{"id":114614,"date":"2021-02-12T21:22:28","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T05:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.46.6.243\/?p=114614"},"modified":"2021-02-12T21:29:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T05:29:19","slug":"cdc-issues-first-step-guidelines-to-reopening-public-schools-now-california-educators-look-to-lawmakers-to-provide-much-needed-funding-and-resources-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/?p=114614","title":{"rendered":"CDC Issues First-Step Guidelines to Reopening Public Schools, Now California Educators Look to Lawmakers to Provide Much-Needed Funding and Resources, Vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacramento, CA…The anticipated CDC Guidelines<\/a>\u00a0to reopen public schools safely was released Friday, reiterating what California\u2019s educators have been calling for over the last 10 months: Masks and PPE, 6-feet for physical and social distancing, handwashing stations and proper ventilation, surface cleaning and sanitization; contact tracing, weekly testing, and prioritizing vaccinations for educators and school staff already on campus.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNo one wants to be back in classrooms with students more than educators who know there is no equal substitute for regular in-person learning but, for that to happen, there must be multi-layered safety measures in place, as echoed today by the CDC,”\u00a0said CTA President E. Toby Boyd. \u201cThe CDC also strongly encouraged states to prioritize teachers and other school staff to get vaccinated. They cautioned that if we want to get children back for in-person instruction, we must protect teachers and education support professionals from getting COVID. We agree!\u201d<\/p>\n

School districts have made very clear that they do not have the resources to make sure the proper ventilation is in place, testing, PPE, and the other multi-layered safety measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cEducators and school employees in the field can attest to that. The multiple variants are posing an even greater threat across all communities and increasing fear and anxiety levels,\u201d said Boyd. \u201cFor these and myriad reasons,\u00a0we have to get shots in the arms of employees who are required to report in-person and before the students return to campus. Then, pivot to vaccinating those who phase back in to in-person teaching and learning.\u00a0This addresses the concerns over supply and provide the confidence educators, students and their parents are seeking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congress will need to pass the American Rescue Plan to begin releasing the much-needed funds to the states to begin readying classrooms for the safe return of California\u2019s students, educators and staff.<\/p>\n

In a virtual noon\u00a0news conference<\/a>\u00a0today, anxious and concerned parents from around the state said reopening schools while COVID-19 rages on \u2013 and with new and dangerous variants appearing \u2013 would be premature and urged lawmakers to \u2018govern by science, not politics.\u2019 Watch the entire news conference\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people speaking out are not part of our communities,\u201d\u00a0said Pecolia Manigo, an Oakland parent<\/a>\u00a0and executive director of Parent Leadership Action Network. \u201cWe need to hear Black, Latinx, immigrant and indigenous communities before we assume we know what they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur community has been hit very hard by the Coronavirus. There has been a lot of heartbreak. People have lost family members, friends and, just this past week, we had a father and son die within hours\u2026 So I am here today because I am scared,\u201d\u00a0said Fresno mother of four, Maricela Velasquez<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s hard to trust the schools will be able to keep them safe. I certainly don\u2019t trust the parents who are speaking loudly right now about us opening schools for our children to go back. Let me be clear, they don\u2019t speak for me and they don\u2019t speak for my community! I won\u2019t be sending my kids back until it is safe, until the virus infection rates have gone down, until the district has provided resources for all for safety measures and until the teachers have had the vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maria Osorio from Los Angeles agreed<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cEvery day, thousands of people are still getting infected and dying,\u201d said Los Angeles parent Osorio. \u201cIt\u2019s too much to return under these conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Delano-Wood\u00a0is a parent of a child in San Diego schools<\/a>\u00a0and also an associate professor and clinical neuropsychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego. She said at the press conference that it is wrong to point to low transmission rates among students and schools as evidence that schools can reopen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout surveillance testing of students in schools, we don\u2019t have that data,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m very frustrated with what has become a national health problem. It\u2019s disingenuous to say this virus only spreads in homes or gatherings. We have no idea what the spread looks like in schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delano-Wood said that with new coronavirus variants and high case rates, it\u2019s too soon to reopen local schools. In an opinion\u00a0piece<\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0San Diego Union Tribune\u00a0on Feb. 11\u00a0 she wrote, \u201cWe must delay opening our schools given that case rates of COVID-19 are still\u00a0nearly five times<\/a>\u00a0what the highest tier allows; and the new B.1.1.7 variant that early indications suggest is\u00a050 percent more infectious<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 particularly in children and adolescents \u2014 is rapidly spreading in San Diego County.\u201d<\/p>\n

Low-income communities and communities of color have been hardest hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe virus is ripping through my students\u2019 communities,\u201d said\u00a0teacher Matthew Schneck.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking to see the pain and impact on my kids. I\u2019m struggling with the emotional impact of students coming to their teachers with stories of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several parents stressed that those calling for immediate return to in-person instruction, particularly in the name of \u201cequity\u201d around distance learning, do not speak for them or their communities and are not hearing their voices.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile distance learning is undoubtedly inequitable, the devastation of this virus is inequitable as well,\u201d said\u00a0Dawniel Carlock-Stewart, a parent of three.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe need to be listening to voices in these communities \u2013 not just picking out whatever equity talking points meet our agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want our kids in school, but as parents our number one priority is their safety and health. That means that we need lawmakers to provide more resources right now to support students during distance learning and to support students when schools reopen. I support vaccinations, guidelines and protocols to make sure that we have what\u2019s necessary for our children to be safe,\u201d\u00a0said Khallid Al-Alim, a Los Angeles parent.<\/a>\u00a0\u201cWe know that some parents in more affluent communities have been calling for the opening up of our schools.\u00a0But my message to them is: please DON\u2019T use the disproportionate impact on our communities to justify your desire to open up schools unsafely!\u201d<\/p>\n

Teacher\u00a0Christine Kratt contracted COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0on school grounds last Spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving with that worry and that concern is something that I don\u2019t wish on anyone. As a parent and as a teacher, I need to have absolute trust in the decisions that are being made by my board of education to make sure that not just the least but the most safety precautions are in place. There is a false sense of security in the community. I need to believe strongly that when I put my own child back into a classroom that every single thing that is being recommended to be done is being done. And that their teacher feels the ability to concentrate and focus on what it is that she is teaching,\u201d said Kratt.<\/p>\n

For more information and COVID-19 resources go to\u00a0cta.org\/covid19.<\/a><\/p>\n

###<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 310,000-member California Teachers Association is affiliated with the 3 million-member National Education Association.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sacramento, CA…The anticipated CDC Guidelines\u00a0to reopen public schools safely was released Friday, reiterating what California\u2019s educators have been calling for over the last 10 months: Masks and PPE, 6-feet for physical and social distancing, handwashing stations and proper ventilation, surface cleaning and sanitization; contact tracing, weekly testing, and prioritizing vaccinations for educators and school staff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110323,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20,5,33,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-114614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-featured","category-government","category-health-fitness","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/cdclogo.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/110323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}