[House Hearing, 116 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHALLENGES TO SAFELY
REOPENING K-12 SCHOOLS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
AUGUST 6, 2020
__________
Serial No. 116-112
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available on: govinfo.gov,
oversight.house.gov or
docs.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
41-937 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking
Columbia Minority Member
Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Paul A. Gosar, Arizona
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Gary Palmer, Alabama
Harley Rouda, California Michael Cloud, Texas
Ro Khanna, California Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Ralph Norman, South Carolina
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Chip Roy, Texas
Peter Welch, Vermont Carol D. Miller, West Virginia
Jackie Speier, California Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota
Mark DeSaulnier, California W. Gregory Steube, Florida
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands
Jimmy Gomez, California
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Katie Porter, California
David Hickton, Staff Director
Russ Annello, Chief Counsel
Funmi Olorunnipa, Chief Counsel
Senam Okpattah, Clerk
Contact Number: 202-225-5051
Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director
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Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis
James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois Blaine Luetkemeyer, Missouri
Jamie Raskin, Maryland Jackie Walorski, Indiana
Andy Kim, New Jersey Mark E. Green , Tennessee
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on August 6, 2020................................... 1
Witnesses
The Honorable Arne Duncan, Managing Partner, Emerson Collective,
Former Secretary of Education (2009-2015)
Oral Statement................................................... 8
Dr. Caitlin Rivers, Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for
Health Security, Assistant Professor, Department of
Environmental Health and Engineering, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health
Oral Statement................................................... 10
Robert W. Runcie, Superintendent, Broward County Public Schools
Oral Statement................................................... 12
Angela Skillings, Teacher, Hayden Winkelman Unified School
District
Oral Statement................................................... 14
Dan Lips, Fellow, Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
Oral Statement................................................... 16
Written opening statements and the written statements of the
witnesses are available on the U.S. House of Representatives
Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.
Index of Documents
----------
Documents entered into the record during this hearing and
Questions for the Record (QFR's) are available at:
docs.house.gov.
* Unanimous Consent: NEA Letter of Support; submitted by Rep.
Raskin.
* Unanimous Consent: Reopening School Buildings; submitted by
Committee Chairwoman Maloney.
CHALLENGES TO SAFELY
REOPENING K-12 SCHOOLS
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Thursday, August 6, 2020
House of Representatives
Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
Committee on Oversight and Reform
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:09 p.m., via
WebEx, Hon. James E. Clyburn (chairman of the subcommittee)
presiding.
Present: Representatives Clyburn, Waters, Maloney, Foster,
Raskin, Kim, Scalise, Luetkemeyer, and Green.
Chairman Clyburn. Good afternoon. The committee will come
to order.
Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for
an opening statement.
On July 11, President Trump tweeted, and I quote, ``the
Dems think it would be bad for them politically if schools open
before the November election, but it's important for children
and families.'' He ended with a threat; may cut off funding if
not open.
And just yesterday he said, and I quote, ``my view is that
schools should open. This thing is going away. It will go away
like things go away, and my view is that schools should be
open.''
The President views the decision about how to reopen
schools as a political dispute about his own reelection, and to
paraphrase his press secretary, he is refusing to let science
stand in the way. I fundamentally disagree with that approach.
Schools must reopen based on science and the safety of our
children and teachers, not politics and wishful thinking.
I do agree with the President that schools are critically
important for children and their families. My first job after I
graduated from college was as a high school history teacher. My
wife was a school librarian. At this time of year, I remember
the anticipation at the start of school would come into focus.
Two of my grandchildren are school age, and I know they are
feeling that anticipation now.
In May, the Select Subcommittee focused on how to reopen
safely through testing, tracing, and targeted containment. I
hoped that the administration would implement these measures
and that schools could safely reopen in the fall fully in
person. Unfortunately, this is not possible in much of the
country.
Last Friday, Dr. Fauci told us the virus is still raging
across the United States because unlike Europe, we didn't shut
down sufficiently in the first place. We cannot make the same
mistake with our schools. We need to follow the science.
