Pringle, here to talk about President Bidens plan on education during the pandemic. Nora dunn sense of this tweet. The white house confirmed President Bidens goal of reopening a majority of schools in the first 100 days does not apply to high schools and there is no word of a timeline for reopening secondary schools. Becky pringle, what do you know about the plan . Guest good morning, greta. It is good to be back on washington journal. We have been so encouraged by President Bidens understanding it is absolutely essential our students, educators get back to inperson learning. As a finance teacher for 30 years, there is nothing i know i would rather do than be in front of my students doing science labs. We know and have been saying for 10 months we need the resources. Thats exactly what President Biden plan President Bidens plan starts with. He knows we have to make investments in our schools. Not just that. Is 1. 9 trillion package he sent to Congress Also includes money to states. We have seen state governments cutting education funding. We have almost one million teachers and educators laid off. We are very encouraged he understands it will take resources to reopen safely. Mostly what he said is follow the science. As a Science Teacher that just things for me. I did not ever think i would have to say that. For a president to believe in science and listen to scientists and health care experts, that is what he is doing. The virus is transmitted as much with younger kids. I will tell you this. The president understands even with that, we have to have mitigation strategies to protect our students and our teachers and the other men and women surrounding our students with the care and nurture they need to keep everyone safe. Host Becky Pringle, are you in support of reopening the schools . Which ones or what grade levels with reopen . Guest i will probably say this five more times. Follow the science. The cdc i think you probably know, they put out a report. One thing the president called for is working with the cdc and health and Human Services to come up with guidelines. But it starts with following the science. Even with the cdc guidelines, they believe that the transmission rates within schools are no higher than the transmission rates within the general community. That means if there are communities, areas that are hotspots where the transmission rates are really high, what the guidelines said it was his people is people need to make sure theyre not coming together in large groups. They are masking. They are washing hands. In the case of schools, they have to have good, clean ventilation systems. They have to have the resources. All those things we have been hearing for 10 months are in the president s plan. 130 billion dollars specifically targeted for schools so they have the resources. Host is it realistic to think, Becky Pringle, all those necessities can be put in place this school year . Guest greta, can i just say they have to be. That is the only way schools will reopen safely. And, i need to at this, because the president has talked about this. It is why he has included it in his package. Additional funding. He knows this virus has inequitably impacted our students of color, black and brown communities, indigenous communities. The crisis it has spawned has disproportionately impacted these communities. What we are concerned about his with the vaccine rollout we have to make sure we educate those communities so they trust us, because they have a lot of history that leads them to not trust the government when it comes to vaccines. We have a lot of work to do in educating those communities and making sure we are disturbing them equitably. When we talk about resources we are not just about supplying resources to schools and not thinking about the longstanding inequities in funding and resources for students who have forever been marginalized. Host we want to take viewers questions and comments about education during the pandemic. We have divided the lines. Parents, educators and others. If youre a parent, 202 7488000. Educators, 202 7488001. All others, your line is 202 7488002. We see headlines about teachers in chicago and california and new jersey resisting reopening. What is going on there . Guest those are teachers and bus drivers and school nurses, the educators all across this country are demanding this country finally, finally give them the resources so they can open schools safely and equitably. That is what they are demanding and that is what we have been saying. That is what President Biden s plan is talking about. We need congress to act so we have resources in all schools all across the country. Host what have you been told about vaccinating teachers and making them a priority . Guest unfortunately we have not had that. Now that President Biden is our president , he understands he needs to have a well organized, well communicated, equitable plan to distribute those vaccines and provide guidance. Right now things are all over the board. There are some states doing it right and following the guidelines from the cdc. They are prioritizing high risk populations and those essential frontline workers. In those states they have prioritized educators as well. All the educators, not just the teachers. Everyone in the building working with students. They have prioritized them and they have started the vaccination process. Teachers are getting the vaccine. There are many states that have not done that. It is chaotic. People dont know where to get the vaccine. They have no plan in place from the president and the president is trying to organize that so every state has a plan in place and educators are getting vaccinated. Host