough age 5 , what concerns did you hear from parents particularly when it comes to Distance Learning we are concerned wit parents across the state about their students and returning to school a whether or not ey would really have that academic they needed to be able to get through this year. 90 of parents in that poll se exprconcerns about Distance Learning and almost 40 of parents across california in the home noted they had issues with connecting to the internet or a lack of devices. We also heard a lot from parents about the inability to actually provide food and other support systems as well. Isnt food being handled at school sites still . Food is being handled at school sites across the state and one of the sues with that isit is really important and it has been a Great Service the schools have been providing come many scols did not budget to provide those services. Many of the fiscal issues we are all concerned about around covid19 are ally being set up to disproportionately impact schools next fall. If we dont get more assistancen from the federal gont directed towards schools. There was also a National Poll released with results this week and it edsurvteachers, specifically around this question of reopening schools. What are some key findings from that . I think what we are hearing from parentsthere are a t of concerns and the poll which queried a 500 teachers across the state, bothprivate and achers are really concerned about going back and really one in three of them really prefer to teach primarily remotely. Teachers are concerned about safety both of themselves, their families, and their students and i ju dont think there is a lot of stress right now that districts and even their counties can verify that would be a safe environment to t return to this poin Distance Learning has also revealed big gaps when it comes to equity for low income households and students of color. Could you share with us some of the problems that are specif to these honorable communities, and if any of the prlems that opped up in the spring seeming like they will be es add and adjusted this fall. Great question. In the spring prthe big lem was this scramble for digital devices and Internet Connections for i think it was over 1 million across the state. Superintendent of schools Tony Thurmond the state superintendent has said 700,000 califoia students select devices and about 300,000 lack internet hotspots. The Digital Divide remains a th huge hurdle and students will be left out of the starting gate when it comes to online learning. I cant think of a more fundamental equity issue than that. That aside weve got kids at home with their parents might be at work, they cant monitor what they are doing onlineey ant lp them do work or even understand what the teacher is asking for. Some of those children of s fro line worke watching their siblings. Then you have kids in households, a student i kn in a onebedroom apartment with five children and her parents are out working. She had to go in her car just to having of quiet to participate in a zoom lesson with her schools. She was embarrassed and didnt want to put the video on and as you can see for some kids especially when i think of kids of frontline workers you ve a lot of barriers to participate including affluent families and their parents are help tm figure things out. Alicia lets turn to the role of the state in all of this. Do you feel thstate habeen doing the work they need to to provide guidance and help schools, teachers and students and parents succeed durithis time . What should they be doing if you feel they are not doing what they should be. We believe there is a lot more the state can be doing. The bill now that does provide some guidance around instructional minutes and whether a student should get live instruction versus instruction. However there is a lot of room for interpretation and what is currently there. We kerw that when are no guardrails and we are tting a lot of disparity in terms of what one School District is providing versus another, that is something that adfinitely to inequities. There really is a greater role the state can play in terms of outlining some much nsre tency acro districts and schools in the state. Despite these enormous challenges around Distance Learning you see this as an opportunity for a reboot to at happen within the ednal system . We are really at a crossroads moment between the recent murder of george lloyd, Breanna Taylor and 70 others and the coronavirus. We have come to a moment where we can really continue to re create the inequities in our education syst that were already there, or we can work to create something new. To create somethinnew there are some schoolthat are doing things like really thinking ab t how do they assess students when they come back and nonpunitive ways but raise ways that really helped them understand where students are to take them from where they are to where th need to go over the course of the year. Interaction oneonone between teachers and students, all the things we know students really need and in some ways could use this as an opportunity to recreate education in ways we have needed to r far too long. Thank you. Julia we put out a call on facebook to our viewers and one of them asks, how ours they making this available to staff the state guidelines have said schools are supposed to regularly test staff, how are who pays for it . Do that and at the moment they are saying staff should be done by testing sites and as we know there has been a movement to get Insurance Companies to pay for any testing frontline or essential workers and teachers are considered essential workers. If you are a teacher in a school it wont the school paying for this, they e sending to the Testing Center and also sending them to their health svice and have that pickup. What do you think will make the key districts between this school year and the school year. Know one of the most important thgs is is going to be filled bill . Make sure they are oviding materials to parents native languages. We also know it will be super important to really communicate th educators and make sure they have the professional developmental they need to be able to help students. We also know funding for all of this will be crial. We know it will be more funds there were already propositions on the ballot which could really help infuse more funding into to the students that need i am really peful we will be able to push those three thingsi in more school ricts across the state. Th thank you so much for joining us. Counties that are on californias coronavirus monitoring list may only provide School Services online. When a county has been off the watch list for two weeks a total schooldistrict could choose to provide in persons instruction again but teacher unions say that regulation does not go far enough. They argue using countywide averages will lead to inequible and unsafe situations and that more detailed simco data needs to be used instead. With me now is marissa the president of the united teachers of richmond and a former Elementary School teacher. Also joining the is shakira runnels and cofounder of the Parent Leadership Council thank you both so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. Sa marwhat is your concern about using countywide data to reopen thSchool Districts . I think countywide data is in painting the realory of what is going on in our counties. For example i teach and Contra Costa County and san pablo is three times the number cases as the countywide average. That means when students go back to school it is likely they will go back with a greater likelihood of passing the virus to tsthe stud we need to be using zip code data and making sure every zip code meets the requirements before going back to school. Your position is no school should reopen until all schools e n reopen within county yeve isnt that punito the students in those districts that have lower infection rates . I think the bott line is we want kids