Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Reports Nearly 1,500 Daily Deaths, Reflecting Continued Toll of Summer Surge – The New York Times
August 14, 2020
michael barbaro
From The New York Times, Im Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
So far, the debate over school reopenings has been dominated by a president who is determined to send students back into classrooms
We want to reopen the schools. Everybody wants it. The moms want it. The dads want it. The kids want it. Its time to do it.
and by local school officials, who are answering that call.
So were very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools.
Today: My colleague Dana Goldstein on why teachers and their unions are defying those plans.
Its Thursday, August 13.
Good evening. I stand here tonight not only as governor of Florida, but as a husband, a father, a son and a friend to have a conversation about how we as Floridians approach these challenging times. As a parent of three, I know that my fellow parents here in Florida want nothing more than to provide a bright future for their children. And heres the hard truth. While the risks to students from in-person learning are low, the cost of keeping schools closed are enormous.
Dana, tell me about this situation with schools in Florida.
In early July, just as the Trump administration from Washington was pushing schools to reopen their physical campuses across the country, Florida was the state that really leaned heavily in that same direction under their Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
The important thing is that our parents have a meaningful choice when it comes to in-person education. Lets not let fear get the best of us and harm our children in the process.
The state issued this executive order.
The state is announcing its requiring all schools to reopen for in-person classes next month, August.
Telling schools that they had to reopen five days a week.
So that announcement coming today, given where Florida is. Your analysis.
I mean my analysis is that that is insane
And this was shocking to superintendents and school boards. You know, they had spent the months of May, June, into July mostly planning for a hybrid model of education. Kids would go to school two or three, or maybe even just one day a week in person, and be home learning online the rest of the time. School districts all of a sudden were being told you have to offer parents and families the option of five days a week in the building.
So we are not ready to open schools in four weeks. We need to slow down and take a pause and get this right around the state first.
And what would happen if schools didnt physically reopen five days a week?
You know, I think the kind of underlying threat was that you would lose state dollars if you dont provide families with this option for in-person learning. And this threat to them was quite scary. Because state funding for education is the main funding that funds our school system in the United States.
And what was the state of the pandemic when the state of Florida makes this demand?
So these numbers were so shocking to us when we did reporting on this that we actually fact checked them many, many times to make sure they were correct.
Florida shattering its daily record, recording more than 15,000 cases, accounting for a quarter of the total new daily cases in the United States.
In some south Florida counties in the month of July
South Floridas Miami-Dade has seen a staggering daily positivity rate of 33 percent.
between 20 and 30 percent of coronavirus tests were coming back positive. And the World Health Organization, the state of California, the state of New York have tended to use a range of about 5 percent to 10 percent test positivity rates as something to look at when deciding whether or not to open schools. So here you might see, you know, four times that number in a city like Miami.
Here in Miami-Dade, according to county data released yesterday, the goal for the county is not to exceed 10 percent. They have exceeded that for the past 14 days.
A strong indication that the virus is completely unchecked in that region. In fact, it was one of the most dangerous cities for the virus in the United States.
Right. So what was the reaction across Florida to this executive order?
Anger.
If the governor wants to open schools publicly, how about we invite him to come and teach in the classroom? [CHEERING]
A lot of teachers and educators were angry.
If he wants to open schools, how about he provide teachers with hazard pay? Because thats exactly what youre doing. Youre on the frontlines of a pandemic that you didnt start, you didnt call for and we dont have control for. [CHEERING]
Because they felt that their safety and, in some respects, safety of the entire community from a public health perspective was nowhere in this conversation.
I teach my students the history of America, how this government has run, how it works. This is a democracy. Our voices need to be heard.
And my inbox and social media were filled with messages from teachers.
So I want everyone to hear my voice that if I die from catching Covid-19 from being forced back into Pinellas County Schools, you can drop my dead body right here! Leave my body right here! [CHEERING]
And it was just this sense that the question of whether we should go back did not pay enough attention to teachers health risks.
Do you feel ready to return to your classroom?
I do not. I personally have lost sleep over it. Ive cried over it. I cry over it a lot. Its very, very scary. And the one thing Im going to say, I will say online learning is not ideal. But it will keep our children safe.
Im a teacher. Ive been with Duval County for 23 years. I have a mother at home that is sick. And if I am to get the coronavirus, I dont want to bring it back to her.
Yes, its really important that kids get educated. Its really important that parents be able to work during the day and children have the basic childcare that schools provide. However
We teachers love our students. And we agree that the best place for students is in school. But thats only if theyre safe. If going to school is more dangerous for students or for their families, then we should hold off and do some sort of distance learning or a hybrid model until its safe for them.