Becky Pringle is here with us this morning to take your questions and your comments and concerns about education of americas kids during the pandemic. John first in hallsville, texas. Good morning. Caller good morning. My question is, here in texas i have seen what the cdc said that its ok to open schools safely. My daughter has been back in school since last year. All this is is schools trying to get all the funding, all the cash they can from their federal taxpayers. I have seen teachers dancing. They go and the public and grocery shopping. They wear our mask. Thats just an excuse to get more money to find stuff that we dont need. Get these kids back in the classroom and get these teachers back in there. If they dont go back, fire them and find somebody else. That is my comment. Thank you. Host Becky Pringle, your reaction . Guest our teachers what nothing for them to be back in their classrooms. They just want to be safe. We know that the funding is all over the board from state to state, community to community, district to district. We know what we need to be safe, what the cdc has said, what the president has said, is we need to provide resources to keep students safe. That is what we are fighting for and will continue to fight for. Host the caller references the cdc said the proponents of Available Evidence from the fall semester has been reassuring. There is little evidence schools contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission. Becky pringle, our masks not enough are masks not enough . Guest let me talk about the cdc. That was based on a study in wisconsin. What they found is what you said, greta. However, those schools that reopened had a sizable donation from a private foundation to provide the Additional Resources so all students had masks, they had small classes of 10 or 11 so there was socially distant. They had testing available. They had people to do the tracing. And they were working with educators to think about how they could bring students back safely. What the cdc has said and everyone else, scientists and Health Care Professionals is we have to have all those measures in place. All of them. Not one of them. It is not just masks. It is ventilation systems. It is washing hands. It is being able to clean surfaces. It is making sure we have tests available to quickly identify those who are infected with covid19 and isolate them as quickly as possible. Host sheila in oklahoma. What grade you teach . Caller high school. I retired last year but i substitute so i consider myself an educator. We are in oklahoma and we are open. Most of the schools in oklahoma are open. They cut sports. They have masks. They are supposed to wear that masks. When they come into the school room at our school is teachers option if they wear that mask or if they dont. Most students have the mask and everything. I heard the safest place for students to be was probably schools because they are the least susceptible to getting the virus. They do not have it. I hear many people i dont hear of many students having the virus. They dont have any fallout from it. There is hardly any problem. They wash their hands, they have the masks. They are doing fine. I feel like when you say that school that had a person to give a grant is probably one school. They were not doing it for the whole state. I just think open the schools. Im so glad i live in oklahoma we are open and everything, instead of being a state where they have they cant have schools and i think it is just a power thing. Guest sheila, you are right that they focused that money on one school. But they had the money to do it. I will say, greta, it really depends on the School District and whether they were able to find the funding in the budget to ensure all the students at all the educators had access to masks. Whether the schools were modern and the ventilation systems were already functioning at a high level. Whether or not they already have funding to have lower class sizes so they could socially distance. With the president is saying is every school should have the resources that they need to take the steps to keep all the students safe. That is what he has proposed and we are demanding congress act on. Host mark in virginia. How old are your kids . Caller 16, 14 and 10. Host go ahead. Caller one, i would like to say i understand that handicaps are those who dont have the resources and support. I get it. I think looking at being a Public School graduate is that at some point we will have to throw politics aside. Either we will have to make this a stateonly run environment or the government will have to go big and we will have to put all of our schools and physical plants on the same roadmap to ensure optimum safety. I dont think that our educational system as it is currently built is going to be able to ever be competitive worldwide if we continue to go down the path of trying to parse out and dole out money in pieces. You will never have equality for physical plants, resources. We will have to figure it out. If we keep trying to get on the path we are on, we are never going to get better from a health standpoint, they physical instructional standpoint a physical instructional standpoint. We need to figure out how to attach a number to each individual Student Input are blinds on a make sure this dollars are applied to those individual students. Host Becky Pringle, do you have any thoughts . Guest i completely agree. Taking politics out of getting students what they need, absolutely. Taking this opportunity as the light is shining on the inequities that have been built into our education systems, starting with the funding of the education system. Completely