For us. Glad to do it. Thank you, kristen. Absolutely. I want to say that education, access, equality we know are some of your chief concerns, they always have been especially when you were running for your position, you made that clear. With this pandemic its really highlighted a lot of the shortcomings that have always been there systematically. Let me start by asking you this, how well do you think we are doing right now with our k through 12 education in california with its over 6 Million Students . Well, its clear this is an unprecedented situation, one unlike anything that we will probably ever see in our lifetime. With that framing, yeah, weve had to move very quickly, 6 Million Students moving to Distance Learning, thats a tall order. There have probably been a few bumps, im sure. There have been. This is not easy, but i have to say im impressed with the resilience of our students, our educators and our families. You know, weve had to move quickly to keep people safe and to close our campuses to students to promote safety, and im very proud of what everyone has done, im proud of what were doing in Distance Learning to make sure that we continue to provide a great education for 6 Million Students. Is there a way any data yet that you can use to measure how well the Distance Learning is happening . Because there is some 1,000 School Districts and the situation socio economics, Technology Reach differs so much from district to district. Are you using any measures to see exactly how much kids are actually learning . Well, were in constant communication with all of our thousand School Districts and the associations that represent them. Obviously, you know, were still trying to get through this school year. Some districts will finish in may, some in june, and so, you know, were still in those conversations, but overall id have to give great marks to our School Districts for the ability to move so quickly. That doesnt mean there havent been some bumps along the way. We have a lot of students who dont have access to a computer or who dont have access to the internet. You know, a computer doesnt replace a great teacher, but it certainly enhances the ability for them to stay connected and to provide quality Distance Learning. I have a task force thats working on closing the Digital Divide, were asking the Top Companies in california to donate more laptops and hot spots. Were going to close the Digital Divide once and for all in california. Distance learning is probably going to be around for a long time, i want to make sure that our students now have the tools that they need to do this and to do this well. What do you say to the kids who say, look, i really cant do Distance Learning because, you know, for example, i have to take care of my siblings, right, because now im the Child Care Provider for my younger brother or sister, or maybe i have to go to work for instacart to support my family, and if that continues in the fall, gosh, what do you do . Its a reasonable concern and we werent ready, lets just face it, we werent ready for the pandemic on march 13th, just about every one of our School Districts announced, you know, campus closures, but that school was still open. Many of our districts needed weeks to try and get ready for Distance Learning, to get laptops in the hands of students to provide training for teachers to really ramp up programs. So clearly we werent ready and the pandemic really exposed how for a long time we were underresourced for a lot of our students and making sure they have computers. Were trying to change that that now and were playing catch up and we have to do that quickly and so many of our students need additional support. I was going to say, im sorry, youre fixing a problem that was decades in the making, really, right . But i do want to ask you given that some districts and some kids were able to learn more during this period than others, are you looking at possibly changing the curriculum or the learning standards for next year, the next grade up, so that they address and cover anything that they didnt learn this spring . Its probably one of the questions i get asked the most, you know, people really want to know how is the face of education going to change as a result of the position that were in. Clearly this has illustrated a conversation that educators have been having for a long time to say lets focus more on mastery of content, what students learn, and can they apply it . And that thats more important than the number of minutes that they have in seats. Now, we have some work to do to make sure that people are doing the same things, that there is the right type of equipment for students, that were providing the right kind of professional development for educators, but i believe this is going to push us to a focus on more content showing that students can show the Practical Application of what they learned, but we have a lot of getting ready to do still. We are in the midst of working on that, while were also trying to figure out how do we get ready for schools to open at the same time. Well, speaking of opening schools, Governor Newsom a couple of weeks ago said during one of his briefings that its possible schools might be moved up to july as for, you know, starting the school year, the next school year. A lot of people have questions about that july reopening, such as, you know, are you going to get the buyin of the Teachers Union . Are you going to get the buyin of the 1,000 School Districts in california . Are you going to get the law changed . So where are you at with that . Is that actually possibly going to happen . The reality is that there isnt going to be a common opening for every School District in our state. All of the thousand School Districts make their own decisions, their local School Boards make decisions about when their schools are going to open. What were doing at the California Department of education is trying to answer the questions about how schools can open and how they do that safely. Were giving School Districts guidance on, again, how to do that safely. Thats our bottom line. Schools arent going to reopen early if we cannot do that safely. I really want your viewers to really hear that. Were putting safety first. We need data and science that shows that its possible. So for now we encourage everybody to finish the school year through Distance Learning, we will take some time during the summer to plan the opening of school, but every School District in the state is going to open at its normal timeline and we want to provide them with more information about how to do so safely because its going to look different than maybe students in class with masks on and educators with, you know, a mask on and having to maintain social distancing in school. So we have to Pay Attention to what our Health Experts say about whats possible, but were doing the planning work right now with teachers, with unions, with administrators to figure out the playbook for how to make this happen safely for our 6 Million Students. If a School District should choose to start earlier, whether thats late july, early august, does that mean their school year would be extended or would they also end earlier, say, by may . And if so, who pays for that . You know, some School Districts, a handful of School Districts do have a july start date because they operate on a yearround schedule. Sure. And typically they work that schedule out with their educators and their families and so for those School Districts that start early, they typically end their school year earlier than other School Districts. All of this gets negotiated at the local district in terms of the cost and these are decisions that get made locally, but the reality is what we hear from many districts that theyre sticking with their traditional opening dates and thats late august or early september, but we will we want folks to continue to check in for updates, they can get updates at the California Department of education website, but most importantly they should be checking their local School District website for updates about when school plans to be reopened. A lot of teachers