Transcripts For CSPAN2 Senate Hearing On COVID-19 Impact On K-12 Students 20240712

The number in the United States is twice as many as any other country. And doctor Francis Collins who once led the human genome project and now leaves the National Institutes of health needs a competitive shark tank enterprise at the nih to discover new ways to create tens of millions of quick and extensive diagnostictests. Covid19 plans should last for at least a year. The government is pursuing vaccines at what it calls s work speed a, faster than weve ever done that before but no one expects a vaccine this august. The second half of the school year schools should be able to provide more tests, more treatments, better Contact Tracing and hopefully we should begin to have vaccines. It will likely be the fall of 2021 though before we begin toapproach normal. There are several reasons schools have an advantage in weproviding a safe environment for students and for faculty. One younger people have been less hurt by covid19 and older people. Although doctor county told our committee we should be careful about cavalier assuming that young people are not at some risk. Second, schools are generally small communities that are closely supervised and monitored. Third, outbreaks can be traced. That childs classmates can be tested and forth, individual schools and close to control the spread of the virus while other schools are ableto remain open. Schools are not unfamiliar with outbreaks of flu for example or other illnesses that have resulted in temporary closure of individual schools for while other schools continue to be open. Student environments pose challenges as well. First theres not as much extra space in our elementary andsecondary schools. As there , is on most college campuses. And that makes social distancing more difficult. Second School Administrators face more rigid rules as a result of state and local and union rules and regulations so making changes to the academic calendar and the class size and to School Schedules will be more difficult. Third, creating a mass wearing culture will be hard especially with the youngest children. Seeing facial expressions is also important for Young Children. They learn to socialize and self regulate soobscuring faces with masks prohibits learning forelementary school age children. Rigorous hygiene isnt always easy for children. Children go home at night potentially exposing other adults and six, even systematic testing of 50 million children or 55 million children is a lot of tests. Today nine out of 10 families with children have at least one parent employed and among married parents with families with children, two thirds have both parents employed according to the bureau of labor statistics and many children live in an environment where school is the safest place they will be in all day andits also the place where almost 30 Million Students receive a school lunch. One in 70 percent of the ecstudents qualify for free or reducedprice meals. Administrators have a responsibility to make our school among the safest communities in our country this fall and in doing so will help our country move back towards normalcy. Senator murray. Thank you very much mister chairman and i appreciate all of our witnesses being with us today as well. As always thank you to our Committee Staff who worked extra hard today to make this hearing possible so we could be safe andsocially distanced. Before we begin i want to say again inspired i am by the young people protecting against Police Brutality and systemic racism nationwide. They are calling for change and accountability and justice and i hope their urgency and resolve would be an example to all ofus here in congress. We are here today to discuss Something Else this country owes all young people and children and that is a quality Public Educationeven in the middle of a global pandemic. Covid19 as upended schools in ways that are truly unprecedented , creating chaos for educators and support staff, parentslyand of course our students. As this crisis was first hitting my home state of washington, i got a text from my daughter telling me the North Shore School district had closed becauseof the ugcoronavirus outbreak. Why daughter didnt know whatto do or what that meant. She was still working or what that meant to their learning and even if the United States en senator i didnt have any answers for her and it wasnt long before nearly every School District , every educator , every parent and every student in this country had many of the same questions o. Challenges schools and families across this country have had to overcome this past school year were unimaginable a matter of months ago. T cSchool Districts are now facing some of the biggest tests to state and local revenue that we have seen in a long time both facing increased costs as the result of this pandemic. And it is especially important to recognize that while this hasnt been easy for anyone, School Districts, communities and families with more resources have had more capacity to adapt than those who had less. So if we talk about ways to reopen our schools safely for students and educators and school staff, our response must not only ensure Public Health and science driving decisionmaking but also ensure every child can access a high quality Public Education during this pandemic whether in person or online. We know covid19 is having a disproportionate impact on the health of black communities and communities of color and research is salready showing how it has exacerbated the inequities that exist within our Education Systemfor this pandemic starts. We project that black students could lose over 10 months of learning, latino students could lose over nine months of learning compared to white students who are projected to lose six months of learning. Because of this, estimates show achievement gaps could grow by 15 to 20 percent in this country. We cant let covid19 continue to make things worse when it comes to the education of students of color and the same goes for students from families with low incomes. Or hq i students advancing homelessness, students in foster care, students with disabilities. So when it comes to reopening buildings safely, as ive said before and cannot say enough, pools and School Districts must follow the advice of local Public Officials and let science drive decisionmaking. At aminimum , public experts say before reopening classrooms states should be able to provide widespread testing and Contact Tracing to follow up in every single case of the virus. The federal government should also start planning now for the distribution of a safe and effective vaccine which will be critical for erschools ultimately returning to normal. But until we have a safe and effective vaccine, im glad to see some dates and School Leaders engaged in detail scenario planning because before families send their children back to the classroom and educators returned to teach they need to know if the schools have fought through every possible scenario. And given how much we dont know about how children transmit this disease we need to look at it how states are hermetically vulnerable to send their kids back to school. There are countless questions we will have to answer before they can physically open safely but for School Districts and schools cant do this alone. They need indepth actionable guidance from the federal government on best practices and to ensure the safety of students, educators, school staff and the broader community. They will need Additional Resources to measure the learning loss of students, to implement Public Health protocols to protect students and staff and a dramatic decline in stateand local revenue. Whether schools are able to open physically , or use a hybrid of both we have to ensure School Districts deliver quality and equitable Educational Social emotional and health. And they have to address the ways this virus has exacerbated inequities that have long existed within our Education System. I recently heard from a and mom in washington who told me her children are sharing one iphone to learn and shes not even sure if shes going to be able to afford that phone bill and thats just one smallexample of this Digital Divide. For School Districts that are under resourced or in areas where they dont have Internet Access, learning may consist of afew links of online material. Over 1 and a half Million Students are experiencing homelessness and finding transportation to pick up school meals is not always an option area and for students across the country experiencing trauma and stress, from this pandemic or reckoning with centuries long races and its been never more important to ensure every child has access to Mental Health and trauma support, particularly students from communities bearing the brunt of this virus and those affected by Police Brutality and systemic racism and when it comes to delivering these, we have to be better because if we dont the achievement gap that we strive so hard to close will undoubtedly widen and we cant let that happen. To address all these problems we need a massive investment in our schools right now. We need consideration of teachers to estimate that hschools will need billions more on top of what we already know is needed for basic things like cleaning supplies and ppe. And we also know thanks to the work of the National Education association without the gnificant investment us would lose approximately 1. 9 million education jobs. We could have begun negotiations on this and countless other priorities but its not happened yet and im going to continue to push for action and i also want to note that while im glad we have the opportunity to hear from these witnesses today, we do need to hear from secretary of education otbetsy devos, especially about her efforts to push a privatization agenda in the k12 system and her flawed interpretation of the Equitable Services provision in the care zach. As we all know k12 Public Schools are a bedrock of our community and each of our fears and the pudepartment of education need to be all in on ensuring schools have the resources and support to rise to the massive challenges in front of them that i am and i look forward to that conversation today with mister chairman i would like to ask and sent to include a record of plans from the American Federation of teachers for safely reopening our schools and a letter from ec the National Education association about state and local budget cuts and the need for Additional Resources from the federal government to meet our students needs, thank you. E thank you senator murray for your opening statement. Im pleased to welcome our witnesses to todays hearing focused on getting back to School Safely. First doctor penny schwinn is commissioner of education and the department of education has developed resources for use by local districts including School Closure toolkits, familyfriendly instructional guides for programming on pbs and a School Meal Finder website for families. Doctor schwinn will come be convening a troy covid19 Child Wellbeing task force to support leaders and communities. Our second witness is doctor matthewblomstedt, a nebraska commissioner of education. Hes also been chosen to serve as president elect on the board of directors of the council of chief state school officers. Under his direction the department of education has created a website to suggest several options for districts to consider for ensuring that schools open safely this fall. Thirdly, this is mrs. Suzanne cordova superintendent of denver Public Schools under the leadership of superintendent cordova Public Schools has announced it expects to begin on time in august and has been exploring a variety of options for safely bringing students back to school and ill now turn to senator murray to introduce our fourth witness. Thank you mister chairman and today we are honored to have john kane, former secretary of educationunder president barack obama. In during doctor kings tenure i had the pleasure of working