Allowed to open this school year with in class instruction unless the counties remain off the list for two weeks. He was joined by the States Health secretary at the briefing. Gov. Newsom to make sure that we are attending, as anticipate this time of year, to so many other responsibilities. I want to talk about what we are putting out in terms of guidance and guidelines for education in the state of california in the context of covid19. We will go through a list of specific recommendations, specific guidance, as well as allting you, as we do on the information related to Positivity Rates, hospitalization rates and icus in the state. Let me begin first with foundational framework. That is our bottom line. That learning in the state of california is simply nonnegotiable that schools must provide meaningful instruction during this pandemic, whether they are physically opened, the schools, or not. That is what i want to talk about specifically today. Students, teachers, staff and parents, we all prefer in classroom instruction for all the obvious reasons, social and emotional foundational he, but only, only if it can be done safely. As a parent, i believe that. As somebody who has a responsibility to support education of kids in california. Staff,the backs of our teachers, school nurses, guidance staff, principles, bus drivers, janitors, all the folks responsible for the caretaking, safety, and health of our children. We have to have their backs as preciousnessng the that is our children. Safety is foundational. Safety will ultimately make the determination of how we go about educating our kids as we move into the fall and work our way through this pandemic. Here is the five principles that we are laying out in terms of expectations. Here is our plan for schools in the state of california. Safe, in person school. Bulletwalk through that point in more detail in a moment. New mask requirements that we are putting forth today, some clarification and some constructive guidance on physical distancing and other adaptations that we expect to see in the School Setting. We are putting out specific guidance as it relates to testing and Contact Tracing in our School System and what we mean by Distance Learning. We will have distance to learning to make sure it is real, we address the equity, address the divide. Lets talk about number one, using data, the foundational data that we have laid out county by county throughout the state of california. Schools can physically open for in Person Education when the county they have been operating in has been off our monitoring list for 14 consecutive days. If you have tuned into daily briefings, you are very familiar with our monitoring list. I will be updating that later today but we are now putting forth guidelines that say, based thehe data, based around Community Spread of the virus, if you are not on that monitoring list, you can move forward if you choose to physically open your campus, physically open your schools. Schools that do not meet this requirement must begin the school year this fall through distanced learning. Number two, i am going to get to that in a moment. We are putting forth a new mask requirement in the state. In school staff and students third grade and above must wear masks. Students in the second grade or below, we strongly encourage Wearing Masks and face shields. Dutch,a very young son, and caregivers, when he first saw masks, he naturally recoiled. Caregivers now have face shields. He can see their expressions, their humanity. That is why we put guidance out as it relates to not just masks, but face shields as well. Our third frame of guidance that we are putting forth today is around physical distancing. And as i mentioned, other adaptations. On the physical distancing side, we believe it is incumbent upon staff to maintain at least six feet of distance between each other and a six foot distance between themselves and the students. We believe that the school day should start with symptom checks, meaning temperature checks. We have robust expectations around handwashing stations, sanitation, deep sanitation, deep disinfection efforts, and that these schools have quarantine protocols. We will talk a little bit more in a moment about these continuity and attendance plans that each school site is now responsible for putting forth. Issue oftes to the testing, there is a requirement that we tested on a rotating basis a cohort of staff on a consistent basis. The doctor will talk more about that. In turn, we are bringing to the School System the benefit and support of the 10 plus thousand contact tracers that we have trained in the state of california in partnership with ucsf and ucla with a backbone and database that now has organized a collective. We want to turn our Contact Tracing where we think it can be very effective in these School Environments, could be very effective in mitigating the spread and trying to understand exactly where and how the spread had advanced and allow us, obviously, to isolate and quarantine cohorts of not only children, but staff, as a relates to mitigating that spread further. As it relates to distancelearning, as i said,. Rigorous. Access to devices is foundational. I will talk about the money we have put up to allow for districts to purchase new devices to get the kind of connectivity that students need and deserve to address this gap as it relates to the digital divide. We want daily live interaction with teachers and students. Students connecting with other students, teachers connecting daily on an interactive a frame to advance distancelearning efforts. Remember, we had a lot of experience that came through the spring this year. We reviewed a lot of the fits and starts related to quality, access issues, points of consideration, we shared a lot of those best practices. No one is going to deny that based upon the early orders to start to close schools at the local level that some of it worked more effectively in certain parts of the state than others. Clearly, we have work to