best option. but classes online often in isolation have created their own health concerns. this has resulted in frustrated students, struggling parents, millions of whom cannot afford or access high speed internet or childcare, and teachers, working to save a generation of young minds while too often fearing for their own lives. and their health and that of their loved ones. tonight we will try to explore every part of the educational crisis this pandemic created. but let's start with an obvious admission. there are no simple answers here. there is no one size fits all, inexpensive solution that would end the struggle like that. if this were easy, it would have been solved long ago. so let us listen and learn and try to figure out what to do. so here's a snap shot of where things stand. the families of more than 50 million kids rely on public schools in some 14,000 school districts. so let's bring in our chief medical corn, dr. sanjay gupta. let's start with the most basic question. what do classrooms need to be safe for children and teachers? what does the science say? >> well, we can say pretty definitively that kids are far less likely to get sick. there is a rare condition known it's a multiinflammatory syndrome but it is rare. we didn't know that in the beginning. kids are far less likely to be infected, far less likely to be hospitalized and far less likely to die. we know as we look at the data that counties where schools were in-person versus counties where they were virtual did not see an uptick in hospitalizations overall for kids or adults. if you did see outbreaks in schools and investigated those, they were almost always due to some sort of lapse in the basic mitigation efforts we spent all year talking about. so i went to david t. howard middle school to get an idea of what mitigation efforts are in place and how well they're working. school in the age of covid-19. temperature scans. plastic dividers. eating outside. all of it to lower risk. >> decisions tied to health risks feel very much out of our wheel house. it felt scary. >> it was the weight of the world that landed the public school superintendent carried when the city schools reopened on january 25th. >> there was a huge surge post holiday that we were still in the midst of. how did you arrive at these decisions? >> we became more and more aware of the high level of focus around mitigation for safety and health risks. >> she shows me what that mean at david t. howard middle school. the guidance for schools to reopen safely considers community spread and relies on five familiar strategies. masking, physical distancing, washing hands, cleaning facilities, and improving ventilation, as well as contact tracing, isolation and quarantine. >> all the doors are open. so we're very intentional. >> all the doors stay open. >> the few studies that have been done looking at in-school transmission have found few coronavirus cases when those mitigation efforts are in place. one study of atlanta school districts found just 32 cases of in-school transmission among nearly 100,000 students and staff. not one of them involved a child infecting an adult. another study looking at more than 200,000 people in the new york city public schools between october and december found just .4% of the tests were positive. still, sixth grade social study teacher patrick doherty had his doubts. >> i was leaning toward we should stay virtual. not a lot of crowding, sanitize, keep the masks on. i feel safe. i'm being vaccinated tomorrow, first dose. >> should teachers get the vaccine before coming back to school? >> in a perfect scenario, absolutely, dr. gupta. absolutely. this was just not the perfect scenario. >> weekly testing of staff and students that began in february spotted 32 cases so far. >> can school districts open if they don't have that level of surveillance testing? >> there are school districts open who don't have that so the answer is yes. does it give another layer of protection? it absolutely does. >> more than a third of the 52,000 students have now returned. >> a show of hands, does everyone feel safe being back in school? >> i haven't been in-person for like a year, i haven't socialized but it was better than i thought it would be. >> what so many people have told us, jake, is that it is clear if they can reopen safely if, if you have all these other things that we talked about. as basic as they may sound, it is not always that easy. sometimes having the resources for the masking, to be able to have the square footage for the physical distancing and ventilation costs money. a lot of people paying close attention to the $125 billion that will go to k-12 schools to try to be able to improve those resources. even without vaccines, even without testing, it is certainly possible. >> sandjay, i saw a study out o massachusetts that shows students three feet apart are really, there is really no difference in terms of the spread of the virus from schools where kids need to be six feet apart. it is tough to do the six feet. it is one of the reasons some schools are staying closed. does it need to be six? >> this is very interesting. a couple things. i saw that study. it was 251 schools in massachusetts. and you're right. schools where they were doing three feet versus six feet, they did not see a big difference in transmission. again, some of these schools were able to test. a couple caveats. it does depend how many people are actually in the room. the more people in the room, the more virus is likely circulating the air and the more distance you want to try to keep. the other thing was, are you doing a good job with the other mitigation measures? obviously masks are always important but particularly if you're going to be close together. the world health organization, if you look at their health organization, they say one meter. so just over three feet. we've been saying six feet in this country. >> all right, thank you as always. we have more from some of the most powerful voices ahead. but the voices that matter the most are yours. we asked teachers and kids and parents to make video diaries, to give us all a sense of the covid and education challenges in their daily lives. let's listen to the stories of three of america's students now. bobby and reese from california, and chris hall from maryland. >> hi, i'm bobby. and online school actually has been really difficult for me. >> i'm a new student to the school. i'm a ninth grader. and it is really hard to socialize and make fregds. >> it is mentally draining. >> if we make time to socialize, we don't have time