agree. It is why we are so encouraged with the president s plan. He understands we have the urgency now to get our students and educators back to inperson learning as soon as it is safe and as soon as we have resources to do that. We actually have to start doing things that will change things a longterm. Change things longterm. The nea pulled together 60 organizations to address the homework divide, the homework app. We already knew there were students who did not have access to the internet. They did not have access to digital tools. They were going home and being asked to do homework at home and they were not able to do it. That was in february. Ironically we were having this conversation already. On a dime we were all out virtually by the end of march and beginning of april. Over 25 of students did not have access. The nea did a report and they dug into the access for students and families statebystate. I encourage listeners to go to nea. Org digitalequity. We dig into it more. We take a look at race, by economic status, by whether parents own a home or not. All the things contribute to whether or not they are actually having access. We are concerned about students where for some students the Virtual Learning worked out well. My grandson is loaded with me and hes downstairs right now in third grade in my basement, doing Virtual Learning and doing a good job. We know we have to address the social needs of students. We have got to make sure we have the resources to do that. We still have work to do longterm to close the Digital Divide and provide equitable resources for all of our students. Host kimberly in baton rouge, louisiana. Hello . Give us your perspective. Caller i have a highschooler but i also work for a school. She is ninthgrade. I am constantly getting calls stating there is covid in the school. I also work in a Head Start Program for the school system. I am in fear of going to school everyday. I also fear other teachers that i also hear of other teachers living in fear because of having elderly parents in the home. It seems so hidden. They are not really transparent when they say who in the school may have it. The only time i will know that person mustve been there was when they are out for two weeks. We want to know more about whats going on. I would like the high school to go back. I dont want her to feel unsafe like i do. What can we do to promote more safety for the children . If adults are scared, the kids are scared. Host your thoughts . Guest that is absolutely true. The nea partnered with the pta to do a survey of parents. What the last caller said is exactly how parents felt primarily all over the country. If the students dont feel safe, if you adults dont feel safe, the students dont feel safe. They want the resources so they dont have the chaos she just described. That is happening all over this country with parents and teachers getting calls that i before saying we had a covid outbreak. We will shut down and go to virtual. That chaos for our students actually absolutely disrupts learning. It is not just that. We are so concerned about the trauma students are going through, the loss, the real loss in our black and brown and indigenous communities who are suffering loss at a greater degree. We are also concerned about the loss they had for those who did not have opportunity to have inperson graduation or sendoff to college for just to be with her friends. We have the chaos has had a huge impact on them. This new we provide the resources for our schools, the more likely it is we are going to be first of all being postpandemic and we can address the disrupting disruption in the Educational Opportunities for students and the opportunities to continue their growth, social and emotional growth. We completely agree. Those resources must be available for all schools. Host earlier on monday we had a conversation about the rise in suicides in youth due to some parents saying the isolation they are feeling, of not getting to go to school. Some schools in las vegas are reopening because of the impact of these kids being at home on their Mental Health. What resources are available for schools to help those kids . Guest retta, we also greta, we did a survey last month. The students also talk about wanting to be safer. They do miss being with their classmates. They do miss the routine of school. They are suffering from the chaos we talked about. What we are doing is working with educators. Kids are going through trauma as well. We are working with them. In trainings we had a partnership with Yale University to provide educators with courses so they could learn how to first take care of themselves and then take care of their students. Yale is offering that for free for teachers all over the country. We invite listeners to go to nea. Org to find out more about that. We are partnering with Healthcare Professionals to provide additional services, Mental Health services for students. It is one of the reasons we are so concerned that we had so educators who were laid off. More will be laid off if the state and local governments dont get the funding they need. Its included in the 1. 