First, children can get the coronavirus, and they can pass
it on to others. The President has claimed that children are,
and I quote, ``almost immune to this disease,'' end of quote.
But Dr. Fauci told our subcommittee last week, and I quote,
``children do get infected, we know that, so therefore, they
are not immune,'' end of quote.
Evidence has started to pile up about outbreaks at summer
camps such as CDC's report last week that 76 percent of
children who were tested at a YMCA camp in Georgia have had the
virus. Other summer camp outbreaks have been documented in
Florida, New York, Texas, here in South Carolina, Louisiana,
and other states. Nationwide, more than 338,000 children have
tested positive for the virus.
Second, the CDC has been clear that a key consideration for
physically reopening schools is coronavirus rates in the
community and that in-person school presents the, quote,
``highest risk,'' end of quote, of spreading the disease. CDC
Director Dr. Robert Redfield has warned that in virus hot
spots, and I'm quoting him here, ``remote and distance learning
may need to be adopted for some amount of time,'' end of quote.
The White House Coronavirus Task Force reported last week
that 21 states are in so-called red zones because they have
high positivity rates or rising infections. Reopening schools
in these hot spots presents heightened risks.
Third. Even for schools outside of red zones, CDC experts
and other scientists have urged that any schools considering
reopening should take steps to limit transmission. That
includes improving school ventilation systems, physically
distancing, and wearing masks.
Our schools face life-or-death decisions because of the
administration's inexcusable failure to get the virus under
control for the last six months, but there are steps the
Federal Government can take to help schools safely reopen in
person and stay open.
As Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield told us last week, we can
control the pandemic by wearing masks, limiting gatherings,
closing indoor dining and bars, and practicing social
distancing. The President needs to follow and promote this
expert advice, not denigrate and distract from it.
Rather than threatening to withhold funding from schools,
we should assure every school has the resources it needs to
safely educate students during the pandemic, whether remote or
in person.
The next coronavirus relief package must provide sufficient
funding to meet these needs. It must also include the funds in
the HEROES Act to provide mobile hotspots and other
connectivity devices to students and subsidies to make the
internet affordable for lower income families. I urge my
Republican colleagues to support these investments in our
children.
I look forward to hearing from my witnesses who speak from
deep expertise and experience in education and public health. I
also invited Secretary DeVos to testify today so she could
explain why she is pressuring schools to fully reopen despite
the risks.
I offered to accommodate her schedule, but she refused to
appear. I find it hard to understand how Secretary DeVos can
expect to lead our Nation's efforts to safely educate our
children during this pandemic if she refuses to speak directly
to Congress and the American people.
I will now yield to my friend, the distinguished ranking
member, Mr. Scalise, for his opening remarks.
Mr. Scalise. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I
appreciate you calling this hearing.
I do want to mention since the chairman mentioned the
President's spokesperson, Kayleigh McEnany, to finish the quote
that was started by chairman. Quote, she said, the science is
on our side here. We encourage the localities and states to
just simply follow the science. Open our schools. That was the
President's spokesperson on that issue.
Mr. Chairman, last week, our Nation's top public health
officials came before the Select Subcommittee and urged the
importance for America's children to safely reopen our schools
for face-to-face learning, for educational health, for mental
health, for physical health, and yes, for the public health of
our children.
Dr. Redfield, who is the CDC head, testified under oath,
quote, it's important to realize that it's in the public
health's best interests for K-12 students to get back into
face-to-face learning. There's really very significant public
health consequences of the school closure. I do think that it's
really important to realize it's not public health versus the
economy about school reopening, closed quote.
CDC guidance further adds, quote, the harms attributed to
closed schools on the social, emotional, and behavioral health,
economic well being, and academic achievement of children in
both the short-and long-term are well known and significant.
Aside from a child's home, no other setting has more influence
on a child's health and well-being than their school.
Dr. Fauci said just last week, school reopenings are
important for, quote, the psychological welfare of the
children. The fact that many children rely on schools for
nutrition, for breakfast, for healthy lunches.
The United Nations General Secretary Just this week called
the situation around the globe with school closings, quote, a
generational catastrophe that could waste untold human
potential.