are sending in comments and one district in the bay area told me they surveyed their teachers and about 25 of the teachers said theyre hesitant coming back in the fall, even with social distancing and changes. Are you concerned about a potential Teacher Shortage . Well, i think that data points to what many districts are talking about, many districts are saying they expect that they may have some kind of a hybrid situation of inclass instruction and some continued Distance Learning and so i think thats a likelihood that we, you know, expect and anticipate. It will vary district to district. I mean, we already had a Teacher Shortage in this state and, you know, we were prior to covid19 we were working on some great new strategies to recruit more teachers, to train more teachers. Were going to have to hold that line and continue to do that, but, you know, that feedback that youre getting from teachers right now suggests that some teachers are going to want to work in a Distance Learning environment and that we expect many districts, because they have already said it, that they may have kind of a combination of inclass instruction and Distance Learning. We will have to wait and see. All right. Thank you so much. Were going to hold that thought and take this conversation over to our live stream platforms for a little bit and be bac and we are back with state superintendent of Public Education, tony thurmond. Nice of you to join us and answer some of our viewer questions. I want to pick up from when we come back in the fall. Yes. Talk to me about what kind of measures we might see. What might a Typical School day look like . And i know its going to be a different answer for high schooler versus maybe a k or first grader, but give us a sense of how it could be very different from what we had before the pandemic. Many schools are considering the possibility of having rotated schedules each day. That there would be a morning shift for some students and then that there would be an afternoon way of keeping the class sizes small, right . If we have to open and we dont have an all clear yet from our Health Officers about the covid epidemic, the pandemic, then that means were going to have very small numbers of students in each class. So, you know, School Districts right now as we speak are thinking through what those would look like. What my office is doing is literally talking to teachers, principals, coaches, administrators. I want practitioners to help inform the guidance that we are putting together, anyone who wants to share ideas can do so at covid19 cde. Ca. Gov. We have a number of task forces that are working on this and its really teacher driven, practitioner driven, people who work in schools. But we expect that there will be smaller class sizes if we have to open in a social distancing kind of way. All right. I know with regard to grades or pass fail this semester you left the choice up to School Districts, although you gave guidance for sure to consider the socioeconomic situation, the Remote Learning situation, but im getting some questions from people, a lot who felt like maybe their child might be disadvantaged if they were not getting a grade. Here is one from actually, do you know what, we have one from a student, lets go ahead and play right now. Superintendent thurmond, my name is benjamin and im a junior at wide side high school. While i completely understand my districts decision it built up a lot of stress for me, not only because im watching 80 of the other School Districts in california make like give out grades and this could very well affect my future with colleges and further. Can you guarantee that colleges will either completely wipe out the second semester or not compare me who a pass no pass student to a student who had grades, because if you cant then it just wont be fair at all. Thank you. All right. That student is a junior and has worries that since his district elected to not give out grades he could be hurt in the College Application process. And i do know that you guys dont make policy for uc or cal state or colleges, but i know that youre always working with them in concert to make sure there is an even, you know, playing field, if you will. What can you say to the students who might be worried about that . That, you know, they could be disadvantaged and what if this were to continue in the fall with Distance Learning . You know, first of all, i want to thank the student for being responsive and sending in the question and to say not to worry because weve been working very closely with our partners in Higher Education, every single California Institution has said that they will season for this year coming pass not pass grades, they have suspended the use of the s. A. T. For admission. Students have been allowed to take ap exams from home. You know, our Higher Education institutions understand that the impacts of covid could go well into the fall and well into next year and theyve already given assurances that no student will be disadvantaged or punished for a situation thats completely out of our control. So while our students this year, our seniors, cannot graduate in a ceremony right now, were proud of them that they will graduate and they can be accepted to the csu, uc and to college, private colleges and universities in california. We expect those conversations to continue beyond this coming school year and into the following year. Our students will be supported and they will not be punished because of the impacts of covid19. There is the issue of not being punished due to circumstances beyond their control, and then as superintendent there is the matter of you wanting to make sure that each student does learn, right . That their graduation diploma isnt meaningless, that they actually learn the content. Im seeing a couple questions from teachers saying, look, if this is still the case in the fall what do we do . We cant keep passing students who arent there, for example, they dont log in, they dont show up and who arent actually learning. You know, my office is in the process of working with kind of Mental Health providers, social workers to really identify those students who havent logged in, who havent checked in. We know a lot of students are in search of basic needs and even though our schools are providing meals across 5,000 sites, we know that theres still some students who are still not connected and we are going to be working hard to see them connected to school and we believe that when its all said and done we will be able to get clarity around how were measuring learning. We will be able to get, you know, the bumps ironed out as it relates to Distance Learning, we will be able to get more computers in the hands of our students so that they can be more connected to whats being provided through Distance Learning. So its a rocky time, you know, i dont want to undermine how difficult it is. It is not easy and it is not perfect, but it is the best that we have given keeping students and their educators safe. Were going to continue to improve the process until we get it all right and were going to make sure all of our students get a quality education. That you can expect and, go he is what, were asking educators to help us to design that and many, you know, are providing their feedback. We do at our department of education three webinars a week for educators on how to do Distance Learning, as we shift back to inclassroom instruction we will also make adjustments on how we support educators going forward. I know your office has been working with Big Tech Companies to google to ensure kids get chrome books. Im getting a question from edward who wants to know do we get to keep those chrome books . Thats my goal. You know, to me this pandemic has exposed something really embarrassing about california. That with all of our resources and access to technology we have a million you students who dont have access to the internet. I think thats unacceptable. So as we help students get tools to be able to respond successfully during the pandemic, were trying to overreach and say lets use our response in a way where we once and for all close th