9 trillion packet the president s of the congress. We need more Mental Health professionals. We need more counselors because we have more students who are falling in the gaps. They need the additional assistance. We have been partnering with Health Care Professionals in the community. I want to say one more thing. In those areas where they have community schools, where they have those, its a hub of the community and they have partnerships built, they are faring better in every way. They have the partnership with the Mental Health professionals, the hospitals, the boys and girls club. They are surviving can families and families. They are nearest and Mental Health services they so deserve and need in this moment. Guest shreveport, louisiana. Lisa, with the teach . What did you teach . Caller biology. What i would like to tell this lady is that this is nothing more than a political stunt. This is also not between republicans or democrats. This is a socialist agenda. Go look up del gates. Look up the rothschilds. You are lying to the american people. It will come out so you can keep on pushing your crap. Host what is the lie . Caller number one, if you are trying to suppress. You are trying to control. You are trying to put fear the people. You should be ashamed of yourself. Host over what . Caller dr. Fauci is a fraud. Hes a power grabber. Host elizabeth in lexington, kentucky. Caller good morning. I am a middle school teacher. We just opened our schools backup. I, scheduled to get the vaccine today, my first dose. I had a couple of questions for mrs. Pringle. I wonder if you see a future where students will have to get the vaccine and order to attend Public Schools. I know there are certain vaccines they have to get to attend. I wonder if we will end up in a situation like that. I imagine it will not be for quite some time. I have another question. My school is looking at always having a virtual version of school available, even after and the postpandemic world. I wanted to get your response on that. Thank you so much. Host go ahead. Guest ok. First of all, congratulations. Im so glad to hear you are getting the vaccine. Im hearing more and more educators all over the country are getting the first shot. Some are already getting their second shot. As far as students, i will say this probably five more times. Follow the science. We dont have enough information on vaccinating students. We are certainly not calling for mandating vaccinations. We need to listen to scientists. When we have enough evidence to say it is safe and it stops not only the transmission of the virus but makes sure the students are not infected with the virus, we have much more work to do to get to that place. We always believed students and educators should be vaccinated because that is the large gathering of people. We hope there will be a time we have enough science we can safely get vaccinated. We want to make sure all of our educators are involved in i did mention this before. There is transparency and communication. That is lacking right now. We have a lot of educators that dont know about what the plan is for vaccination. They are not being communicated to well. States are not being transparent. That is the other thing the president is calling for in the handbook he is asking the department of education to Work Together to create. Host ned in florida. Caller good morning. I have one thing i would like to say. She keeps talking about following the science. Look at florida. Florida has been open all year long. Our whole state is open for business. Restaurants, everything. You look at the other states. It is always like it is all been political the whole time. As far as dr. Fauci, i dont believe anything he says anymore. He has been all over the map. On the Climate Change stuff host Becky Pringle, you can respond to the education,. Comment. Guest florida is a hotspot for this very reason. I wanted to say this. Overover 429,000, probably high, americans have died because of this virus. Families have lost loved ones and unfortunately in horrible situations. This is real. This is real joy millions of people have been infected this is real. Millions of people have infected and we know more will die if we do not get control of his drivers. That is exactly what President Biden said he would do before he took office and we can see by everything he has done since for a week, he is focusing on getting control of the virus. That is what we are asking for and that is what we that is what he is working to do. Teresa host teresa in tennessee. Please do not hang up on me if you do not like my question. Most of the teachers in democratic states have already been out of school for almost a year not opening the schools back. Has anyone of those teachers not received their paycheck . Everyone of those teachers has received their full pay. They have not lost anything. I watched you this whole segment and every word out of your mouth is about funding, funding. That is all you have talked about for this segment. It is clear what you are doing. You are using these children as a black male ploy against a weak president as a blakmail ploy against a weak president that is afraid to stand up to the teachers union. It is all about money. You want to extort the president and you will use these children to do it. In republican states, i live in tennessee, children have went back to school with no issues. You have a few cases pop up like going to work in any industry, but that will happen. You cannot make a school 100 safe, which is what you are demanding. It is all about the money. It is clear. Why dont you say we will use your children to extort money from this weak president that would give us whatever we want. Host i heard your point. Becky pringle. Guest let me say teachers and other educators are working harder now than they ever have. Not only are they teaching the students in front of them virtually. It is still teaching. I have been clear about in person learning. Learning is happening in zoom boxes all over this country. Not only are teachers and educators, our professors, our nurses, our counselors are meeting with our students. We also know that because of this virtual environment we have to do even more. Teachers