Mr. Chairman, the overwhelming consensus among the public
health community is that for the sake of the health and
development of more than 50 million American children, it is
critical to safely reopen schools for in-person learning.
Let's get more specific. The Federal Child Abuse Prevention
and Treatment Act requires each state to have procedures
requiring teachers, principals, and other school personnel to
report known or suspected instances of child abuse and neglect.
This came up at last week's hearing as well.
We've seen the reports of child abuse drop by an average of
more than 40 percent compared to the levels reported during the
same period in 2019. That doesn't mean that child abuse has
stopped or dropped by 40 percent. It just means it's not
getting discovered because our teachers were doing such a great
job of doing that. Now those children are home with those very
parents who were abusing them, and it's not getting detected.
Imagine the damage to tens of thousands of our children because
of that.
The evidence from hospitals strongly suggests that child
abuse has actually increased during the pandemic, in fact.
Teachers can't report what they can't see, and as a result,
thousands of children are being abused in America today. We
cannot sit by and make excuses. We need to follow the safety
guidelines and stand up for those children who are counting on
us to take action and do our jobs.
Our children in America need us to do what we know we can
do. They don't need excuses from us. They need us to look at
these challenges and recognize how to overcome them, and there
are road maps everywhere from CDC to the American Academy of
Pediatrics to so many other organizations.
Dr. Redfield added last week, quote, we're seeing, sadly,
far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID. We're
seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose that are above the
excess that we had as background than we are seeing the deaths
from COVID.
Again, I know we're used to seeing the charts, and we mourn
every death from COVID, but why don't we talk about the other
deaths that are happening because people are shutting in,
because people are staying home? We cannot act like we're
living in a vacuum, we're living in silos. When children aren't
in schools, there are very devastating things happening to
them.
I understand we want to make sure that we have a safe
environment, but again, we can't use that as an excuse. We have
to go and figure out how to do it. We can't talk about how hard
it is to do. A lot of people do hard work every day.
People are going to hospitals every day working on the
front lines. They're going to grocery stores working on the
front lines. None of that is easy, but they do it because they
know that everybody else is relying on them. We need to have
that same can-do attitude.
On the other side of the equation, CDC advises, quote, the
best available evidence indicates that COVID-19 poses
relatively low risks to school age children. Children appear to
be at the lowest risk for contracting COVID-19 compared to
adults.
As of July 17, the United States reported that children and
adolescents under 18 years old accounted for under seven
percent of COVID cases and less than one percent of COVID-19
related deaths.
If we focus on the well-being of our children, the question
really is not should we reopen. The question really is why
haven't we started planning more widespread to reopen safely?
All schools can be doing this. We've seen some schools do it
even in hotspots. Now we're seeing schools that aren't in
hotspots trying to figure out how not to reopen. This is not
like inventing the wheel. Others have figured it out. We need
to share that learning experience with everybody.
The coronavirus continues to pose a serious threat. Dr.
Redfield and Dr. Fauci gave us five things every American
should do, and they testified it would have a dramatic impact
on reducing the virus. I know the chairman talked about this as
well, wearing masks, as I know we're all doing, social
distancing, hand hygiene, staying smart about gatherings, and
staying out of crowded bars and crowded areas.
If we did those five things, we've done the modelling data.
We get the same bang for the buck as if we shut the entire
economy down. We should do all of those five things, and we
should also encourage schools to safely reopen.
We know that schools present some unique and specific
challenges. The good news is, Mr. Chairman, each one of those
challenges can be responsibly addressed. We're not talking
about a one-size-fits-all model. Every school system's
different. Hot spots move around. The good news is each one can
be responsibly addressed.
The main concerns, as we hear, are from teachers. Children
may not be at great risk for getting sick, but they can spread
the virus. Teachers with high risk factors, like any other
person in a high-risk factor anywhere else that they go to
work, knows that there are risks that you can help address.
But smart school reopening will ensure that the risk of
COVID coming into the schools is greatly reduced, and the
chance of it spreading within the school is also mitigated.
