WEBVTT - Reopening Schools: Some Districts Stick With Online Learning in the Fall

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<v Speaker 1>It's Wednesday. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive podcast

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<v Speaker 1>in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. The reopening

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<v Speaker 1>of schools in the fall continues to be a contentious discussion,

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<v Speaker 1>with some committed to on campus instruction and others only online.

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<v Speaker 1>Los Angeles, San Diego, and Atlanta, three of the nation's

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<v Speaker 1>largest school districts, said this week that they will begin

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<v Speaker 1>the new school year online and bring students back later

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<v Speaker 1>in the year. Illustrating the divide. In California, the Orange

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<v Speaker 1>County Board of Education voted to support the return to

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<v Speaker 1>school without social distancing or MASK. Laura Meckler, national education

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<v Speaker 1>reporter at The Washington Post, joins us for more. Thanks

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<v Speaker 1>for joining us, Laura, I wanted to continue the conversation

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<v Speaker 1>about schools reopening. It's been a fight on all sides

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<v Speaker 1>of this thing, and really there's been no consensus on its.

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<v Speaker 1>School districts across the country are going it in a

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of different ways. Some of the latest news we

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<v Speaker 1>have schools in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Atlanta, some

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<v Speaker 1>of the nation's biggest school districts, said that they're going

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<v Speaker 1>to begin the new school year with distance learning. Students

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<v Speaker 1>learning from home, and then maybe later on in the

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<v Speaker 1>year they'll bring kids back to the school. Tell us

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<v Speaker 1>a little bit about these plans and what we're hearing. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>it's just that, you know, I think we all kind

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<v Speaker 1>of thought, I think as the last school year was

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<v Speaker 1>wrapping up that, Okay, we got through this year, but

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<v Speaker 1>of course by the fall, we're going to be back

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<v Speaker 1>to regular school, right. I mean, as a parent, I

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<v Speaker 1>certainly assumed that. But it's actually the coronavirus evidently has

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<v Speaker 1>other ideas about what's going to happen. What is happening

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<v Speaker 1>is that there's conversations and pretty much every across the

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<v Speaker 1>country about how to do this situation. And there are

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<v Speaker 1>some that you plan to open up as normal five

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<v Speaker 1>days a week. That a lot of those are more

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<v Speaker 1>rural districts, But now we're starting to hear from the

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<v Speaker 1>big cities. And as you said, just this week we

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<v Speaker 1>found out that Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta in addition,

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<v Speaker 1>and also Nashville plans to start the year fully remote.

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<v Speaker 1>So that means we're sort of back to where we

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<v Speaker 1>started from in the spring. Now there's also quite a

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<v Speaker 1>few districts who are looking at what are being called

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<v Speaker 1>hybrid models, where kids are in school certain days and

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<v Speaker 1>at home other days. The idea there being that if

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<v Speaker 1>you kind of cut down the number in the building

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<v Speaker 1>at any given time, you can allow for some more

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<v Speaker 1>social distancing inside the classroom. So those are the two

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<v Speaker 1>major ideas that are really out of the table. We

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<v Speaker 1>have to go back to the concerns that happened with

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<v Speaker 1>this past school year. Basically, everybody had to transition very

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<v Speaker 1>quickly to this online learning, distance learning as it goes

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<v Speaker 1>by a bunch of different names, and it was very

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<v Speaker 1>tough for a lot of school districts to make that transition.

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<v Speaker 1>They weren't ready, they didn't really have the right infrastructure.

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<v Speaker 1>This time around, it's gonna be a little different. There's

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<v Speaker 1>going to be a lot of the same I suspect,

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<v Speaker 1>but where you started off a class here with a

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<v Speaker 1>bunch of kids and you kind of got to know them.

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<v Speaker 1>This year, you're going to start a new year off

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<v Speaker 1>with a new teacher, a new set of students that's

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<v Speaker 1>going to pose its own challenges in and of itself.