are having office hours not only with the students, but teachers are having office hours with parents. They are meeting with Community Members so they can figure out how they can support their families better. They are delivering meals to families. They are working harder than they ever have before. I want to be clear. We are teaching, we are nurturing students, we are preparing them for their next tourney, their next educational journey every single day. Let me say this about money. I hear this a lot. We are talking about investing in our students and the future of this country. That takes money. For far too long this country they have the wealth, the question is do they have the will to make sure when we say every student, we mean every student will have what they need when they need it. That does take money to ensure they have what they deserve. Host sheila in crestview, florida. How old are your kids . Caller my kids are 11 and 12. Host what has your experience been like . Caller i pulled the kids out in early march at the beginning of the pandemic because my father was visiting from europe and i was concerned about bringing the virus home. We live in the northwest region, so as you can see from the other callers, there are a lot of people in florida that do not believe the virus is real. We have struggled with the stigma of keeping the kids at home. My stepdad who was visiting did pass in december from the virus. I wanted to thank you, greta, and ms. Pringle for doing everything youve been doing, and i wanted to ask ms. Pringle what can we do as a community to convince people or encourage them to do research . This pandemic is something that has not happened in 100 years, so it is like a behavioral statement we have to fix within the community, especially for the people who are nonbelievers. That is one of the reasons i did not want my kids to go back to school because i know there are adults who teach who do not believe in the science or do not back it or will not encourage the children to follow these guidelines. I think that is an issue. I wanted your thoughts on that and how we can encourage the communities who do not think this is a real thing that is happening to understand this is real . Host before we get a response, are you homeschooling them . Caller i am. Ive been homeschooling both of the kids and thankfully my children were placed in higher learning, like advanced learning classes. We have been able to take the school year because of everything as far as him passing , the uncertainty of everything, we have been taking the school year as a slow down period for us. I invested a lot of time as far as being like this is not normal. Children in the early 19th century were not going to school, they were staying home. I wanted to take this as a learning opportunity for them and thankfully my kids get it, they understand. Theyre more adamant about wearing their masks. If they have extra ones in there. It is good but it is difficult. They have extra ones in their bags. It is good but it is difficult. For teachers doing this, i cannot applaud you enough. Host thank you, sheila. Becky pringle . Guest i am so sorry for the loss of your father and i appreciate you, even surrounded by people who do not believe we are in a pandemic, i appreciate you have the courage and the bravery to stand up and say this is real. People have died, including someone close to me. I will do everything i can to take care of and protect my family. By doing that, this is what we have been doing is educating people. A lot of people talk about it is their right to not wear masks. That is not ok. It is everyone elses right to live, and to live in a healthy way. You are hearing more and more reports, we are counting the numbers, and like i said we are up to 430,000, but we are not keeping as much track of the people who have had the virus and are now suffering longterm illnesses. We know the fallout from this pandemic will go into many years. The more people ignore and pretend it does not exist and not do what they need to do to keep everyone else safe, the longer that will persist. Ive been an educator for 30 years and i believe education is the answer. That is what we continue to do and we know that not having leadership from the federal government and so many critical months, but we do now. He understands that part of it is educating people, being transparent, communicating with people in a calm and informed way. That is exactly what the president has been doing. That is what educators have been doing. That is exactly what the front workers have been doing who put their lives on the line to take care of our families. We need to continue to do just that. Host rebecca in orange city, florida. Rebecca, are you there . Caller i am here. Host go ahead. Caller i have a son in first grade and a fouryearold daughter who is not in school yet. They sent everyone home in march when the pandemic started. In august they gave my county three different options to return to brickandmortar, to do something called volusia live , which was to keep up on the curriculum in school, so if you want to send them back at any time you can send them back, and then they have regular homeschooling. I chose the volusia live. It was going pretty good but the teachers were overwhelmed. A lot of the parents were not able to keep up and help their kids. We are all helping each other. My family and i ended up getting covid. My husband works in hvac so he brought it home. It is probably a good thing i kept them home. As time started going by more kids started going back to brickandmortar. The volusia live was dwindling and the teachers had to go back to teaching in person. It was