Finally, at-risk teachers can be socially distanced from
kids by assigning them virtual learning responsibilities or
other new tasks associated with mitigating the risks of
spreading COVID.
In most of the school settings I've seen, teachers aren't
just six feet away from the nearest student. In many cases,
they're over 10 feet away from the nearest student, and they're
all wearing masks. Many schools have adopted CDC guidelines on
symptom screening. Every day, parents can take their own
child's safety and their own safety into their hands. They can
take their temperatures. They can complete a checklist for
symptoms. If the child or family member exhibits any of those
symptoms, the child should just stay home.
While no plan is perfect, CDC and the American Academy of
Pediatrics have laid out guidelines for safely reopening
America's school, and they address those concerns. Those
guidelines should be followed by everybody.
Once in the schools, students, faculty, and staff, of
course, should wear masks and have access to easy hand
sanitizing stations. That's why we put over $150 million out
there for our states, a lot of which, by the way, is still
available and can be used by our schools today. They don't need
to wait for Congress to pass a new bill. There is over--almost
$100 billion available to our schools and anybody else who
needs them.
Temperature checks, as students move throughout the
building, and requiring physical distancing are all things that
are mentioned. Six feet or more for desks keeps students in
smaller groups. Many schools are doing platoons, improved
ventilation by opening windows. Many schools are looking at
conducting classes outdoors where it's possible, increase wipe
downs of desks, chairs, equipment. These are all guidelines
that have been laid out.
If someone does get sick, and we know, by the way, that
it's going to happen, have a plan in place to follow those
scientific recommendations. Doctors and smart scientists have
already laid out how to do it if these things happen. No school
system should be just today wondering what to do in those
situations. This should have been planned weeks ago, and if
not, start planning it today and talk to the other school
systems who are opening up next week.
In my own home state of Louisiana, we have schools opening
up in person next week, and they've already gone through these
guidelines. They'll be happy to share that with anybody who is
willing.
Mr. Chairman, Washington, DC. just announced that their
schools will not be open in the fall. Not one child under the
age of 18 has died from COVID in the entire District of
Columbia, and yet, they're shutting down all schools.
If D.C. followed all of the safety guidelines that we just
listed, and considering the devastating damage to these
children, how can you justify the harm that you're doing to the
tens of thousands of children in the city by shutting down in-
person learning? Those kids are going to suffer, and we all
know it. The data is there. The science is there. The reports
are everywhere about what damage is being done to those kids if
those schools are not open.
Education is a local responsibility, as we know, and each
school must adapt to their unique challenges. That's why CDC
laid this out in their guidance. It makes clear that a school
in a hot spot must be more cautious than a school where
transmission's very low, but all schools can and must develop a
plan to resume in-person learning.
The stakes are too high and the ability to dramatically
lower risk too easily attainable for us to be having an actual
debate about whether or not it can be done. It, of course, can
be done, and it is being done in hot spots and in places where
it's not a hot spot, and yet, it's not being done in places
where it's not a hot spot.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I want to first thank you for
holding this hearing, thank our witnesses that we're about to
hear from. Our teachers have faced an unprecedented challenge.
In the spring, they had to deal with closing schools early and
put out new guidelines. We did see parents, including myself
and my wife, step up to the plate in this new home school
environment. Everybody has stepped up to the plate and has had
to answer the call to this new challenge that we're all facing.
I want to thank all of the teachers and the parents who
home schooled for what they've done and what they're preparing
to do to help educate over 50 million children who are counting
on us. I want to extend a thank you to all who help us get our
schools reopen and to help our kids have that opportunity to
achieve the American dream that we enjoy, that we owe to them
to give them that same opportunity.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Clyburn. Well, I thank the ranking member for his
statement. And I would now like to introduce our witnesses.
I'm honored to have the former Secretary of Education, Arne
Duncan, with us today. Secretary Duncan led the Department of
Education with distinction from 2009 through 2015. Prior to his
service under President Obama, Secretary Duncan led the Chicago
Public Schools for eight years. Since leaving government,
Secretary Duncan has returned to Chicago where he works to help
improve opportunities for young people.