with them to implement the every Student Succeeds at. King has been a steadfast champion for student Public Education and giving every child the opportunity they deserve and im really glad d we have the chance to hear from him today. Before becoming secretary of education mister king served on the department of education and Excellence Commission as acting deputy of secretary of education and new york state education commissioner. He began his career as a High School Social studies teacher and middle school principal. Currently mister king is the president and ceo of the Education Trust at the National Nonprofit that uses advocacy to identify opportunities and achievement gaps from preschool through college. Mister king holds a bachelor of rights from Harvard University and a jv from an a in teaching and a doctorate in education from the teachers collegiate funding university. His life story is a testament to the power of Public Education and the importance of caring educators in a students life so thank you so much doctor king for being here and i look forward to your testimony. Thank you senator murray and welcome again doctor king and we will hear from more witnesses and ask them to summarize their testimony in about five minutes which will leave more time for questions from senators. Lets begin withdoctor schwinn. Good morning chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray and members of the health committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify at todays hearing. This has been an unbelievable period of time in tennessee for families and educators and students must now consider the challenges ahead with reopening school. To be clear, this is complicated. Any decision we make has significant costs. No easy answers or onesizefitsall solutions. But might be best for one is not right for the other and in our state we have a metro region and experience significant spread of the virus and we have a county with itsfirst positive case last week. Ndas we look ahead to School Reopening id like to show the major challenges you are facing in tennessee and nationwide and some of the ways we plan to addressthem. One, health and safety of our school community. Two, breaking the Digital Divide in three , gi highquality academic resources. First, School Reopening must put the healthand safety of our children , their teachers and activities aside and tennessee has been a National Leader when it comes to testing for covid and we will work to coordinate testing e efforts at the district and ensure any School Personnel or any families entering testing out the opportunity to do so. The support districts, the department will work with Agency Partners to put aside pem test thermometers along with a suite of resources to help with planning how to implement healthy processes in our school. But kids are kidsand we need Realistic Solutions for areas like nutrition, flat classroom support and transportation. The apartment is committed to providing resources and working with teachers and kids. There are almost 1 Million Students in Public Schools in the state of tennessee. And we have a poresponsibility to support all of them as if they were ourown. We make promises to families every day that their children will be safe in our care and have access to highquality education. Must do everything we can to keep that promise. Second, we must address the digitaldivide for teachers and students. Districts need 21st Century Technology solutions. Access to devices, access to broadband and professional development for educators. Our own governor often referenced not having internet on his farm thats a reality that is all too true for many students and their teachers. But its especially true for our Rural Communities, our most vulnerable populations and those require assistance teaching and learning from a health perspective. The department is devoting significant care to support greater access to technology because this is no longer a half, this is a necessity. Finally, we must accelerate a child centric strategy in our commitment to highquality academic opportunities every system. We must stay committed to identifying and haddressing any gaps that wesee. We know the impact of the block learning, especially for children who tend to experience the greatest need. We must also be especially focused on literacy for our youngest, showing that reading proficiency is one of the most important indicators for future success and literacy instruction is incredibly hard to do. As any Kindergarten Teacher can attest. The Department Released the old reopening framework and will continue to release over 20additional toolkits for districts and educators to use. K our students and our teachers must be given the resources to support they need. It cannot just be about helping them get through. It must be about helping them thrive. So as a commissioner and a mom to be beof three very Young Children ive been inspired every day after day by the way that our teachers and our schools have come together in tennessee area weather is working with teachers to problem solve to set up socially distance classrooms in Elementary Schools or talking to superintendents about high schools we are continuing to get access to workbased learning opportunities. Tennessee has shown our collective commitment to opportunities for kids and i realized all of these are not small things but they matter deeply to us because they matter for kids. I wish these were clearcut decisions but they are not. The challenges we face are large and we must keep people safe and keep kids educated. But our job and our responsibility is figuring out how to do that well. We are deeply appreciative of the cares funding to help jumpstart the necessary needs that we have in our School Districts across the state and as we had ends next year i hope we are all able to appreciate what has been done for and what is in front of usnow and what lies ahead. These challenges i see opportunities and our kids my own included need us to semeet those challenges headon and with optimism and with courage. Our kids are counting on us. Thank you so much and i look forward to your questions later in the hearing class class members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to testify at mb this important hearing today area and i am honored to participate with this distinguished panel in this critical discussion of what we need to do as a country with our Education System. Nebraska like all states experience the arrival of the pandemic with little advance understanding of the longterm impact it would have on the nation and our Education System read this pandemic is an Inflection Point for the challenges my state and this country face. This crisis has laid bare the persistent inequities of our Education System and of every system across the country from healthcare to justice. I want to take a moment to say im on the loss of george floyd and every other black live lost because we allowed inequities to permeate our societies. I worked my career believing education is the right place for society to make progress so ultimately ensure equity. Closing schools statewide was never something i anticipated and part of my role as commissioner of education and in our earliest days of closing i knew more difficult tasks would ultimately be reopening schools. In late march and early april the identified Summer Learning as a time to focus energy on the reopening scenarios area by april 16 i was publicly announcing efforts underway to plan for the fall semester. On friday, may 8 we announced launch nebraska as a way to organize recovery and reopening approach, organize around three major pillars, leadership and planning where we focus on Government Operations and ustechnology, conditions for learning focused on facilities wellness and continuity of learning with a focus on instructions and transitions into education. Schools in nebraska are diverse, nebraskas small School Districts have a lot over 100 students in remote areas of the state while our largest. Omaha receives 50,000 students and nebraska has counties that have yet to officially experience the first covid19 positive case while other areas have been affected similar to a worse per capita cases in the country. We have organized several egworking groups including nearly every School Across the state developing regional and local plans with local Public Health officials. Leaders are committed to balancing this difficult task of state opening with the needs of students , families, communities and staff and there are few onesizefitsall moments in these Planning Efforts and it is becoming increasingly clear that largescale guidance needs to be available for local school and Health Officials to customize for local conditions and thats what were attempting in march. Although i believe most schools in nebraska are planning to open in the fall we are concerned many will face extensive disruptions and interruptions across several communities and as School Buildings close across nebraska this spring educators and School District officials were rightly concerned about their capacity to appropriately meet their obligations. Such services were not pandemic proof and i continue to engage in productive dialogue with parents and odisability advocates to provide a path forward and i expect that as restrictions are lifted schools will need to provide necessary education. Although i know that broadband is not in the jurisdiction of this committee is apparent that a lack of Broadband Access is a huge inequity for many students and households and i am concerned that Economic Impact of the pandemic will result in necessary and sustained texts in education funding, perhaps to exceed 20 percent in nebraska and this is a perfect storm as we face increased needs and decreased resources. I cannot express enough how proud i am of nebraska amazing talented individuals but in recent months they have all stepped up in incredible and unprecedented ways to serve our students. While we have many challenges ahead i remain confident in the abilities of nebraska educators to make the impossible possible but we must protect our educators. Our teachers will continue to be on the frontlines and we must address individual accommodation that will limit a strange workforce. This will require additional contract time for teachers and staff and provide support beyond the Normal School day and i want to thank this committee and all members of congress for relief funding through the cares act. Schools are addressing many of the barriers with these funds and securing services and infrastructure for their recovery and state level we continue to partner across the education and Health Sector to build state and Regional Support to address conditions for and continuity of learning. I share the concern that many have expressed regarding the secretary Equitable Services. Revision interpretation of cares and i urge members of congress to clarify this as soon as possible. I want to ensure public and nonPublic Schools are able to move forward quickly without lingering doubts about the proper use of these funds and in closing we must seize the opportunity to address the systemic inequities that have persisted for decades. It has become a ddbit of a mantra with our partners that we need to hold back better, radically build back better. I truly believe education is and must be a substantial part of the effort to erase inequity but it will take a whole societal approach to address the challenges. Thank you. Thank you doctor blomstedt, superintendent cordova, welcome. Thank you. So chairman alexander, and others i want to thank you for the opportunity to share the denver Public Schools experience with the covid19 Public Health crisis. We have seen reasons in our city and country over the past months and the past two weeks it is increasingly clear that our system of education and policing, healthcare and housing are fraught with inequities and systemic racism. We have a unique opportunity unlike any otherin our lifetime to