I think theres no way to social distance in our already crowded classrooms. There is not enough money to provide for the extra staff that we would need and the extra P.P.E. that we would need. I dont think that its worth the risk.
We are used to going into schools that sometimes dont have soap in the bathrooms, that sometimes have broken windows that prevent us from circulating fresh air, that have dated heating and ventilation systems. And where is our health in this equation?
This is not how I want to go back. And I want to go back so bad. Because I love teaching. I miss my classroom. I miss my kids.
So what did teachers in Florida do?
The largest teachers union in Florida is suing the state over its executive order mandating that schools reopen next month with in-person instruction.
So a bunch of the local and national union groups that represent teachers came together and they sued the state of Florida.
In the lawsuit, the union says the state is unconstitutionally forcing millions of students and teachers into unsafe schools.
Saying that this executive order requiring schools to reopen five days a week in person actually violated Floridas own state law that also calls for schools to be safe.
The suit says children are at risk of contracting and spreading the virus and of developing severe illness, resulting in death. And the state mandate to open schools is impossible to comply with C.D.C. guidelines on physical distancing, hygiene and sanitation if schools are operating at full capacity.
Its really very simple what they were arguing, that going back five days a week is not safe and therefore, cannot be legal.
Huh. I have to think that its a pretty unusual act, you know, teachers suing to stop their own schools from reopening.
Yes. Its definitely unusual and notable. And interestingly, it paved the way for similar threats to sue across the country, including in northern cities like Chicago and New York. And shortly after this Florida suit came down
The American Federation of Teachers has told its 1.7 million members that if they choose to strike, the union will have their back.
The American Federation of Teachers, which is one of the two national unions, authorized any of their locals across the country to plan a strike in the event that safety precautions are not being met to reopen schools.
Wow. So a national teachers union is saying, a grounds for striking which traditionally weve always thought of as wages, health care, those kinds of issues theyre now saying you may decide to strike over unsafe school conditions in the middle of this pandemic?
Exactly. The threat to strike is very powerful and pragmatic. Because once teachers threaten to strike over the safety measures and questions of funding, it really puts pressure on the local school districts to give them a big seat at the table. And just the core decision, which is, are we even going to try to have in-person school this fall?
Well be right back.
So Dana, as teachers are seeking a place at the table and threatening to strike if they dont feel like schools are safe, what exactly are they asking for in order to feel ready to return to the classroom?
Were seeing a very broad range of demands from teachers. And it runs the spectrum from very specific and achievable requests, to ones that are hugely ambitious, time consuming, expensive, or maybe even impossible to achieve while were still experiencing any transmission of Covid-19.
What do you mean?
So for example in Orlando, when I spoke to teachers there in July, the requests were really quite reasonable. They wanted face masks to be required. They wanted temperature checks in all school district buildings. And then, the American Federation of Teachers, the national union that authorized strikes, had a very specific set of demands that they were looking for nationally. They wanted to see test positivity rates for the virus below 5 percent, transmission rates below 1 percent, effective contact tracing for the entire region, the school to require masks, update ventilation systems, and put in place procedures to maintain six feet of distance.
Wow.
So very much sort of in line with C.D.C. guidelines for being as safe as possible.
So the union is making demands of an entire community, and level of infection and transmission and contact tracing beyond the school?
Exactly. Theyre expecting those things to work in the whole region before you sort of even get to the question of what sort of P.P.E. is available to teachers or something like that.
What about less practical requests from teachers?
So there you see this big movement bubbling up on social media under the hashtag #14daysnonewcases. And this is really quite a radical demand for schools not to reopen physically until there are no new cases in a region for 14 days. Now many nations have been able to reopen their schools safely without achieving that standard. And when Ive spoken to public health experts about this, what they say is, you know, 14 days no new cases is not just a controlled pandemic, its essentially the end of the pandemic in that region. And it might require a vaccine to get to that standard. Not just a vaccine that exists and works, but that has actually been deployed widely. When will that occur? Will that occur six months from now, 12 months from now, two years from now? We just dont know the answer to that. And those start to be very big numbers when youre thinking about children being out of school.
I wonder what these demands from teachers look like to parents in this moment. I mean, Im mindful that many parents want their kids to return to school for a variety of very understandable reasons.
Thats right. I mean, I think the really hard thing is that there is no consensus or even strong majority opinion among parents. One recent national poll found about 60 percent of parents at this moment believe its smarter to delay reopening physical schools until the virus subsides somewhat and there are more safety measures in place. But in some big cities, where the virus has been relatively well-controlled, like New York and Chicago, polls have found that a majority of families do have some willingness to send their kids back to school.
