CSI: American Carnage (Monday, July 13, 2020)
WASHINGTON – Madam Secretary, Dana says, I want my school-aged child to go back to school as much as you are saying you want for everybody. But the question is can it happen safely? Can you also assure parents, students, children, everybody who’s there that they’re going to be able to do so safely? Betsy says, The go-to position should be schools should be open and children should be going to school. We know that children get the virus at a far lower rate than any other part of the population. In some instances, it has been shown that they don’t get it at all. There is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous. Quite the opposite. In fact, it’s more a matter of their health and well-being that they be back in school. We’ve seen this in other countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world where students have gone back to school and have done so very successfully. Whereas, when they’ve been out of the classroom, they’ve succumbed to mental health issues, suicide, and violence of all kinds, theft, and alcohol abuse. You don’t want them on the streets. They all have these phones, of course, but that doesn’t mean you automatically do everything online because a child hanging out on a street corner can look in on a phone. The classroom should be the goal. Dana says, Madam Secretary, everyone agrees with that. Can it be done safely and does the Department of Education have a plan? Betsy says, It is a matter of paying attention to good hygiene, following the guidelines around making sure we’re washing hands, wearing masks when appropriate, staying apart at a bit of a distance socially, and doing the things that are common sense approaches to ensuring that kids can go back to the classroom and can go back to learning. We are not going to tell every individual school what they should do. They need to reopen. Get the schools open and everything will take care of itself. There are counties all over the nation where there is no virus. And where there are flareups of the virus for a day or two, we need to tamp down those embers and keep those kids in the classroom. They need to get in there and learn. And they can’t just say, Oh, we are going to provide remote learning one day a week or a month. They need to get those schools open. The president has made very clear that he wants the schools open and he will use whatever he needs to use, whether it’s the appropriate orders or the appropriate troop deployments to do it. You can’t have districts like Fairfax openly defying the president of the United States. You need them to come up the plan and provide the education they are supposed to provide. That’s what Miami-Dade is doing. They have a plan and they assure us and they’ve assured parents in the district that they will remain open, even if the mortality rates bump up a little. We need that kind of leadership. If a district is experiencing an inordinate number of deaths, then they need to look at their distancing protocols, not shut down the schools. Dana says, Do you have a plan for opening safely? Betsy says, Every child needs to be in school. My team is working with district leaders everywhere, as well as with the Department of Defense and Homeland Security to ensure that. The schools need to be open. And districts will comply. This is what the president wants. This is leadership. – July 13, 2020