to learn. if we make time to learn you can't really socialize at all. >> and i feel like the teachers are really putting on a lot of pressure for us to get perfect grades and get everything in on time. and i just feel like i lose all my motivation to do anything except for school. >> staying involved is an issue. a lot of times, you don't really get to speak. it is more or less, you can only speak if you have a question. so involvement is hard to do for me. >> online school is way more draining than regular school. and i just have no motivation to do the things that i do to make me happy. >> you sort of get lost with who you are. i know i did. >> the biggest issue is the social interaction. and this is coming from a usually socially awkward person who is a little, you know, i don't have a lot of friends but i never had no friends. >> it's tough. let's talk about all that and more with the brand new secretary of education, miguel cardonna. before joining the biden administration, he was commissioner of education in connecticut. thank you for joining us. you just heard the new reporting from sanjay gupta. suggesting with proper mitigation measures, schools can be safe. given what the science tells us, what is holding back every school in america from woepg those proper safety measures? >> thank you for having me, jake. and happy birthday to you. i know it is your birthday today. i hope your day is going well. without question, my biggest priority right now is safely reopening our schools and doing it quickly. we know our students, those comments from those students right before this clip were really touching and we need to do it for reese and bobby. we need to make sure our schools are open quickly and safely. as dr. gupta pointed out, there are exams where it is being done. i have experience doing that. i know we can do it. and now with the american rescue plan, i'm confident it will get done. >> let's look at a few of the biggest school systems. los angeles schools are not opening for another month. chicago in person two days a week but not five. even in your home state of connecticut, more than 40% of school districts are still not fully in-person classrooms. we know that obviously, there is the pandemic. then there are other effects of this. students are falling behind. given the science, do you think that there are some school districts that are moving too slowly? >> i do think that throughout our country, we have districts where they don't have the resources to implement some of the mitigation strategies that other districts have. in some places, there might be fear or some concerns about whether or not the schools are safe enough. but i can tell you, in connecticut, over 90% of the students have an opportunity for in-person learning to build the sense of community. so it is a balance, making sure we're moving the needle in the right direction to get students in school every day. we have to do so, making sure that we're adhering to those mitigation strategies that have worked to keep our school safe. >> you touched on kind of what i'm driving at. you talked about the fear. and we're all empathetic. and there needs to be more empathy in this debate. but the science is also very important. you've said, quote, there is not widespread transmission in schools. cdc researchers in the medical journal jama agree with you. they wrote, quote, there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully on increased community transmission. i guess the question is, are enough school officials following the science when they don't offer in-person classes, at least three or four days a week? >> yes. i do believe, having worked as commissioner of education in connecticut, i've seen the tremendous work that our educated and our school leaders and district leaders have done to get the doors open and to make sure they're learning and following the science to make sure the schools are open. implementing mitigation strategies, communicating with parents and creating a sense of confidence while bringing the stake holders to the table to make sure that they feel comfortable with this process. it is a process. this is unprecedented. we are in the middle of a pandemic. do i feel that they're following the science and i do think, this is hard work. there is no play book for this in any leadership course. i do think they're following the science. i think that they're moving it. there are districts that have been open since day one, giving students an opportunity to engage in that social, emotional experience that we heard from reese in the segment earlier. >> is there a clearing house at the department of education, and look, i know you're just a few days on the job. is there a clearing house? will there be a clearing house for best practices? so for instance, my relatives who are in school tin texas and my relatives who are in school in florida are able to have their schools that are doing this and it is working with mitigation efforts. let me underline that. with mitigation efforts. so that my relatives who are in california can benefit from what is going on in these other states. if the department of education is not already doing that, and i don't know if they were doing it under secretary devos. will you continue doing that so schools can learn from each other? >> that's a great point. the answer is yes, definitely. in a few weeks, before the end of march, we'll have a national summit on school reopening. we'll have experts and as you mentioned, districts that have found success doing this. talking to other districts and sharing their best practices but also sharing the challenges that they had so we can learn from those districts. we also have a clearing house around reopening but how to provide social, emotional support for our students and educators who have also experienced a lot of trauma in the last year. so that's coming out, too. we have a handbook that came out about three weeks ago and we have another hand book coming out in i am a that goes deeper into the long term strategies for reopening, such as providing more support for students and helping with the recovery of whatever skills were lost. >> yeah. i think for teachers who are understandably afraid of getting sick, even if the kids, the risk to them is low, i think learning from experiences where it has not resulted opening schools in-person classes, with mitigation, masks, distancing, ventilation, i think it can be reassuring. michael bloomberg wrote in the "washington post" this week that schools nationwide should cancel summer vacation and continue classes