do to make sure we are doing rigorous distancelearning. This is the predicate, the foundation. These are the expectations that we have, minimum expectations in terms of quality, engagement, connectivity, and access to the devices that are foundational in terms of providing for quality distancelearning. We also want to create a challenging environment where assignments are equivalent, in terms of what you would an in persont in class setting. I am not naive. ,e stipulate that staff teachers, parents prefer the social, Emotional Learning in class education. That is a default. That is our bias. Under the circumstances with the spread of this virus and i will ,et to that spread in a moment as an explanation to why we are putting out this recommendation. We want to do our best to create some sense of equivalency with the obvious constraints that is distancelearning. We also want to make sure that we are always mindful of our students that are homeless, students that are foster care kids in the system, kids with english as a second language and those with learning disabilities , those that have special needs, and the like. Look, that foundation is laid, was laid, rather, with the legislature, the strong support we received from the legislature when we put forth a package on equity. That was approved. That package includes 5. 3 billion to deal with learning loss that was associated with some of the closures last year. And a very, very focused and intentional effort to meet the needs of those that fall into those categories of special needs in our system. Of3 billion was put in additional funding to prioritize the issue of equity. It is not just a throwaway line, not a catchphrase, not something we put out to promote a point of view. We are substantively putting real resources and heft into advancing that point of view as well. A question a lot of people begin to ask is, all right, once school is open, what happens if the spread goes into the classroom setting or in a district setting or if the spread continues in the county unabated . So this slide puts forth some criteria that we are setting forth. Again, these are brackets. Within these brackets, we will work through with the county and all the local conditions and recognize the nuances and gray areas in a system as large as ours in the state of california. In addition to these county superintendents, all of these local districts, cities, counties, and all the jurisdictional criteria that makes this unlike any other state, in terms of size and scope, challenging. Here is the minimum consideration in terms of expectation. Consult with public officers first if a classroom cohort as to go home because of a confirmed case. If a School Goes Home with multiple cohorts that have cases or we stipulate 5 of the school , local school, not district, local school is positive, then it would trigger criteria to consider closing, or mandate, rather, the closure of that school site. However, one school does not make a district. Depending on the size and scale of your district, this could be multiple schools or just a few schools. If they have similar cohort caseloads, we then have a stipulation, a mandate that if 25 of the schools that compose of a district have positive cases that reach that threshold, that they need to be closed within a 14 day period. That is the foundation we are lang out today on Public Education guidance. We put out guidance, the California Department of Public Health, some time ago. There is a lot of local governance. You have cde that put out guidance as well. The purpose of today is try to lean in from health and data perspective in terms of our expectations, public and private schools, and the state of california. Thectations, mandates with flexibility that recognizes each part of the state is unique, each part of the state is distinctive. Some counties are on the monitoring list, others are not. As a consequence, they are able to do in Person Education. Even those that are currently on monitoring list, we hope and expect as we mitigate the spread of this disease that they will fall off that list. We have created parameters and guidelines over a stabilization period to reopen those schools and allowed that as an option to local education entities by partnership and counsel with Public Health officials to make that determination as to what is best for their children and those that support our children. Remember, Public Education, education broadly is absolutely about our kids. Wecannot deny the fact that have hundreds of thousands of adults that are responsible to taking care and educating our kids as well. Their health has to be considered as well. I just offer that as a parent, but as reference for principals, teachers, janitors, bus drivers, and others. Accountableed to be and responsible to their health as well as the health of my children, your children, our children, our future. That is the framework we are putting out today on education. I will happily answer any questions. Ve the head of the california board of education on the line for those of you who wish to ask her any questions. Not only the head of health and Human Services, but a pediatrician, is available for questions. I can talk a little bit more he can talk about his own personal experience with 4 young children. First, i want to quickly run through what i began with, or end with what i began with, that learning remains nonnegotiable, but neither is the safety of all of our cohorts of support staff as well as our children. Here are todays numbers. You have become familiar with the seven day average, which is even more important than the episodic rise and fall of a single day number of case counts. 129,000 people on july 16. You will see the number. 9986 individuals tested positive for covid19. That seven day average at 8838. You will see the Positivity Rate has gone actually down modestly, 7. 4 . The sevenday Positivity Rate is lower than the 14 day Positivity Rate. The current california Positivity Rate over seven days is 7. 