We are also joined by Dr. Caitlin Rivers, a Senior Scholar
at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an
Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health. Dr. Rivers is an epidemiologist, specializing in
emerging infectious diseases, and a recent panelist for the
National Academies of Science on reopening schools during the
coronavirus pandemic.
We are also grateful to be joined by Superintendent Robert
Runcie of Broward County Public Schools in Florida.
I would like to yield to my colleague and friend,
Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz, who represents the southern
portion of Broward County, for a brief introduction.
Debbie.
Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, and
the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, for allowing
me to introduce an esteemed witness from my district,
Superintendent Robert Runcie.
I am honored to represent Broward County which is home to
the sixth largest public school district in the country and the
second largest in Florida. We entrust the safety and education
of nearly 270,000 students and 175,000 learning adults at 241
schools, centers, technical colleges, and 89 charter schools to
Superintendent Runcie.
Under his leadership, our students have seen improved
literacy in graduation rates, college acceptances, and career
readiness. He has also expanded technical programs, established
the first military academy, and expanded access to speech and
debate, art, music, physical education, coding, and STEM
offerings.
I can personally speak to the superintendent's skillful
leadership. My twins graduated from a Broward County public
school, and my youngest daughter is currently a senior in the
district.
During the pandemic, Superintendent Runcie has worked with
the school board, principals, teachers, staff, parents, and
students to ensure that everyone remains safe and that their
education is not compromised. This is no easy task with
President Trump and Governor DeSantis at the helm of our state,
each one recklessly browbeating schools to return in person,
even threatening to withhold funds if they don't return in
person five days a week while a virus rages through our
community and just as cases and deaths spike even higher.
Yesterday, total cases in our state topped 500,000.
Distressing records were set all through July. People are
dying, our hospitals are stressed, and a rushed return to
school would only put more people at risk. Superintendent
Runcie is paving a prudent model pathway, beginning our school
year online, and keeping our teachers, staff, and students
safe, one that other school districts will be able to follow.
I'm thrilled to introduce him to you so you can see why he
is the pride of Broward County and the remarkable leader of our
Broward County Public Schools.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.
Next, I am pleased to introduce Angela Skillings from Gila
County, Arizona. Ms. Skillings teaches second grade in the
Hayden Winkelman Unified School District in eastern Arizona.
Despite strictly following the CDC school guidance
precautions, Ms. Skillings and her two co-teachers contracted
the coronavirus while teaching summer school together. Ms.
Skillings and one of her colleagues recovered, but a third
teacher, Kimberly Byrd, passed away.
Ms. Byrd had been a public school teacher for 38 years. She
was a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and I know her passing has
been devastating to her family, her students, and her
community. Ms. Skillings, I am truly sorry for the loss of your
friend and colleague, and I appreciate your willingness to
speak with us today and share your experiences.
Finally, we are joined by Dan Lips, Director of Cyber and
National Security at the Lincoln Network and a Visiting Fellow
at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
The witnesses will be unmuted so we can swear them in.
Please raise your right hands.
Do you affirm, swear or affirm, that the testimony you're
about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you God?
Thank you. Let the record show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative.
Without objection, your written statements will be made a
part of the record.
With that, Secretary Duncan, you are now recognized for
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ARNE DUNCAN, MANAGING PARTNER,
EMERSON COLLECTIVE, FORMER SECRETARY OF EDUCATION (2009-2015)
Mr. Duncan. Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, thank
you for inviting me to offer testimony today.
We are confronting not one or two but of several crises at
once. The first is the pandemic itself which began as a natural
disaster.
The second is the abject failure of leadership from the
Federal Government which inflamed that natural disaster into a
manmade catastrophe that has led to the worst economic crisis
since the Great Depression.
At the same time, we're also facing a much-needed reckoning
with America's long history of systemic racism which has some
of its most damaging effects in our Nation's schools.
Today these multiple crises have all come to a head at
once, and some of the Americans who risk paying the highest
price are our children.
The essential question is, how can schools reopen in the
midst of a pandemic? Look. We all want our children to go back
to school in person. Everyone is united in that; parents,
students, and teachers, all of us. But we can only allow that
once it is safe. And everyone is looking to our Federal
Government to show some leadership here because in the absence
of a clear plan, superintendents are being left to navigate
these decisions on their own.