address these inequities and create a better solution for our students and communities. On march 20 we closed our schools to what we thought would be an extended spring break. We then began to get a clear indication of how highly contagious and deadly covid19 is. With only two weeks for school to resume we focused on building a fulltime Remote Learning program for 93,000 students and15,000 employees. In addition to keeping our students and teachers connected for academic and social development, we also focused on providing support including serving over 732,000 new and disturbing 55,000 laptops to students who needed them for Remote Learning. And given the number of low income families in denver ensuring equitable Internet Access for Remote Learning continues to be one of our biggest unmet challenges. With where going into next school year knowing some of our highest priority students , those who need extra le instructional attention have fallen further behind during this extended remote period and we put together a working group of principals and teachers to help us and together for the new school year. We surveyed our families and staff asking them for rare help for our planning and the message we heard from that survey was loud and clear. Prioritize health and wellness first and get kids back into class. As a result, we partnered with our local Health Experts to create guidelines for the foundation for all of our return to school planning. Based on the current thHealth Guidance, where planning for a mix of in person and Remote Learning when the school year startsin august. We shared three draft options offer a mix of in person and Remote Learning from all students having a minimum of 40 percent inperson learning. And in each of our options Priority Learning students with disabilities, english learners, students not on track to graduate will receive a full additional rate of instructions each week. This is an important equity measure that would mitigate the impact of the lost learning for remote. An incredibly proud of the hard work and relentless focus on equity and serving our families and community over the past three months and weve received invaluable support from families across Denver Colorado and the nation including the council to create city schools his partnership and plans ideas and advocacy have been invaluable. So governor jared in colorado and an Education Team have been especially valuable partners area they recognize the immense challenges we faced in developing Remote Learning programs amidst the anxiety and rapidly changing conditions of the crisis and i know we could not reopen schools without the hope weve received from the federal government through the cares act. We are currently facing a 61 million budget shortfall and an Economic Impact of covid and the cares act would provide help in recovering lost revenue. But we still have a lot of work to do to balance our budget and ensure we have the resources to educate all of our denver students while maintaining our focus on equity. At a time when our kids and Community Need us the most , for education and all the support that our schools provide we are having to make massive cuts. I appreciate the Congress Efforts to provide additional federal funding for education and unlike distress that while it is helpful we know our students will face incredible challenges over the coming years and will need critical and Compensatory Services that we will be obligated to provide despite our budgetchallenges. Our educators are working hard for our kids and community during these challenging times an additional funding will be essential to make sure our kids grow academically and come through this pandemic with a great future additional funds will help us provide integral counseling , therapies and tutoring, training for our staff and technology for our students. We must double down for those who have been most impacted by the crisis if we are to deliver on the promise of education to create a more equitable society. Thank you. Thank you superintendent cordova and welcome secretary king. Thank you so much. Chairman alexander, Ranking Member murray and members of the committee you for the opportunity to testify on how we can ensure students, educators, school staff and their families are prioritize and consider the safest ttmost equitable way to reopen our nations schools in the midst of covid and before discussing this in more detail, when our students return to School Buildings they will need Additional Support as they grapple with the continued reality of racism in america and a legacy of over 400 years of antiblack sentiment. The murders of george floyd and ahmad aubrey have sent a message to black students that their lives are devalued. Schools reopen our nations students of color and their families find themselves in during a pandemic that disproportionately impacts their health and safety. Mired in economic crisis and disproportionately affects their Financial Wellbeing and living in a country thats too oftenstill struggles to recognize their humanity. School closures due to the pandemic although unquestionably necessary to protect Public Health have had a disparate impact on students of color, students from low income backgrounds, students with disabilities and englishlanguage learners. Students have disproportionately experienced less access to devices and Internet Service, teachers with less support ron out Online Learning and under resourced districts , parents less able to tell work and support their learning during the day and more noshow emotional stress. Despite the heroic efforts of many educators, many students and families have not received the academic or emotional support cithey need. As we look together as a nation towards the 2021 school year, we must ensure that all students and especially our most vulnerable have the Educational Resources they need. We urge congress to take the following action. First, increase federal investment in education. State and local education budgets have been and will continue to be devastated by the loss of tax revenue. Without congressional action there will be no way to avoid o layoffs and hiring freezes disproportionately impacting educators and staff in i poverty schools and Public Health requirements to ensure safe reopening of schools wont be able to be met into many places. Over 70 stakeholders have called on congress to allocate 500 billion for state and local governments including at least 175 billion for k12 education. Second ensure states and districts do not walk away from the students whove been hit hardest by the crisis. New federal stimulus funding should include a maintenance of effort provision and add a maintenance of equity provision to provide both states and districts. Together these requirements would mean education spending at the same percentage of state spending as before the pandemic and shield the highest need schools and districts from the worst cuts. Third ensure Distance Learning is possible for every student. Before the pandemic 79 percent of white households had Broadband Access compared to 66 percent of black families and 61 percent of hispanic families. To ensure home access to broadband is possible congress should allocate 4 billion to the fcc program to provide hotspots and access to bandwidth. 4, help schools and teachers address significant learning loss caused by the pandemic. Congress should allocate dedicated funds to help students add more learning touches through Summer School and extended school days or school years for afterschool programming. Fifth, address students nutritional, social emotional and Mental Health needs. Congress must expand the pandemic evp program to enable more children to receive meals while not in school and ensure students and educators social emotional and Mental Health needs are met through funding additional counselors and Mental Health professionals. Congress must not step back from the Important Role in protecting students. This exists because the federal government wanted to ensure all students have equitable access to a highquality education and that goal has not changed even with the Current Crisis permitting blanket waivers to either law is dangerous and unnecessary. We also urge congress to ensure that the department of education follows congressional intent climbed the title i Equitable Services provision for the cares act, the departments interpretation that steers money away from low income publicschool students and into the hands of wealthier private schools and idea rejected by severalstates and one the committee should reject as well. We have to Public Health data to help drive decisionmaking and when students return to school now we need to talk target the appropriate resources and support to help students, educators and staff recover and prevent any further widening of inequities area thank you for the opportunity to speak todayand i look forward to your questions. Thank you doctor and thanks to all. We will now move to a round of questions on the senators. I would say each of the senators and witnesses, there is a small box in the bottom of your screen at the time clock and it has five minutes on it and if you could stay as close to that as possible and all senators will have a chance to talk with the witnesses. Let me begin with you doctor schwinn. We talkabout testing, tennessee has had a leap year in testing. Its in the top 12 or 13. Tennessee has tested more than a halfmillion tennesseans for covid19. But as we, on the school year we have 1 million children going bothbacktoschool. Governor lee tells me that the demand for covid test is down in tennessee maybe because its so available and his motto is if in doubt get tested and people can get one wherever they want one at their Public Healthsector. What plans are you making for systematic testing of the 1 million children in tennessee . Thank you for the question and letting me highlight i think the great work happening in tennessee related to testing. Yesterday we had one of the highest number of folks come out and get testing and incredible efforts across the state. A couple things i love to highlight. Tennessee has been in thetop 12 in terms of per capita testing. S i only have five minutes and ive got severalquestions but what im trying to get to is what are you going to do about the 1 Million Students . Having testing will continue to be able to work closely with unified command and are Tennessee National guard to be able to make that available or staff and students and were also working to partner to provide free ppe and thermometers to any school in the district to want them for all students and staff. You and i talked yesterday about your plans for what it would take for each of your 1800 schools to go back to School Safely. Have you figured out about what the cost per School District would be for that . We spent time looking at the variety of districts as small as 130 and as big as over 100,000 and what we found is the per student cost or hygiene disinfecting materials including whites, is anywhere from 100 250 per student depending on the decisions at the local level area on top of that you have the attrition Transportation Services and custodial services which will vary depending on whether districts have their leader contracts out. What were finding is that for districts that are approximately 3000 to 4000 students early estimates which are consistent with othernational organizations as it would be anywhere from one to 1. 75 million for the District Sports gear. Thats consistent with whatthe National Study by the administration , the administrators y, so the total for tennessee,did you add that up what the total bill might be for the state . When we looked at that again acknowledging the fluctuations based on local decisions and contracts they may or may not have the cost in tennessee will be somewhere in the 100 million to 175, im sorry, 175 million as certainly the cares act funding at coming will helpto support some of that but it is a significant need. C. Im going to ask mister blomstedt to do the same but congress has appropriated 260 million in tennessee for k12. The states have gotten hundred 50 billion, usually about a third of the state budget or more goes for school so what im interested in is how much of the money heweve already given you can you be using to help that one e point 521. 