kind of like volusia live was being put on the back burner , which i completely understand, they had to be there for the students in person. We ended up sending my son back to school and a week later he was exposed to someone with covid in his class and he had to come back home and have a quarantine for 10 days, and that was a mess. I just want to state that we are all trying our best, especially the teachers. Like the last caller i applaud the teacher because theyre having to do triple the work and we are all trying to figure this out together. It is hard times. We need to go easy on the teachers. Host Becky Pringle . Guest love that name, rebecca. Rebecca, thank you. I appreciate what you said early on and that was we are working together. That is exactly what has to happen. This is real. You know it, youve experienced it firsthand. You understand the tremendous stress and overwhelm our teachers are feeling right now. With parents and Community Members like you who are expressing they understand that and we just have to figure this out. Often times i say to people we are in a pandemic. We do not know what that is. We have never been in this before for 100 years. This is the first time we are going through it. This is when we need to give each other breaks and come together and Work Together to do what is best for our students and our families. This is when we should all be working and saying to our government at the federal level and the state level and the local level that it is time they do what they must to make sure every one of their students has what they need. This is the time to do that, to figure it out together, to stay together. Not to start blaming each other. We have to do this together. It does start with leadership. That is exactly what we are seeing out of the white house. Can i tell you i had an opportunity to meet with dr. Jill biden, who is an nea member and she is continuing to teach. She had already taught three classes virtually. She understands what educators are going through and how much additional pressure, particularly as rebecca was describing, teachers are doing triple time, they are doing virtually am are doing in person, they are doing hybrid which is difficult and chaotic for them and for families. That is why we know we have to continue the fight to get that Additional Resources so we can get the additional support. We can make our schools safe have and have Health Care Professionals there to help us deal with the emotional needs of our students, the trauma they are suffering so we can build back better. Host we will go to cameron who is a student in missouri. How old are you . Caller i am 26. Host a student in college . Caller i took off this semester because of the pandemic. Host go ahead with your question or comment. Caller i would like to point out, i noticed their Elementary Schools in the town i lived in and one day i was walking past them and there were kids outside playing around and some of them were not wearing a mask good i thought to myself some of them were not wearing a mask. I thought to myself there should be a long place for mask wearing for children in schools are mandatory or something. Why that is, i do not know. Back to what the lady said about coming together, the only weight we are going to be able to do that the only way we are going to be a do that is if our country realizes we need to unify each other and come together peacefully and peacefully protest for some clarity not saying people in this country are too quick to follow the ones that are going crazy and theyre all the shootings and riding. And rioting. We will get nowhere. We need to come together peacefully and look to god because god is the only one who will save us from this mass. We cannot do it. Humans cannot save ourselves. Host ok cameron. Becky pringle, final thoughts . Guest coming together and unity. Those are words President Biden used in his inaugural address. What struck me about that, we certainly are a divided country. No question about it. What struck me about the words he said is they reflected who he has been his entire life and he understands it will not be easy, it will not be easy. As we listen to the callers, they were all over the map. It is not going to be easy. There is no question about it. We know that is the only way to a better place. That is always true. Not just in this pandemic. I am encouraged by him continuing to deliver that same message, building and administration around him that understands that. We are not blaming each other but we are working together to do what is right for our students, to invest in our schools, to make sure this country lives up to his promise lives up to its promise. The first words of our constitution we the people. It is we. All of us have the right to pursue happiness and it takes all of us to make that happen. Host our viewers can learn more if they go to nea. Org. Becky pringle is the cspans washington journal we are taking your calls live in the air of the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you. Friday morning, we will talk about the future of the Republican Party with evan mcmullen, a 2016 independent president ial candidate. And then, look at the biden administrations climate program. Watch washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Saturday morning. Be sure to join the discussion. Coming up life on friday, the annual launch for life rally at 1 00 eastern. And then, cory booker talks about what he sees as threats to the u. S. System of government. And a discussion about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Hosted by the bipartisan policy center
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