As a Nation, we're asking them to solve problems that the
Federal Government has been making worse. We're asking them to
make potentially life and death public health decisions. We're
asking 15,000 school districts to become 15,000 healthcare
providers without any real resources or expertise.
We're asking them to sanitize and secure physical
infrastructure, redesign food systems, rethink transportation
systems, and reengineer mental health systems that are already
strapped. And, by the way, we're also asking teachers who may
be at high risk to go to school every day where they might
catch COVID-19 and bring it home to their families.
We're asking all of them to do all of these things under
the threat of a President and a Federal Government that's
saying reopen or else. They're telling schools to choose
between safeguarding our health and getting the funding that
they desperately need.
Let's be clear. Schools are part of a community. So, even
if we do miraculously manage to secure our schools, the truth
is, if we don't keep the rest of our communities healthy and
safe, we will all remain at risk.
The bottom line is this: If we really want our kids to go
back to school safely, the single most important thing we can
do has nothing to do with education at all, and that is defeat
the virus.
What infuriates me about what is happening today is that
it's an unforced error. We're in this situation because our
Federal leadership failed us, period. It did not have to be
this way. If we had done what was necessary in the spring,
wearing masks, social distancing, testing to scale, contact
tracing, we could have brought students back earlier in the
summer to recoup that lost learning time.
If we had valued our students and teachers more than our
bars and our restaurants, we'd be sitting here today with a far
better chance of more districts safely reopening. If Congress
had appropriated a significant investment in schools back in
the spring, our local communities could have immediately
deployed those resources to address glaring equity gaps that
COVID-19 has both exposed and, unfortunately, exacerbated.
Manmade catastrophes are absolutely tragic, but they can also
be repaired, and the time to start is now. So, here is where we
ought to begin.
First, Congress needs to immediately deploy funds where
they're needed most, and that should include at least $200
billion in funds to states and districts which would be
targeted primarily to low income schools.
Funding should be targeted to our children who are most
vulnerable, those who experiencing homelessness, students with
disabilities, and English language learners as has been done in
previous disaster relief bills.
Money should also be targeted to a national tutoring
initiative. We have millions of college students, recent
graduates, and retired individuals, who could serve as a
nationwide resource to provide intensive tutoring to students
who need to regain lost learning time due to both the COVID
slide and the summer slide.
The Federal Government could spur this idea into action in
partnership with private sector leaders.
Fifty billion dollars in child care funds should be
included so that this essential system can continue to serve
our communities, including our teachers and school staff, and
$7 billion in E-rate funding to close the digital divide that
exacerbates the inequities in educational opportunity between
the haves and have nots.
So, that's what we should be doing, and here is what we
should not be doing. We should not be delaying the start of the
school year. Our children have lost far too much valuable
learning time already.
Schools need to begin, but how school starts, whether they
are in person, remote, or some hybrid model, that's going to
have to vary from place to place. And very importantly, our
goal can't just be opening schools. It must be keeping them
open because if we open them up only to close them a short time
later, that will just create more instability, more chaos, and
more confusion. We don't need any of that.
Students, parents, teachers, staff, they all need and
deserve stability. So, we should be focused on starting school
in whatever way is safe and responsible with the clear goal of
bringing more students back over time.
I wish, I desperately wish, that we could go back to
earlier this year and change the way this pandemic was managed
from the start, but we can't. What we can do is act now so we
don't keep making matters worse.
What we can do is something that hasn't been done yet by
this administration, and that's put our students, our children,
front and center in how we make decisions. Don't they deserve
that? Don't the American people deserve that?
Thank you again, Chairman Clyburn, and Ranking Member
Scalise. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you
today. I look forward to taking your questions.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. We will now turn
to Dr. Rivers.
Dr. Rivers, you're now recognized.
STATEMENT OF DR. CAITLIN RIVERS, SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS
CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND ENGINEERING, JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG
SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Ms. Rivers. Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member Scalise, and
distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today about safely reopening
schools during the pandemic.