8 million or School Districts and how much more is, how much more is required . One more question before i go to doctor blomstedt. What do you need for the federal government to do about liability for teachers or schools personnel . Say a kid takes off his masks and coughs on the student and the student comes down with covid and the parent sues the teacher or the principal . Does there need to be some sort of governmental action for Liability Protection . In tennessee teachers are covered under the tort liability per state law and our legislature is currently exploring legislation on expanded qualified immunity specifically related to covid so continuing to support districts and feelingto confident to welcome students back to school is going to be important and im proud of our legislators for taking up at work. Now doctor blomstedt, im out of timebut let me ask you if i may , the following if your organization would submit to our committee about what you think it would cost to have all the School Districts go back to School Safely. Just those specific things and how much of that can be covered by the 13 billion that weve already given rectally to k12 and the hundred 50 weve already given estates. I think we would all agree that theres not much of anything we could think of to do that would help all families, all students. Especially minority students to be able to open schools in august and i want to make sure that the federal government doesits part. Senator murray. Thank you mister chairman and thank you for your testimony today. Due to the continued impact and potential spread of covid19 it is likely that some schools will need to keep their physical buildings closed either fully or partially for all our some of our students. States and districts and schools and educators moved to adjust quickly in the face of this pandemic and we do have to knowledge to support for and quality of distance education provided to students very significantly across classrooms or schools or district or state and some of the recent Research Media reports indicate tunes facing some of the greatest challenges during covid19, students with disabilities andenglishlanguage learners , kids in foster care, also received less access to highquality instruction in many instances. The secretary let me ask you, what is the lesson we can learn from the successes and failures of Distance Learning over the past several months and what should states and districts be doing now to plan for the likely need of Distance Learning . I think what weve seen is devices remain a challenge, access to devices remain a challenge for families. We often have a situation where maybe theres one device in the home but multiple kids and they needto be able to use the device continuously. Parents may need the device to. Exactly and bandwidth remains a challenge and commissioner schwinn pointed out the challenge in Rural Communities and you see in urban communities and lack of bandwidth and you see places where Cable Companies wont saallow families to Access Internet services. They have an unpaid balance on our cable bill and as a result those families are without Internet Access so tackling the Digital Divide is essential. We also know teachers in under resourced districts didnt have the professional development andsupport they needed. So we need to make an investment in Teacher Professional Development this summer so that we can prepare for next school year effectively and i think given the Public Health context and students with preexisting Health Conditions its almost certain every School District will need some form of hybrid learning so we should prepare for that eventuality. Students in grades 3 to 8 could return to school this fall only retaining 70 percent of their reading progress from the Previous Year and lose anywhere from half to all of their academic maps so this closures and the inconsistency of Distance Learning, are projected to cost achievement gaps that existed before this pandemic. Secretary let me let you this, what can School Districts put in place to measure learning loss and providing distancelearning and what kind of practices can you talk about to help tailoracademic intervention . We certainly need diagnostic assessment to have a sense of where kids are and how much ground theyve lost and commissioner schwinn in tennessee are making available state funds to support those diagnostic assessments and that will be helpful to districts but once we know students are behind lets do somethingabout it. What some of our International Peers have done is open schools early for the highest needs students. Students who are behind academically. That may be a part of the strategy. Summer distancelearning may be a part of the strategy. Professor weingarten and i wrote an oped calling for redistricting in the summer and we also know next School Year Students will need more time to make up for what theyve lost and that will mean adapting the School Schedule to allow for extended learning time. We also know intensive tutoring as a strong evidencebased and one of the reasons why im supportive of efforts to expand americorps to provide more tutors and schools tosupport kids learning. Iq and finally let me just put this question by saying thank you to all the educators and support staff and have been navigating this crisis. Surveys are showing that nd nearly 2 of every. Educators have Health Concerns about resuming in person construction this fall, 18 percent of educators, 27 percent of principals are over the age of 65 and according to cdc older adults are at an increased risk. Many educators have preexisting conditions and theyre worried about the health of their family members , safe childcare and hardships related to the virus and i heard someone suggest that older educators many of whom are passionate about their work want to retire early but thats callous and unacceptable to me though doctor schwinn or doctor blomstedt i have a few seconds left. What can School Districts and states take to make sure all educators feel safe andsecure . Its absolutely critical that schools at their working on reopening plans are working with teachers. We have embedded safety committees that include teachers so thats imperative but working with each teacher i have a people first strategy working with our agency area i really tried to promote that with our schools as well there asking teacher about what their concerns are and making those accommodations as much as they can to combat, come back to the school facility. I am out of time but maybe our witnesses could respond in writing and in touch to me about howschools are dealing with that. Thank you senator murray. Senator cassidy. Thank you for all your doing red children of the lowest risk for coronavirus in terms of opportunity cost are bearing the highest cost. We want to be able to understand the World Without definitions. Although theyre not the first children also thank you for taking this time. E were merging this twofold, one as a physician thinking about Public Health and trying to help the school reopen. Miss cordova, what issue with your block testing, the monday wednesday friday, a lot of parents work as part of the opening testing facility, what can you do for those kids whose errands work but the child would not be in school 2 to 3 days a week . Is there any accommodation or is it just kind of the way its working out . Thank you for the question and it definitely is a little bit of the complexity that were traveling with and we know its going to be district and schools for parents to be able to go back to work and right now our state is under a whole order or for where businesses are only allowed to hang 50 percent of their workforce in a building at a time and our hope is that in addition to trying to partner with tchildcare and organizations that we can help sync up schedules for families so that way families are working from home and children can also be at home. Were trying to get as many kids into schools as possible and. I have limited time to ask you when did your parents not be able to work from home, mits a difficult kind of Public School setting. So whos going to take their childcare for example, with that be the schools as possibility or would parents have to do that . We are trying to work with multiple partners to see who can provide more childcare and we are stymied by the side of our facility to be able to have a number of students in our classrooms given the health systems. Mister blomstedt, you mentioned that in some areas of nebraska in which there is not yet been a case, is this to say that in those areas there would be no hidisruption at all to school . When i read from the Public Health experts is if you have an extremely low incidence and you continuelife as normal with terms ofschooling , is this the practice pattern that you have taken . Across nebraska are working with Health Officials and coming up with a risk file. If there is evidence or spread that they will be certain levels of risk and potentially yellow, orange red risk dials and the vc and extensive spread its going to need additional accommodations for health and safety area if theres very little theres more attention to individual health and whats happening in the schools or our intention is to be able to balance that based on conditions locally. If locally theres no spread schools would reopen as normal. Many of those places are we doing that and we believe masks and other accommodations are going to be necessary to continue on that limited spread. Thats probably not what your Public Health expert would recommend but thats up to you. I would ask this of any ofyou eabut ill ask it of you miss cordova. We have put together something called the smart act which would help state and local governments restore tax dollars lost because of economic shutdown requests by the federal government and im gathering with all this experience and the economic lockdown that you suggested going on in denver that without such aid it would be difficult to rehire, excuse me, to do these programs specifically ive read a lot of educators have been laid off and its unclear whether or not they just been furloughed for the summer, i know youre laid off we dont have any money and were not bringing you back. The programoutlined seemed like its going to require remore personnel, not less. Do you have any financial capacityand if theres time id ask that the other panelists as well. Absolutely we do not have the capacity to do everything that we would like to be able to do d and in fact we are looking at pretty significant cuts. A buddy else have a little bit of time, is that what you all are experiencing . So our state budget continues to fully fund our School Funding formula, that is a commitment made by the governor and so we are very grateful for that and we will continue to want to look for investments as our economy bounces back. Thank you all. I appreciate your testimony and will yield back. Thank you senator cassidy, senator casey. Thanks very much for this opportunity. I want to thank our witnesses or their appearance and my questions will be directed to doctor king. Secretary king and i wanted to thank the other witness as well and they can chime in if they have a response to my questions. Ill have to. One will focus on the question of learning loss and i know this senator murray asked a similar question but i wanted to start i noting what secretary king just said at the outset of this testimony with regard to what weve just been through. In from his statement. Im glad thwe refer to this earlier. The murders of george floyd, breonna taylor, Ahmaud Arbery once again sent a message to black students that their lives are