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<v Speaker 1>This is going to be so difficult. You are starting

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<v Speaker 1>out at the beginning of the year, you've never met

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<v Speaker 1>your teacher, you're going to be covering all new material,

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<v Speaker 1>and although of course there may be some review, they

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<v Speaker 1>are always is somebody even maybe more than usual, and

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<v Speaker 1>you're but you're in the new grade. In some cases,

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<v Speaker 1>you're at a whole new school, and you're starting out

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<v Speaker 1>remote or partially remote. I think that's a lot harder

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<v Speaker 1>in a lot of ways. I mean, they do have

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<v Speaker 1>more time to prepare for it, so that's the good news.

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<v Speaker 1>But on the other hand, as you said, school it

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<v Speaker 1>out in March, but they have kids had already been

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<v Speaker 1>with those teachers since the previous August or September, which

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<v Speaker 1>I think is a big difference. One of the other

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<v Speaker 1>ongoing concerns as well as the safety of teachers. Obviously

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<v Speaker 1>we've talked about it a lot. Students are only half

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<v Speaker 1>as likely to get infected by coronavirus or even get

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<v Speaker 1>serious symptoms, but teachers are a different story. One of

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<v Speaker 1>the statue you had in your article, there's an estimate

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<v Speaker 1>from the Kaiser Family Foundation that found that one in

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<v Speaker 1>four teachers are at elevated risk based on their age

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<v Speaker 1>or underlying health conditions. So well, kids, you know, the

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<v Speaker 1>man thing, the social distancing thing, the teachers that are

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<v Speaker 1>dealing with them day in and day out. If they

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<v Speaker 1>go back to full time learning at school, I mean

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<v Speaker 1>that poses a danger there, right, I mean that is

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<v Speaker 1>in the teacher studients are very concerned about that, especially

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<v Speaker 1>for older teachers or teachers who have some sort of

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<v Speaker 1>compromised health condition. You know, we don't really know that

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<v Speaker 1>much about how much students are carriers for the virus.

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<v Speaker 1>We do believe that they do not, especially younger students

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<v Speaker 1>get particularly sick from the virus, But you know, can

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<v Speaker 1>we carry it. We don't really know. There's evidence going

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<v Speaker 1>both ways on that front. So the question is that's

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<v Speaker 1>not just teachers also, it's cafeterier workers, it's bus drivers,

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<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of staff, it's people who work behind

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<v Speaker 1>the desk at the office. There are a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>people in that building, a lot of adults in the building.

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<v Speaker 1>So that is a concern. The CDC has said that

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<v Speaker 1>obviously a lot of these decisions have to be a

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<v Speaker 1>local decision based on what's going on there. Los Angeles

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<v Speaker 1>and San Diego put out a joint statement saying that

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<v Speaker 1>they were going to be learning from home at the

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<v Speaker 1>beginning of the year. I think in their statement, they

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<v Speaker 1>said something about there's a disappoint for teachers and parents

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<v Speaker 1>as well. What did they say as far as what

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<v Speaker 1>they're going to do to enrich that or try to

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<v Speaker 1>get the beginning of the school you're going in a

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<v Speaker 1>better way. They said that they're going to do more

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<v Speaker 1>training of both teachers of how to make distance learning work,

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<v Speaker 1>and also they're going to offer some training for families

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<v Speaker 1>so that they can know how to interact with the

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<v Speaker 1>system better. We'll see how much of a difference that makes,

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<v Speaker 1>you know. I think a lot of us figured out

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<v Speaker 1>in the spring that even for families that have all

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<v Speaker 1>the advantages and really are not facing the kind of

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<v Speaker 1>difficulties as some are, it's really hard, especially depending on

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<v Speaker 1>what kind of kid you have. If the kid needs

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<v Speaker 1>a lot of attention and you're trying to work from home,

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<v Speaker 1>that's not easy. Especially when you have families that are

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<v Speaker 1>already in a vulnerable position who are scraping by, maybe

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<v Speaker 1>parents who have lost their jobs because of the impact

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<v Speaker 1>of the crisis. That's even harder I think for those,

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<v Speaker 1>and I just don't know how much training is going

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<v Speaker 1>to really get you there, so will have to keep

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<v Speaker 1>an eye on that. Sticking with California as an example,

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<v Speaker 1>just to kind of illustrate how deep the divide is.