We have been looking ahead to school reopening since they
first closed in March. As I'm sure my colleagues here will
attest, schools play multiple essential roles in our
communities. They educate our children, they provide basic
healthcare, access to mental health services, meals, and they
provide childcare for working parents. In so many ways, the
schools are the flywheel of our society.
But we are not here today because anyone disputes the value
of schools. Schools did not close in March because they faded
in importance. They closed because of the pandemic. They closed
because we care a great deal about protecting children and
teachers and families at home and ensuring their health and
safety is a top priority.
We know more about the virus than we did in March. We know
that children are much less likely to experience severe illness
than adults, and often their infections are so mild that they
are not even detected. Nationwide, less than 10 percent of
recognized coronavirus cases are in children, but we also know
there are many more infections that are not detected and that
we only see the tip of the iceberg.
Children are much less likely to die than adults. Less than
one percent of coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are in kids, but
less than one percent is not the same as zero. Tragically, 488
people between the ages of 0 and 24 have died of COVID-19 as of
July 29, according to CDC.
And schools are not attended only by children. They are
also workplaces for teachers and staff who may be at higher
risk of severe illness because of their age, and children
return home to family members, many of whom may be older adults
who have underlying health conditions. Although many gaps in
our understanding remain, it's become increasingly clear that
it is possible for children to spread the virus. Multiple
outbreaks, some quite sizable, have been described in childcare
settings.
Recently, a report of an outbreak at a summer camp in
Georgia found that nearly half of campers were infected. The
camp had to close just a few days after opening.
There are still some open questions about whether children
are as infectious as adults or whether they are somewhat less
likely to spread, but the risk here underscores the importance
of mitigation measures to slow the virus's spread. On that
front, we also know more now than we did in March. In addition
to physical distancing and hand hygiene, it's now clear that
universal masking and ventilation and air circulation are
important for reducing risk.
Limiting the number of contacts any person has, which in
the school setting may mean hybrid approaches or pods or
cohorts, are important options as well.
But above all, the most important factor in determining
whether schools can safely reopen is the prevalence of the
disease in the community. Communities that have a lot of virus
circulating will have a much tougher time reopening safely than
places where things are under better control.
How these factors come together, the importance of schools,
the risk of the virus to children, teachers, and family, local
disease prevalence, mitigation measures, this is probably the
most complex decision that we are facing in this pandemic. We
all want in-person learning, but when and how we can make that
happen, and how can we do it as safely as possible is the
question at hand.
The final word on these decisions should be left to
communities. How communities weigh the risks and benefits and
resources available to support in-person learning will vary
from place to place. That decision-making process should
include a coalition of staff, families, health officials, and
other community stakeholders, but communities can't decide
alone, and they can't implement alone.
School leaders and families are not experts in epidemiology
or pandemic preparedness. They need clear guidance and
technical support from our public health authorities at all
levels, Federal, state, and local.
For example, CDC documents on school reopening distinguish
substantial controlled from substantial uncontrolled spread,
and they encourage consideration of school closures for the
latter, for substantial uncontrolled spread. But additional
guidance on what indicators and thresholds might differentiate
between substantial controlled and substantial uncontrolled
would help communities to better assess their local conditions.
Districts also need supplemental funding to implement the
mitigation measures that we need to slow spread and to support
the technologies and support services needed to deliver remote
learning.
And above all, they need to be able to make decisions
appropriate to their local disease prevalence, risk tolerance,
and capacity to implement mitigation measures without fear of
having funds withheld or their decisions undermined.
Although we have learned a lot about the virus in the last
few months, there are still many questions unanswered. CDC and
NIH should put in place now the necessary research studies to
collect data on our most pressing questions which could include
the degree to which asymptomatic children are infectious, which
mitigation measures are most important, how remote learning can
be effective, and how best to approach these issues with
respect to underlying educational inequities.
The more we can learn about this virus, the better informed
our decisions will be, and we can be sure that there will be
many more difficult decisions ahead, including those on
schools, between now and when we find a safe and effective
vaccine that is accessible to all Americans.