devalued. And he also outlined the disparities and challenges faced by students of color in education and focused means in the midst of a pandemic in an economic crisis. It disproportionately affects the Financial Wellbeing of the students living in a country too often still struggles to recognize their humanity. They shared with me in pennsylvania they have been provided sometimes hundreds of pages of, instructional material that can be overwhelming for a parent. Now we have to consider if the outbreak or the virus itself rears its ugly head again, another outbreak could lead to closures again. Secretary king, i would ask you how can we minimize some of the disparities, some of these minic disparities in this context with students with disabilities to ensure that the students that additional instructional needs and continue to be provided with a highquality education by way of . To get the infrastructure right. We have to make sure that the low income students with disabilities have access to devices at Internet Service, for starters. Weve got to make sure schools have the resources to provide Compensatory Services for miss learning this spring. Theres a question we already had gaps as you pointed out. The Graduation Rate for students with disabilities and high school for example, is almost 20 points below that of students in general education. Weve got to make sure that we make up for the lost time this spring, and then weve got to have the resources for schools to provide additional intervention. There may be some opportunities with existing cares act dollars, but our view its sufficient to address the scale of learning lines were seen, particularly for students with disabilities. They are going tos need more time, maybe starting early, maybe a longer school day and maybe a longer school year in order to make up the ground. Thank you. We look forward to working with you more on this issue. I wanted to close with a question pertaining too learning the laws that senator murray has mentioned, and others have come in their testimony. We are told by the center on reinventing Public Education that only 44 of districts are both, both providing instruction online as well as monitoring students attendance and the progress by way of Distance Learning. Lack of funding plus lack of Assistive Technology compounds and equities and exacerbates these the achievement gaps that weve been discussingg today. How can we assess learning the loss and work to close these achievement gaps . Were certainly goingng to nd diagnosticic assessment as students return to school to get a sense of where they are, for students with disabilities in particular were going togn needo assess the goalsoo and whether t theyve made progress towards those goals and will take to help the make progress. I worry there are some of called for setting aside the protections of i. D. E. A. That strikes me as a mistake and potentially jeopardizing the progress weve made over the last few decades in supporting students with disabilities. Particularly those who are from low income families orr commanders of color or most mobile. We have to make sure that states and school f districts honor students. If Fitness Services they need to get those when they get back to school. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator casey. Senator murkowski. Senator murkowski. Senator measuurkowski am i there now . You are. Welcome. Thank you, thank you. And thank you to the witnesses. Thank you for this hearing. I will tell you, i have so many worries and im listening to you all sharing your concerns and worries. Im thinking about kids that really are goin im worried about those kids who were doing okay before covid but now theyre going to be enlisting the school year with a part of the homelessness group. There are families now that are homeless. There are families now that are homeless. I think about our acreage School District, for instance, where we have over 90 plus different languages that are the home languages in the School District alone, how these nonenglish learners are going to be adapting to this. I want to begin my question this is probably directed to you dr. King. So much of the success that we are, if we are in a truncated school week or school year, so much of what we have dealt with has relied on the fact that our kids are able to take a laptop, have access to their teachers through the internet here. Well, in my state and in many rural states, internet is spotty at best. And we can give the kids as many laptops as they want. But if it doesnt connect, if you will, it doesnt get them anywhere. And we know i appreciate what you raised dr. King this is what provides this critical support to our School Districts in so many rural areas. When school is closed and the program is limited to providing internet at the school, kids cant get access after that. They dont have the connectivity that they need. And so we have weve been pushing on this. Weve been talking with folks at the fcc. They have appropriately pushed to expand the program to reach the entire campus. So, kids can go to a parking lot at school and log on. But what were told is that without changes to statute, they cant provide support for education into students homes. This is really problematic for us in alaska. Im sure its not the only obstacle our School Districts are dealing with. Ours are getting really creative, putting a dish on top of School Buildings. We know weve seen great support for many providers providing Free Internet to families during this initial covid launch, but will they be there to provide that support in the fall if this is indefinite. I guess is question is whether or not theres any review for recommendations for this committee for reforms in a future bill . With schools coming on in august, no answer in sight for so many, im just not sure how you make it happen because it looks good on paper. And again you have it connected, these kids are left out. Dr. King . Youre exactly right. You know, the School Health Libraries Broadband Coalition has suggested a sort of comprehensive strategy that would 75. 25 billion collar Dollar Dollar to make sure every student has access to the internet. I think theres an Important Role for the fcc to play here with the Internet Service providers to atry providers to try to make it as simple as possible for folks to Access Internet service and ideally to make School Districts make purchases of Internet Services for families. I think about the cleveland School District that has committed to work with Internet Service providers to ensure every household in cleveland has access to Internet Service. From a School District standpoint its a question of protecting Distance Learning, closing the homework gap so students can use the internet even if were past covid19 to do their homework. But also today the internet is foundational to accessing postsecondary opportunities, to accessing job opportunities. So, we do need a comprehensive solution here and long term, particularly for rural areas. That may mean also infrastructure investment. I think we recognize were lacking. To the superintendent cordova from denver, i have a question of you as it relates to the homelessness and the Emergency Needs that our families and youth in our communities in the wake of covid, how the Community Partners inside and outside the schools can stabilize these children. I interviewed a bill just today related specifically to this. I am quite concerned that there is this gap in services when it comes to our homeless kid, our homeless family. I am out of time, i want to respect the chairmans directive here so perhaps i could have a conversation off line with you. Do you have any suggestions . It is something and i hope we would have further discussion on and also that question for the record, mister chairman as well as others. Thank you. Thank you very much, senator mcconnell ski. Senator baldwin. Thank you mister chairman, i want to begin a by associating myself with the remarks of Ranking Member murray, witnesses and colleagues who have acknowledged the unquestionable call from people all over this country including so many young people for racial justice, Racial Equity and the change that our country so desperately needs. I hope this committee, in fact i hope every committee in the senate will look for ways that we can move this conversation forward and this cause forward. Especially for us in the help committee to look deeply within the jurisdiction of this committee, health, education, labor and pensions to see where we can do more. I really thank everyone who has drawn attention on this very important hearing on how we can safely reopen our schools and provide high quality education to all of our children. We also have to, on this topic, consider how students can safely go back to school but also ensure that these environments are safe for faculty, for administrators, for support staff and i would note, as others have, that this population are sometimes at higher risk for severe illness from the covid19 disease. For example, according to federal data, nearly a third of all k through 12 teachers are over the age of 50. Im confident that all of our School Districts want to reopen safely but i believe they need clear rules on the road about how they must protect their employees and educators so that they feel confident that they will be safe at work. Its why i introduced the covid19 every Worker Protection act, which requires the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue emergency temporary standards that covers all workers and requires workplaces to implement Infectious Diseases exposure control plans to keep workers safe. I believe its critical for the safety of educators as well as the students they serve that an osha standard be in place before schools begin to open in any fashion in the fall. Now, this spring, we saw schools across the country forced to make an unprecedented shift to Distance Learning on an extraordinarily tight timeline. Among other critical issues, this shift underscored the need to help educators effectively integrate a wide range of technologies into their teaching and use them to educate students who may have quite a wide range of civic needs. Doctor blomstedt, you noted in your testimony that nebraska has identified professional development for teachers to support rim or learning as a priority for your use of the cares act fund. Id like to ask you to explain a little bit more about how you identified this as a priority and what would additional federal funding to support this type of professional development, particularly with regard to Distance Learning, technologies help you better ensure that the educators are prepared to use these tools to help all students . What thanks all for the question. The reality underneath what we have done underneath launched a brisk, a we have talked about what our weaknesses are in the Distance Learning environment. We need some from a technology standpoint, but we didnt realize many of our students in urban areas or urban areas alike did not have adequate broadband at home so we really looked at everything from infrastructure to devices to the type of educational content thats available, that also needs to be addressing students with disabilities, students with other types of challenges that they might have relative to accessing that technology and then, ultimately, training teachers to be able to use that effectively became really critical. Weve had a series of professional learning, at distance by the way, for our students, for our teachers excuse me across the state. We have been up to about 15 different training that weve done in content areas and otherwise and we also need to distribute high Quality Content as well. Thats been a big part of our conversation. We find some of the content being used by schools does not immediately translate to a digital environment, so were looking actually to use the cares act funding to make those investments all the way through that important cycle. Thank you. Thank