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<v Speaker 1>So we have Los Angeles and San Diego saying they're

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<v Speaker 1>starting the school year online. Orange County, which is right

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<v Speaker 1>in the middle, their Board of Education just when a

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<v Speaker 1>different route, they voted to go back to the old

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<v Speaker 1>ways on campus instruction, no face masks, no social distancing. Now,

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<v Speaker 1>the Board of Education there in Orange County doesn't have

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<v Speaker 1>direct power to direct any of the school districts on

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<v Speaker 1>you know, how to follow its guidelines or anything like that.

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<v Speaker 1>That's set up to the individual districts, but the Board

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<v Speaker 1>of Education is highly involved with the way they operate. So,

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<v Speaker 1>like I said, just just illustrates the divide that's going

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<v Speaker 1>on even within a state itself. What are some of

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<v Speaker 1>the other school districts that are planning to reopen? Fully,

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<v Speaker 1>I know you mentioned a lot of them are very

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<v Speaker 1>rural districts. Yeah, I mean not exclusively obviously, but a

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<v Speaker 1>lot of them are rural districts. And lets be clear,

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<v Speaker 1>I mean, if you're in a county for a state

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<v Speaker 1>that doesn't have a lot of the cases, that probably

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<v Speaker 1>makes sense. You know, you want to still use some

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<v Speaker 1>precautions and modify your the way you operate. The CDC

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<v Speaker 1>has a lot of guidelines for how to go about

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<v Speaker 1>doing that. But let's keep in mind that these are

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<v Speaker 1>a risk to going back to school, but there are

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<v Speaker 1>risks that staying out of school as well academically, socially

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<v Speaker 1>and from a social emotional point of view, is just

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<v Speaker 1>can be devastating to be at home for children. So

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<v Speaker 1>there are some districts that are talking about going back

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<v Speaker 1>to all time, and I think that's what everybody would

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<v Speaker 1>ideally like to be the case. But you know, I

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<v Speaker 1>think what we're also going to see in a lot

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<v Speaker 1>of places, and we already are seeing as these hybrid

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<v Speaker 1>models where you're partly and partly out. That's what New

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<v Speaker 1>York City announced that New York is a huge district

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<v Speaker 1>that by far the nation's largest district. All of these

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<v Speaker 1>decisions are very localized, and it's up to each school

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<v Speaker 1>district to decide how they're going to do it. What

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<v Speaker 1>do we see from the federal response. I saw Education

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<v Speaker 1>Secretary Betsy Divas over the weekend doing a round of interviews.

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<v Speaker 1>It seemed like she didn't fully grasp a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>the issues. She was asked, what are you gonna do

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<v Speaker 1>if a kid comes down with coronavirus? How will they

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<v Speaker 1>be isolated? And she really didn't know how to answer that.

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<v Speaker 1>Maybe she was just punting it off to a local decision.

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<v Speaker 1>But what's been the federal response several these days can

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<v Speaker 1>be more than one thing. So the message from President

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<v Speaker 1>Trump and from Security Divoce has been schools need to open.

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<v Speaker 1>That's the best place for students to be, and they

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<v Speaker 1>need to open now. The CDC has also said that

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<v Speaker 1>school should open, but they've offered a lot more nuanced

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<v Speaker 1>of a message, like pay attention to the local conditions

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<v Speaker 1>and keep in mind all of these guidelines for how

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<v Speaker 1>to go about doing it. So it's been a little

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<v Speaker 1>bit different. The CDC and the health of experts in

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<v Speaker 1>the administration are not always exactly saying the same thing

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<v Speaker 1>as the president. Laura Meckler, National Education reporter at the

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<v Speaker 1>Washington Post, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks

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<v Speaker 1>for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been

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<v Speaker 1>reopening America. Don't forget after today's big news stories. You

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<v Speaker 1>can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every

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<v Speaker 1>Monday Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or

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<v Speaker 1>wherever you get your podcast,