back in school. Classrooms aremeant to be mephysical and we are t to be working with our students but it is not safe unto return l it is safer every students. If you look at the countywide data, the places where there is the cases is there are moween essential and they are more likely to have relative so his case count is higher. We are actually putting them in a really unsafe situation and i really believe we all needed to come together and put pressure on our county d local governments to make sure putting Contact Tracing and testing in this communities so we can all be safe togo back to work together. You have two boys who are young and in school. What has your experience with ea distanceing been like and what are you expecting for the fall . Quite honestly it has been quite inconsistent. One child had a great experience, a o great teacher really jued in with the distancelearning program and my other son had a teacher that struggled. Luckily i feel like the teachers and the district have making sure the ll will be a to different experience. Im expecting things will go better but it will still be difficult. I have two Young Children who both need my constant assistance in order to participate in the program. Could make dilearning a at better experience for you and your children . I think some of the steps we are takingincreased parent training is really important in making sure we have policies in place to ke sure that our neediest students, those who have difficulty accessing distancelearning in the past ha who dont consistent wifi and things like at, we will have a better experience than we had in the spring during what was really an the. Ent it was not a Distance Learning program. Earlier today your ion, the united teachers reache deal with the School District for distance to learning. Can you tell me about any specific pieces related to equity in that deal and what typical day will look like . I think the focus they have en making this deal was equity and to do that we worked directly with our parents d with the Leadership Council to h make sure were involved. It was crislearni. Teachers overnight had to figure it out how do i take what i learned in the classroom and years of learning and do it online . This new really allows for more training for our teachers so they will be really prepared to do this with a special training on race and equity. Every friday of the month our l teachers wt an hour and half of professional development which will really help make sure we are bringing all of our learning back when they come back to the classroom physically as well. Most of this conversation around equity has been framed in terms of race. Do you think it should be broader . Can you tellatus about i am both a black parent obviously but i also ha children with special needs. There are concerns ofequity for children like mine. How are their needs beinmet in both the distancelearning program and in a physical classroom setting. As a parent we have so many balls to juggle here. Ar thertherapies in ieps and Different Things like sotha n every conversation i always want those needs to also be centered with race and class and income and all of these things havto be part of the conversations we are having. Do you feel you are getting the support you need from olyou scdistrict . I feel like we are on the road to getting the support at need. I do feel like my voice was during the spriand i am cautiously optimistic. I read all 20 pages and i see special education mentioned explicitly and as i said myde son had an amazing teacher. She used tozoom with ecial Needs Children so i expect to have a better experience than i had. In the spri we received a question on facebook from one of our er vi they are wondering if schools will be equipped with enough counselors is your School District requiring this is such an in great and important question and the answer is no. I dont know of any districts doing this right now. Le and the pris we dont have enough funding to make this possible. It is so clear during this crisis learning that schools are central to our community. We had teachers handing out the free reduced lunch, we had teachers dropping off supplies. We had teachers were getting the Mental HealthHealth Support and we need to fund schools like they are the have been serving our really community. No we are not doing that, i think that is something we need to step up and do. As a state we need to invest in the services for our students. Many parents have been scrambling and they have often been creating these socalled ndemic pods where a few people will come together with their kids to share childcare, potentiallhire a tutor or teacher to educate their children in a Smaller Group setting in a private setting. There has lobeen a present criticism about this specifically in terms of equity. I am curious what you think aboupandemic pods anif you know anyone doing this. Actually i do know someone that is participating but from a very different stananoint hat you just mentioned. She is in san jose and is doing this because the teachers there are being required tobe in their classrooms during this learning. She is creating a pod with classmates of her son and also because there are some essential workers who need that level of support. I think the need for childcare and essential workers is getting lost in the discussion of pandemic podsisand that only something available to people of a certain means. I stil is just talking about people who have the monies to take people out of the Teaching Force and ask them to work in their homes, then i feel like we are misdirecting our resources and really not g lookward the county and state to state must to all that we can to get this virus under control and to reduce the infections and make our Public Schools safe for everyone. Bo thank you th so much. Thank you. Ck many parents may find it difficult to keep up with the demands of their childrens distancelearning and their own work schedule. Gative impact on the Mental Health of parents and their kids, struggling wiup rtainty anand did routines. Joining me now is the professor of psychiatry doctor William Martinez. Thank you for joining us. Yo thank for having me. As a psychologist can you briefly describe for us what Mental Health challeng you are seeing in your parents patients, particularly around yes that is a great question. We are seeing a lot of hardship with our milies as well and e we primarily selks on public insuranceand what we are seeing is a lot of stggling on figuring out how to provide the kids education if these parents are working from home how they are able toth ork from home and do a second job of being e educator for their kidsfo fos who are frontline essential workers we are seeing a lot of stress to figure t how to to provide childcare or have childcare provided for their kids at home and their education provided while are out working. I am curious how much higher a lehel of mental th struggle that you are seeing these days through the pandemic and ing into the school year . I can safely say and i have been talking with colleagues all around the country who were in similar clinics working with similar populations that we are seeing a lot of mental heth symptoms go through the roof right now. Right w we are having a lot of folks who are highly stressed d anxious social isolate for just a couple hours , the Mental Health system is under stress right now. That is not there in many parks especially here in san francisco. Folks are really starting to see an uptick and we are starting to see a lot more symptoms, children its of great concern right now. Cewhat addo you have . Number one parents need to be mindful of their owstress, selfcare is so important. If you cant take care of yourself you will not be able to take care of your own child. Ress and anxiety. Their parents second is to have faith in yourself, your families ability to handle and we think every family has been to hardship before. Every family has their way o