1 . The slide you see here represents a 14 day period at 7. 4 000 testseraging 124,o on a daily basis. You heard from dr. Galli, reconstituted our Testing Task Force. Our goal is to increase testing in the state of california, but do so with a different intensity of focus, which the doctor laid out on tuesday. I want to see those numbers, those average daily test numbers continue to climb. They are continuing to climb. This is the largest sevenday average number of daily tests that we have ever put forth. It was not that long ago, 100 or so days ago, we were averaging 2000 tests per day. Now, over 124,000 tests per day. We will continue to fight to see those numbers increase, despite all of the external challenges. We, as a state, are more than capable of figuring out how we can navigate some of those supplychain shortages and some of the other constraints that have been highlighted over the last few weeks and understandably so. Positivity rate, 7. 4 over a 14 day period. That represents about a seven point 3 increase over the 14 7. 3 increase over the 14 daty period. We continue to see hospitalizations increase in the state of california, 22 increase over the 14 day period. Over 6000 individuals are currently covered 19 covid19 positive patients in our health care system. It was about 9 when i shared this with you on monday. It is increasing. Again, at acash rate again, at a rate that we can absorb. I will talk more about what we are seeing at the county level. What we are seeing in the aggregate state level, hospitalizations, not surprisingly, extends to the issue of icu, up about 15 over od. S two week peri individuals that have been admitted into icus. That is holding. About 16 when i presented the slides to you on monday. More than 10,000 ventilators available. This is in the aggregate, statewide. It does not represent what is happening at the local level and at the ground level. That is the purpose of this slide, to talk about the counties on the monitoring list. Now, 32 counties, likely 33. We are monitoring one or two others. I expect and anticipate a county or two likely to be on. 32 counties currently on the monitoring list. 58 counties in the state of california. 32 counties represented on this monitoring list. That number has held fairly steady. 29 or so last week at the end of the week. The start of the week, around 32. These are the counties of most concern. If i broke this down, in stanislaus county, imperial county, you will see higher utilization in those counties of ventilators. You will see other parts of the state, like napa and others, that dont necessarily have a lot of remaining icu capacity within their counties. That is a cause of concern. But please consider that the concern is not unnoticed in terms of pandemic planning, in terms of strategy to engage in a regional basis our Health Care Delivery system, Hospital System that absorbs patients from outside of counties into other counties. While it is understandable that some of these things that generate screaming headlines, it also, i think, should be contextualized that there are smaller jurisdictions that dont have a lot of capacity, just a few patients in the icu will fill up their icu capacity. That does not mean we are not attending to the needs of those patients. Quite the contrary. Counties matter, regions, multiple counties, also are points of consideration. The central valley, we are starting to see an increase in spread. Southern california continues to remain stubborn in terms of spread. You will see counties on that list increasingly going further and further north of the bay area. You will see a number of those represented on this slide that came on over the course of last week or two, reinforcing that no part of our state is immune from the transmission of this virus. That is why it remains income bit upon all of us incumbent ,pon all of us to wear a mask the most significant nonpharmaceutical intervention that you have at your disposal. Ovease go to our covid19. Ca. G website to avail yourselves of all the resources, not just knowledge, on that site. But to have the opportunity to look at support. If you need the support to get maskss or you are in or you are in an industry where you feel you need the support in masks,f ppe, even beyond i would encourage you to take a look at that site. There are a number of things specificific focus on partnerships we have formed and strategies we have advanced to provide and procure ppe and the like. By the way, we have done that in our public School System. We have provided millions and millions of masks, face shields, hand sanitizer, over, well, 50 plus thousand temperature devices. Ppe has beenhs of provided to our Public Education system. We will provide more as needed. Yes, we considered the size of face masks, recognizing that my aur, fiveyearold have different size faces than dad and mom. We are also considering that in terms of the next tranche, not only procurement, but in terms of the distribution of the same. Thatt to make that point, 5. 3 billion you saw in the equity slide was focusing on equity broadly, but it is money that is available for additional purchases of ppe. Money that is available for additional purchases of connected devices, money that is available to address the digital divide. Within that, lots of flexibility lens to provide real resources to the School Districts to allow them to make the kinds of bulk purchases that are necessary at this moment to close those divides. I remind you always to physically distance, wash your hands, minimize mixing. That includes crowds, backyard events with neighbors or extended family members you have bee not been in contact with for some time. These are foundational points. None of us want to see education virtualized, at least i dont. Some folks may think that is a better approach. Firmly in the power of individuals and the cohort and connectedness of being engage with others and learning to develop yourselves, not just intellectually, but emotionally, that areing in ways difficul