through the summer in order to make up all the lost ground. do you agree? does the biden administration agree? >> let me tell you, i appreciate the urgency to make sure that we're giving our students the best opportunities but i can tell you from last march until now, our students have worked twice as hard as you saw, trying to stay engaged. if we do provide summer opportunities which i think are critically important, we need to make sure they're not more of the same. we need to make sure our afterschool programming, our summer experiences, are student getting out, visiting museums, doing things in the communities and learning in the process. i think we should have summer opportunities for our students to engage in learning but in ways that are engaging and building community. and i think that's a critical part of the recovery. the american rescue plan does provide funds to make those opportunities available to our students. >> when do you think in this country, there will be an opportunity for all schools to offer five-day-a-week in-person education? will that be in the fall? not until 2022? give us an idea what you're thinking. >> as soon as possible. and i would like to think in many places we can do it this spring. i know schools that are functioning all day every day, five days a week, for all students currently. and we need to continue to grow and make sure that we're getting students an opportunity to be in school as much as possible. there is no substitute for in-person learning. so my biggest priority is making sure that we're doing everything we can to move from remote learning to in-person learning five days a week as quickly as possible across the country. >> my guest that i'll have next is the head of the largest teacher's union in the country. do you think on the whole the role of teachers unions has been a good thing or a less positive force when it comes to the goal of reopening schools? >> you know, educators across our country have bent over backwards. they learned how to teach totally different from one day to the next. and yes, they need to make sure that they're advocating for a safe work environment as well. so i think they've been helpful. my experience in connecticut, we worked hard and moved quickly to close the digital divide. to get students in school because of that partnership. so i definitely feel having educators, school principals, board members at the table, is a critical component of safely reopening quickly. >> thank you for being here tonight with us. please stay in touch. we would like to stay in touch with this story. we've been covering it since last year. >> thank you. coming up, i'll be joined by the head of the biggest teachers union. what will it take for teachers to feel safe going back to class? and coming up next, parents fed up with waiting. how many are suing to try to force the reopenings. as our cnn special continues. psst! psst! allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst! psst! you're good. start your day with crest 3d white and from mochaccinos to merlot, your smile will always be brilliant. crest 3d white brilliance. 100% stain removal, 24 hour stain resistance to lock in your whitest smile. crest. the #1 toothpaste brand in america. special, back to school. one of the hidden tragedies of this pandemic, kids dropping out of school. in new york city, enrollment has dropped by about 43,000. the youngest students from pre-k and kindergarten make up the steepest drop. chicago down nearly 15,000 students. dallas, 13,000. in sacramento, teams of social workers are searching for the missing kids in one particular district, where 90% live in poverty. the blow to our children's education from chronic absenteeism can be staggering. studies show it can leave third graders unable to master reading and high school freshmen dropping out permanently. data from stanford shows in more than 100 school districts, students' reading scores are 30% below expectations. let's take a look at another video diary from those sharing their personal diaries with us. this is courtney, a mom of two from indiana, telling us what it like to home school her kids while working from home during the pandemic. >> good morning! we have two kiddos, ages 3 and 6. time for school. today you will see a day in the life of us when it comes to home schooling our children. one is in a public school. we luckily have the option to have him do in-person with a few e-learning courses throughout the calendar year. >> it's been a major transition as far as us converting our basement to a home office, as well as we created a little niche to make it a classroom setting as much as possible. >> bye! >> e-learning days are very challenging. honestly. i'm trying to get things done for work and hurry up and get them done in a timely manner because that's when my husband that has to tap in. it is hard to hold meetings, to do conferences -- >> can you please help me with my homework? >> this is a prime example. he needs help with his homework assignment. >> thank you to the family for sharing that with us. for some parents, the outrage over schools not offering in-person classes is now at the point where they're going to court. cnn's reporter spoke with a group of new jersey moms who are schooling -- i'm sorry, who are suing their school districts. >> the garbage workers who pick up my freaking trash risk their lives every day! more than anyone in this school system. >> across the country, exasperated parents like this virginia dad are demanding more of their school boards. >> it is maddening. why is my kid suffering and other kids get to be in school? >> it's a game. the kids are being used as pawns. >> this attorney is recommending 17 equally frustrated families, pro bono against two new jersey school districts. mont claire and south orange maplewood. it has been almost a year since students filled the classrooms in these districts. >> this has been such a tremendous battle for all of us. >> the suit asserts that students have been denied their right to an in-person education. >> i myself was a teacher. >> children need to be in school with their peers, with their teachers, working collaboratively. >> for donahue, these cases hit close to home. >> the department not responding to my own child's specific needs and realizing, oh, you know, not that they won't open the schools, and it was like, i could do this. i'm going to speak up for her because no one is speaking for the kids. >> her 11-year-old daughter mary has not set foot inside of a classroom since last march. >> what grade are you in? >> i'm