you senator baldwin. The senator braun. Thank you chairman. I was on a school board for ten years from 2014 to 2014 and i must say that this isnt a category in of itself. interpreter i cant imagine how we navigate through it. Im anxious to get back to my plans, some of them are still on the board. I got several questions and im going to live it to two. The first is going to be for doctors flynn and blomstedt the and miss cordova. It would regard the issue of my availability in terms of trying to reopen schools. I know its been a sensitive topic among Business Owners in indiana worried if they want to robustly get their businesses going its part of getting the economy started and especially among the conference, the republican conference thats a concern. What each of you to give your opinion on, is that something that is tangible, measurably being discussed as a concern and trying to do something that looks like its going to have a lot of acrobatics to it, a lot of guidelines. Indiana, by the way, just released a 37page guidelines for reopening in the classroom, came out on june 5th. It looks very comprehensive, if any of you choose to look at it but give me a comment on whether you think thats a concern or whether thats something thats not been on your minds. So from my perspective in alaska weve had those conversations with School Board Members and administrators and those types of concerns. Heres my concern, that we can have individuals waving their rights to general liability concerns. Weve actually had some conversations from the state on that front. I dont have a great answer on how we would go and provide some type of umbrella protections for these environments but i do believe that that is a worthy and worthwhile conversation. In tennessee, our two priorities in to ensure we keep people safe and keep kids educated. Thats what this is about. For us, we know that our futures are covered four state law, we are currently having ongoing conversations but we want to make sure that when educators are in that classroom, they are focused on keeping their kids safe and teaching and learning can take place. Certainly want to make sure there isnt enough protection, that they are not so over focused on some of the whether or not little johnny has mask on in a kindergarten classroom, that they are able to really focus on teaching literacy and mathematics on supporting the whole child and that so thats where focus is going to be. Speaking from a School District lens of, this is definitely something that we have been discussing both in terms of how we can implement the Health Guidance around entering into our School Buildings and our workplaces as well as thinking about some of the needs that we have for required can Compensatory Services, which is on a large liability that we are very concerned about. Thank you. Doctor king, there have been recent developments in understanding the diseases itself. The fact that the World Health Organization just came out with the kind of finetuning transmissibility. We do know that probably in the equation, protecting the teachers and staff, they are going to fit into that category that has been ravaged by the disease itself. With what weve learned recently about what we a need to do to fight this peculiar challenge off in general. Have you come across anything you do differently now with what weve learned recently . Also, discuss a little bit about what we can do to protect teachers and staff that fit into that category of being more susceptible to the disease. Certainly, i think looking back as a country, we ought to have moved more quickly in response to the pandemic and certainly move more quickly to put in place testing and Contact Tracing, which is really foundational to and the Public Health effort around a pandemic and we still need to do that work. There are still places in the country were testing remains inaccessible and we dont yet to have a Contact Tracing infrastructure. We need thats going to be foundational, i think, we now know from Public Health experts some of the things that schools can do structurally from ensuring physical distancing to the use of masks, to improving cleaning, to having a strategy to physically isolate and see who becomes ill until they can be picked up, needing to follow up with Contact Tracing within the school building. Certainly our International Peers are using Temperature Check as a way to identify students who may be symptomatic, but all of those steps as we talked about earlier, Additional Resources and School Districts are going to have this in close consultation with local Public Health experts. I also should note that there are kids, in addition to having staff more particularly vulnerable because of preexisting conditions, theyre also kids who have preexisting conditions that might make them more run arrival and strongly kids who are living at homes with family members who may have conditions that make them particularly vulnerable. Thank you. Thank you senator braun. Senator murphy. Thank you very much, mister chairman. Thanks to our panelists. Let me join in senator murrays request to have the secretary of education appear before our committee. I think thats absolutely essential to call to the right questions we are raising today. We need the nations top official before us. Second, let me express alarm of the prospects for leaving a two week recess in july without appropriating additional funding for schools. That carries act put in about as much money for the Airline Industry as it did for the entire american Public School system. The Airline Industry is important, but its not more important than all of the schools in the nation and weve got a letter back in may from about 62 schools superintendent of major cities forecasting that they are going to be looking at 15 to 25 cuts in School Funding, even with the cares act funding. When you spread that money around, it just doesnt get as far as the need and so we need, we need to get additional funding to states and or to School Districts before the july recess because the planning is going to be need to be done in order to make the schools reopen safely is going to be done this summer. That leads to my first question and ill directed to secretary king. There was a question raised by senator casey about how schools get ready for students with learning disability. I panicked about this because many of them have not been able to engage in any Distance Learning because they cant learn without support services at all. Talk to me about the need for schools to be able to plan and higher now in order to be able to set up a support service they are going to need around the students and whats the impact of a 25 cut in funds for School Districts on students with disabilities when they return for the fall . Senator murphy, i think this is the exact question. Unfortunately, what we are seeing in a lot of places, is a degree of paralysis because if you are anticipating a 20 to 30 cut in state aid, that will be devastating. That will mean layoffs, Program Eliminations and so districts are in a sense stuck waiting to see if congress will help states with state stabilization dollars that might prevent those kinds of cuts. Even if people are doing their scenario planning, they are pampered in that work because of the year of cuts. Theres no question that students with disabilities will need particularly intensive supports when they return. They may be well served by returning earlier but that would be a very small group. Those teachers will need tremendous amount of support to plan for how they make up or the loss learning time and many of the students have not only disabilities that might affect learning needs but they also have, at times, disabilities that affect your social im ocean or needs. We already know that schools have too few councillors, too few Mental Health resources, that will be critical to supporting students with disabilities and their families, any of whom who have struggled over these, you know, several months without access to school and the support that school often provides. As an example, Lawrence Township in new jersey where they have already laid off 80 of their school aides, many of those aides are those that served the existing population and theyre gone, and likely not coming back. Im going to switch gears in the for miss cordova. I saw in an announcement regarding a vote that is perhaps an upcoming to remove Police Officers from schools in denver. When we think about how to create safe schools, were obviously talking about making sure students dont get infected with the virus. But were also talking about making sure that students arent targeted because of the race and the reality is that while Police Officers have made a lot of students feel safe, they have frankly made a lot of other students feel unsafe. In virginia, for instance, black students are about 40 of the state student population but there are 75 of school arrests. In my state, the basic same statistics hold and so i am intrigued by the decision that you have made. I think Security Officers are appropriate but Police Officers often end up targeting students of color for discipline and arrest. Just talk me through your decision. Thank you senator murphy. So our school board is taking us up in fact tomorrow to determine if they will end our contract with the police. I think it aligns with the values that they have for making the statement about the need to create environments for students to feel safe, nurtured, welcomed, affirmed for their identities while still recognizing the important need to create safe spaces with the kind of security that we know is important in this day and age. Thank you. I am over my time. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you senator murphy. Senator loeffler. Thank you mister chairman and thank you all for being here today. One of the challenges that quickly became apparent during the pandemic was the need to provide food to students that are, many of whom who are dependent on the School Meal Programs and as soon as begin to return to school in the fall, many may only attend a few days. I know and thank the usda for providing certain waivers and flexibility to school lunch and ebt programs. Based on the experiences that youve had in recent weeks, how are your states and districts preparing to support the nutritional needs of students when they are not able to be on campus going on certain days and i know for a fact, in our state of georgia, our farmers have stood ready to help provide vigorous is and i would love to hear from you on this important topic. So in tennessee we know that some of the most important work that has to be done is around school nutrition. Kids rely on schools to be fed breakfast, lunch, snack and sometimes supper. We lead, in terms of the number of waivers and how quickly we submitted waivers, we put up a website school neil finder. Com so that families could put in their addresses and get the closest meal possible. Something i do want to highlight is that we are giving a fuel meals because of School Closures and the expenses of cost distributing that food, caustic, sara maintain stability. Some of that cares at funding will go towards and is certainly something our districts are bringing up at our commitment stands firms that needs to be fed and its incredibly important. The state of tennessee will use that going into next year. In nebraska its very similar. We really worked with our Community Partners to understand Food Security at a community level. Weve worked with partnership that we called Nebraska Children Family Foundation and bring up nebraska to really regionalized estate and leverage what we are doing in schools with private providers as well to ensure that we can find some ways to do this. This has really been our initial effort was critical and it continue to take place statewide and we know it needs to stand in place for Food Security for our needy families. Speaking from the School District lens, will continue to provide food even on