And to add another layer of complication, it tends to be parents of color and low income parents that are the most scared of the health threats to their children of congregating in school buildings. But those families are also the most concerned about their kids falling back socially and academically because schools are closed. So there is just no consensus among parents as to what they feel is safe. It would in some ways be easier if American parents all agreed with each other about what was right here.
Mhm. And of course in the absence of physically returning to schools, were left with online learning. And we have covered on the show the problems with how teachers and school districts are approaching that.
Yeah. So in the spring, only a small segment of American school districts actually required teachers to teach live lessons over something like Zoom video. And here I think there is actually more risk of tension between parents and teachers. Because were starting to see from polls what parents are asking for in a situation of continued remote learning.
They were not happy that in the spring, many of their kids did not see teachers live over video. Many teachers were interacting with their students primarily over email at sort of random times per day. And thats not what parents want.
They want their students to log on at very specific times and be in something like an online class, where they would have small group breakout sessions and discussions and have the opportunity to ask the teacher questions and get individualized feedback. And teachers unions are still, in some cases, resisting some of these practices, including even showing their faces on live video.
And Dana, why would that be? I guess Im confused. If teachers are deeply reluctant to return to schools for very understandable reasons that you just outlined, and they dont feel school districts are meeting them halfway, why would they simultaneously be resisting a more enriched online remote teaching experience?
Well, some of them make the argument that its not fair to provide too much live instruction, because students who dont have an adult to supervise their online learning at home, say, at exactly 10:00 a.m., might just miss out on the live lesson. So they think that that mode of education is not effective.
But Ive also heard some arguments much simpler than that, that they dont want their homes to be shown. Theyre not comfortable in that medium. And they believe its a violation of their own privacy to be shown from home in that way. So its a range of different arguments there.
That would seem to raise a real crisis. I mean, teachers both not wanting to be in classrooms, but also not wanting to teach online the way parents want them to.
Well, this has been the sort of crux of these very tense latest negotiations across the country between teachers and school district leaders.
Dana, I know a bunch of school districts around the country have actually started classes in schools. And I wonder how that has played out.
Well, there have been some horror stories, unfortunately.
In Georgia, this photo of a crowded hallway, no mask in sight, from North Paulding High School went viral after the school opened for in-person learning on August 3.
You know, for one of the first school districts to reopen, which was in Georgia, hundreds of staff were told to stay home because of potential exposure to the virus.
Today the school remain closed, a week after that reopening.
In Indiana
One student at Greenfield Central Junior High tested positive on the very first day of school.
right away this junior high school was having to call teachers and call students families and ask them to stay home for two weeks.
Students at Elwood Junior Senior High now have to go remote after staff members there tested positive for Covid-19.
Now thats extremely alarming. But I want to say that nobody whos a public health or education expert believes that were going to reopen schools without students and teachers showing up from time to time positive for Covid-19. Thats not a realistic expectation.
But what we do need is procedures in place to deal with that when it happens. I mean, it needs to be clear who is getting told to stay home for two weeks. And, is their access to testing for anyone who came in contact with that positive individual? So in many ways, I think these anecdotes that were hearing of kind of first-day-back crises in towns and cities that are trying to reopen physically do show that many of the concerns that teachers have brought to the table here are quite legitimate.
So those are a small number of districts that have already reopened. But of course, many of the nations largest school districts Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., among others, are now firmly saying that they will not physically reopen schools at least initially. And that represents millions of students. So do teachers unions and teachers see that as a kind of victory?
They do see it as a victory, absolutely. They believe that its not only whats necessary to protect their health but to prevent schools emerging as potential hot spots for spreading Covid-19.
But I think within that victory, there is also a real tragedy for American children and actually for our country.
Because to be in a place where the needs of public health and safety are really juxtaposed against our ability to fully educate our kids, is to be in a place that very few other developed nations are in right now. And it is because of our failure to control the pandemic itself. We are looking at the real likelihood that millions or tens of millions of children do not attend school for an entire year. A full year of no school.
And we just know that its going to lead to big problems. Its going to make kids less likely to learn to read. Its going to probably lead to higher high school dropout rates. Its going to lead to students who dont have enough to eat, because school is where they are fed. And to students that dont have access to the mental health counseling and the special education services that they get at schools.
So the fact that were having to choose between everything crucial that the physical school provides and public health, its stunning. Its stunning to me as a 15-year veteran on the education beat and just also as a parent. You know, my daughter is going to come through this pandemic just fine. She has access to a great childcare and we have a lot of resources in our home and family to bring her through this.
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Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Reports Nearly 1,500 Daily Deaths, Reflecting Continued Toll of Summer Surge - The New York Times