the days when students are in school, when they are engaging in Remote Learning because we know how critical that is. Weve been able to reach about half as many students as on a school day and thats with tremendous effort to try to get it to kids. I talk with families who say even having it in the neighborhood with distribution routes, they simply dont have the gas money to pick it up. Quickly, the eggplant electronic benefit through pandemic ebt has the potential to be very useful here but it will be important to extend that into the summer and next school year, particularly as School Districts consider hybrid schedules for students will be away from schools sundays and the pandemic ebt card will be even more important to make sure kids have access. Right. That concludes, ill yield my time. Thank you for your attention on this important matter. As we learn Going Forward to be able to share that information on how to address this would be great. Thank you. Senator cain. Senator canes not available. Senator hassan. Thank you mister chair and thank you Ranking Members for holding this hearing. Thank you to all the witnesses. Your work to meet the current unprecedented challenges that our nations children educators are facing and just before my questions, i also want to associate myself with remarks of a Ranking Member about the ongoing work we need to do to address issues of institutional racism throughout our country and how important our Education System is as part of that effort. Doctor king, i want to direct my first question to you. As congress has work to respond to covid19, i advocated for additional funding and flexibility for state and local governments to help back fill your budget. Budget has been mentioned by all the witnesses here. We know that some of the greatest implications of these shortfalls will be on School Budgets, at a time when schools are being asked to completely rework education delivery and address Student Learning loss. Doctor king, do you agree that congress should prioritize giving state and local governments to support they need so that educators have the necessary tools to meet Student Needs at this critical time . Its absolutely essential, senator that congress put Additional Resources towards states stabilization dedicated to education. We fought for at least 175 billion dollars just to make sure that districts dont have to make devastating cuts to personnel and programs. Additional funds on top of that to address learning laws and social emotional leads, but those states are vital, we saw this during the Great Recession that districts all over the country lost personnel, lost programs and the consequences were worst for the students most vulnerable, low income students, students of color. Thank you. I certainly hope we have bipartisan effort as senator cassidy was talking about as well to do just that. I just want to talk about another particular that students face unique challenges during this crisis and really following up on senator casey and murphy on this issue. At a time when we have to meet the needs of all of our students who have struggled to access quality education during were more learning, students who experienced disabilities have been disproportionately impacted by changes in education by covid19, and we spoken about that. Under the idea as their peers and thats been particularly difficult from a person to Remote Learning. In many cases, these disruptions will result in student was disability, and its outlined in individual education plans. Doctor king, as schools experience increased amounts to respond to covid19, can you please speak to the value of congress providing additional educated funding with the i. D. E. A. . Yes. We already know that for many School Districts they are not getting the i. D. E. A. Funding they need and states deal with budget cuts. It will be even more challenging for them to ensure they are serving students well. Some of the things they need, we know assisted technology will be vital for some students to be able to access Distance Learning. We know that in some cases additional staff will be needed in order to be able to potentially provide services at home to students in a socially distant way that might get support to those students. Parents need Additional Support. Many cases, parents are very reliant on schools to help them support students, particularly those with the most significant disabilities. Theyll need more support, so ceo im ocean ill support as well as instructional support for their kids. This is a critical area. We got to make up for what students have lost and put in a position to support students and what may be a Distance Learning or a hybrid learning environment into the school year. Thank you for that. I wanted to ask commissioner schwinn and blomstedt a question as well. Weve talked about all the Different Things that we are going to need to do for students to return physically but we know even in places where Public Health officials believed that schools can safely reopen, some families that face increased health risk at home, they feel uncomfortable with their job going back to school until there is a covid19 vaccine. Can you share how your own state School Reopening plans address the needs for students who may request a need to continue Remote Learning during to due to ongoing Health Concerns . Its actually been a very important conversation across this state that, again, i kind of go back to my people first approach that when students are asking and families are feeling that its not safe, we want to make sure there are protocols in place. If they cant feel safe in that environment, or they have real medical conditions that are a big concern for that family, especially students with disabilities that we know have medical vulnerabilities on top of this, we want schools to be accommodating for all of those different settings. We want to find unique ways. We are asking schools to find those unique ways and work with parents on i. E. People and and work with them relative to each plan in each individual concern that parents may have and so we see that taking place across the state. Its a lot more to do and we will probably have challenges like we always may experience, but for my perspective and our saw awesomely at the state, we need to be working with each of them on those concerns. Thank you. Commissioner schwinn, you have anything to add . I know i am over time. I will be brief. I think we prioritize this work in tennessee. We put up an ally a guide and we put up 20 plus two kids over the next seven days specifically on issues like this, but we prioritize children with disabilities of a 5 Million Dollar compensatory Million Dollars in assistant technology and 3 Million Dollars plus an innovative graduate districts get support they need specifically for students who are unable to return to school. Thank you very much. Thank you to all the witnesses and thank you mister chairman. Thank you senator hassan. Senator smith. Thank you to alexander and Ranking Member murray and for all of our palace to be here today. I want to start by addressing the issues that our Ranking Member raised early on in this hearing. You know, mr. George floyd was a constituent of mine. He was murdered by minneapolis Police Officers, my hometown. His death is a tragedy and it never shouldve happened and we cannot look away from the deep injustice that it represents. It reveals a systemic racism and an equity that exist throughout our society including in policing. Whats happening in my state and around the country, i believe, is that people are rising up to demand justice for mr. Floyd and his family but they are also marching on the streets because they are demanding more, they are demanding that we address the systemic inequities that we see in every part of our community. My constituents are demanding that we address this everywhere and i want to think about what this means for education. I want to talk about what is difficult to talk about in my state. Over the past 20 years, Minnesota Schools have grown more, not less segregated. My state has had over 200 schools were students of color make up 90 of the enrollment. The bulk of the schools are in the twin cities areas. The black, white achievement gap in minnesota remains unacceptably large, regularly 30 points or more in math and English Proficiency tests. This dynamic is so bad that its been given a name, the minnesota paradox by professor at the university of minnesota humphrey school. Colleagues, these disparities exist in my state and theyre shameful but they exist in every one of our states. I believe so strongly that in this moment we all have a moral responsibility to not look away from this but to grapple with it and deal with it directly. I want to address my questions and the time that i have here on this issue today and especially as we think about how to safely reopen our schools. Secretary king, let me ask you about this one particular area, though i welcome your thoughts on the whole area, you know, we know the covid19 epidemic has created such significant stress on families and we also know that it is not the great equalizer, that it disproportionately affects families and kids with color, indigenous communities, and black families and that this is a burden on top of a historic trauma and inequity and under investment in these communities. We have all of these kids who we need to figure out how to bring safely back to school and im thinking about their Mental Health challenges that their children have been grappling with on top of Everything Else that has been happening. It feels to me like the scale in the scope that we are thinking about for this is just completely missing the need. Secretary king, can you address us and talk about how we need to be urgent about this as our schools are trying right now to figure out how to safely reopen . I mean, i worry tremendously about this. You think about kids during the relationships with adults and peers at schools, its the thing that gives him a sense of hope and stability, now theyve been without that for months. I think about kids who are in families who are in a vixen or Domestic Violence or their found is going to an economic trauma because of covid19. Where there are families affected by their Health Impact of covid19. There is a lot that kids are carrying, we need to address when kids return to school and we know that even though the American School counselors ocean says we need to have a ratio of one council to every 250 students, we have states where the ratio is want to 400, one to 500, one to 600. There is no way that they can provide adequate support. We have done polling parents across the country, one of the things we have seen is skyrocketing stress among parents. Im very worried about parents and their need for social emotional support and access to Mental Health services. Thats a vital area i think of additional investment that school need to make. Again, that will be very difficult in the context where they are facing significant consequences. Even before covid19, we really had a disinvestment in councillors and Mental Health services in schools. Schools right now are actually looking at cutting rather than investing and where do they cut, they typically tend to cut not in classrooms because that raises alarm bells for everyone. They tend to cut and other places. This is my great worry that in a moment we should be investing, we are going to be seeing cuts because congress apparently feels no urgency in addressing these issues as schools are trying to get ready for what is arguably the most important beginning of a school year that will happen in their lifetimes of these children. Thank you, mister chair. Thank you miss senator smith. Senator jones. I think hes still in another committee hearing. Senator rosen. We have senator cain and senator jones in another hearing. I think we are airy ready to conclude the hearing. Senator murray, do you have some additional marks or questions before we close the hearing . Thank you mister chairman. I do have one question and then some comments. Secretary king, i did want to ask you, there are over one and a half Million Students who are experiencing homelessness in Public Schools. This number as we grow in the increase in unemployment and other financial suppresses on families right now, im really concerned that due to inequitable internet, device access we just talked about, School Budget cuts that are coming, School Schedules, ongoing distance education, schools are going to find it very difficult to prioritize the needs of students who are experiencing homelessness. Doctor blomstedt, doctor schwinn, maybe ill direct this to you. What actions did you take to make sure schools are in regular families who are experiencing homelessness and whether schools are doing interstate now to make sure they have the capacity to provide High Quality Services to these students and doctor blomstedt let me start with you and doctor schwinn. Thank you for that question. We have been concerned with our homeless students at this moment of time. Many of our schools have worked hard to contact these families and started to find ways that they were able to do that. I was very impressed to see teachers where they might have been teaching remotely during evening phone calls, making close contact type of connections, making sure folks are all right. We did food drops as part of that, trying to ensure those families were being recognized. Our Homeless Population is obviously a huge huge concern. I do not know that we have every strategy down. I know there is a potential effort by schools to check in on every single student on their roles. In some cases, there are concerns where we could not find necessarily what might have happened and release them intentional effort to track down students if they werent being responsive to their schools. Doctor when. Yes maam, the specific intensive considering the full needs of our students when School Buildings are closed, that continues through the summer and we are continuing that through the coming school here, understanding the challenges. I want to think of other things weve done. Weve put out tool kits specifically for our highly mobile, students who might be homeless and foster cares, its deterrence, so we can have Additional Support for kids who needed the most. Frankly, i think about places like Shelburne County in memphis. Our Tennessee Region in the far east. When i think about what those districts are doing, they are making sure there are doing calls every day. We are sitting up and working with the state board of education to ensure learning plans for next year require and support that level of contact with our kids. We have to make sure and whatever community and those locally driven decisions, that we will focus on the two most important things. Kids are self safe and healthy and getting high quality education. Thank you. In place with the capacity to make sure that they will get equitable access to education . We do, but i really want to stress the intensive effort that our teachers and support staff had to go into during this time of Remote Learning. Our students were experiencing homelessness, predominantly in some of the hardest to reach students, students who lacked consistent access to internet. There were families that were experiencing multiple issues. At very high risk infection. We know that it was an intensive effort, and sometimes very challenging to keep those students engaged in school. Thank you. Miss chairman, thank you. Thank you to all of our witnesses today. As students and families and educators, staff across the country wrap up this full year and begin to look to the next one, there are a lot more questions than there are answers. I know schools and districts are not only grappling with high quality Public Education, whether in person or virtually, but there are also grappling with some of the biggest state and local revenue that we have seen in a very long time. School districts should not be on their own. They need support resources from the federal government. They need indepth, actionable Public Health guidance on best practices. With educators and school staff and the broader community. We need a massive investment in Public Education system. So we can implement Public Health protocols, addressing learning loss among the students, and the decline you will see and state and local funding. What they do not need is secretary using this to push the agenda and compound the issues they are facing. I want to emphasize once again how crucial it is that this committee, and the american people, actually, here from the administration and from secretary devos. And students and educators prepare for the incredibly incredibly challenging schooling year ahead, they deserve to know that all of us, including secretary devices are doing everything we can to support them. Thank you mister chairman. Thank you. Thank you senator. Thank you to all our senators and the witnesses and to the staff, for creating this virtual environment. Just a couple of areas i would like to comment on. It would be, especially at a time in the whole nation is focused on Racial Discrimination and disparity, and trying to understand what in terms of laws are changing behaviors we can do about that. I think this hearing has emphasize that it will be hard to think of anything we can do both help the country move back toward normalcy, and to help minority children and children who are disadvantaged or who are from single parent families, hard to think of anything more we can do to help them get back to School Safely. In teacher can tell us and all of our witnesses have reminded us of the emotional, intellectual and physical damage to children in the schools and the difficulty it creates for panelists. This is been a very important hearing. One thing i would ask of each of our witnesses, and ive mentioned it to all of them, it would be helpful to me and i think the other senators, if you could provide some specifics to the committee about exactly what it would take in terms of financial support, open our schools. As doctor shokin said, there are two goals here. One is open safely and then there are all the questions that have to do with how the students thrive and how they learn. I think the National Administrators association it is a favor, American Federation of teachers at the same. When they try to estimate the cost per district of just the basic things it would take to help schools to open, because of administrators are reluctant to take a risk, to open a school, a child will be left home and left to all those disadvantages. The doctor said she thought the cost might be about 1. 5, 1. 7 Million Dollars for an average School District. Afp mention 1. 8, i think was the figure. That would be very helpful to have, especially from the council of chief state schools. If you could provide that to us. Second, i would like to see some analysis if he can get it, of why the money we have already appropriated cannot be used for some of that. For example, 200 13. 5 Million Dollars was appropriated just for kindergarten through 12th grade on march 27th. For example, tennessee got 260 million of that. I assume that could be used to open the School Safely at the end of the summer and at the end of the fall. We appropriate 25 billion dollars for testing. If you spent three or 4 million of that on hiring Contact Trace or, you can hire 100,000 of them. I would assume some of that could be used. Then there is 150 billion dollars that has been given to the states. About a third of the state budget or more goes for education. I would assume some of that could be used and one of the complications we may have, is that that money was restricted. The statute restricted the way state can spend the money. It would be helpful to me to hear from counsel chief state school officers, if you think that changing the law, to give states more flexibility and using the money to help children go back safely to school would be one way to help . All of that would be helpful and it would be most helpful if you could segregate going back to School Safely from all the other things that many people suggest we should be doing to help children. Other thing is testing. I had a conversation with the doctor about testing. I am in shrieked. I have been very focused on diagnostic testing. I think we need to do everything we can. I think it is important for the country to know that current plans are to have 40 to 50 million tests available about the time school starts, and that every month, states are submitting their plans to the federal government about what theyre testing needs are in the count meet them. The federal government is helping them meet those tests. In addition, there is an effort that the National Institute have created diagnostic tests which can be given frequently and if necessary and all of that is important not just to contain the disease but to build confidence among parents and students that it is safe to go back to school. I hope that you will convey your 100,000 schools and all the School Districts, they should be a part of their state plan for testing, so that as they look toward july, august and september, if they need an x number of test and they do not have a capacity for that, that they can get some help for finding those tests because they should be available for systematic testing. This has been a very helpful hearing. I think doctor schwinn doctor homestead, secretary king, thank you for taking the time for your demanding schedules and isnt busy days to give us your opinion. The record will remain open for ten days. Members may submit Additional Information to the record in that time if they would like. Our committee will meet aga at that time we are going to focus on telehealth, lessons from the covid19 pandemic. We have crammed about ten years of experience in to three months in terms of telework, telelearning and telehealth. Next wednesday will focus on the impact on, of the covid19 epidemic on telehealth and what we should be doing as a result of it. Committee will stand adjourned. Coming up the chair the Congressional Black Caucus karen bass discusses legislation to address Police Violence and racial profiling in the wake of george floyd death. Live coverage at 1 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Coming up in congress, the Senate Returns to continue work on the Great American outdoors act that would permanently fund the land and Water Conservation fund or National Parks and public lands projects. They will take votes to advance the bill at 5 30 p. M. Eastern. Final note possible by midweek. Also on the agenda about to confirm a judge to the d. C. Circuit court of appeals. The house is holding a series of pro forma sessions with no legislative business scheduled until the return for votes on thursday june 25. Then if the measure is ready to take up Police Reform legislation with proxy voting still in effect due to coronavirus. Watch the house live on cspan, the senate today starting at 3 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. With the federal government at work in d. C. And throughout the country, use the congressional directory for Contact Information for members of congress, governors and federal agencies. Order your copy online today at cspanstore. Org. Tonight on the communicators, federal Communications Commission michael orielly. I think everyone is faced with the difficult circumstances from the covid19 pandemic. The Communications Network as a whole seems to be Holding Quite well. I dont like to promise anything or congratulate anybody to early so well have to see things hold on a pretty impressed with things are now. In terms of some of the connectivity issues, some of the work from home issues, certainly conference is being done through this medium, its more likely to increase over time. I wouldnt say this is the new normal but its a lot more this way and returning fully to the old style. Tonight at 8 p. M. Eastern on the the communicators on cspan2