Thank you.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. Ms. Runcie. Ms. Runcie, you
are now--Ms. Skillings, you are now recognized. Oh. I'm sorry.
Mr. Runcie, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT W. RUNCIE, SUPERINTENDENT, BROWARD COUNTY
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Mr. Runcie. All right. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn, and
Ranking Member Scalise, and distinguished members of the Select
Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and a
special thank you to Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz for
her leadership and relentless support and advocacy for our
children.
In less than two weeks, Broward County Public Schools will
start the new school year. The first day of school has always
been a day of great anticipation and excitement as every one of
our 30,000 employees welcome back almost 270,000 of our
precious children into our classrooms. Providing valuable
learning opportunities for our kids, offering engaging
experiences, that's what we live for. The coronavirus pandemic
has changed all of that. It is painful and enormously
disappointing not to be in a position to open our schools
safely.
On March 13, we announced the closing of our school
campuses due to the coronavirus pandemic. And within just a few
short days of our schools closing, we became the lifeline for
many in our community. We continued to distribute food from our
local school sites and have since then served over 2 and a half
million meals to students and families.
We addressed digital inequities by distributing more than
100,000 laptop computers to our students who needed one while
also offering discounted internet services for families and
free mobile hotspots to students, those that have housing
instability and homeless as well.
District mental health staff, they continue to provide
services to our students. Our amazing school social workers
received more than 34,000 referrals and have provided close to
160,000 interventions.
Looking forward, a big consideration about how and when we
open schools is the state of the pandemic. Unfortunately, south
Florida continues to be a hot spot for coronavirus spread in
this country.
As of this week, Florida had reported more than 480,000
known cases of coronavirus with the highest concentrations
right here in Broward and Miami-Dade Counties where the
positivity rate has at times been as high as 20 percent.
Public health experts and infectious disease physicians
almost universally recommend that children not go to school
until the positive test rate is three to five percent over a
rolling two-week average. Our local positive test rate is still
averaging above 10 percent.
As we continue to consult with our local public health
officials and medical experts for guidance, I've been clear
about reopening schools, and that is we will not compromise the
health and safety of our students, teachers, and staff. That's
our highest priority, period.
Faced with an ongoing pandemic that continues to spread
through our community, our only option when the school year
starts in just a few short days will be to begin with a
distance learning or what we call e-learning models for all
students. That is the only we can educate our students while
still keeping them, their teachers, and all employees healthy
and safe. We simply cannot risk exposing our students and staff
until the coronavirus is under control.
Our commitment is to deliver high quality instruction to
our students, regardless of which learning model we provide. We
understand that e-learning will never be a substitute for face-
to-face teaching and learning in our classrooms, but during
this time, our students will continue to learn, and we will
work to make the learning environment personal, engaging,
interesting, challenging, and fulfilling.
I will continue to ask our community for help. The only way
our district will be able to open our school buildings is when
we've lowered the number of coronavirus cases in our community.
It will require each and every one of us to contain
community spread of COVID-19 by wearing masks, by physical
distancing, and changing our behaviors. I'm also urging and
begging our Federal Government to pass an additional
coronavirus relief package that responds to the impact of
COVID-19 and assists with the ongoing recovery by providing at
least $200 billion to public schools across this country that
serve over 50 million students.
This funding is critically needed to help cover the
impending substantial shortfalls in state and local revenue
collections to continue to feed students and their families, to
close gaps in remote learning, to expand mental health
services, to provide reliable high speed internet access for
all students, and to purchase the necessary PPE materials and
equipment for enhanced cleaning and sanitation protocols so we
can make our schools safe for our students, teachers, and staff
when we open.
Our children have so many abilities and talents to develop
and countless dreams that are being stifled by COVID-19. We owe
it to them and future generations to meet this pandemic head on
by developing and implementing national and local strategies to
get this pandemic under control. And to provide the necessary
funding and support so we can fully open schools and safely
provide them with the opportunities to thrive. They deserve
nothing less.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Runcie.
Ms. Skillings, you are now recognized.
STATEMENT OF ANGELA SKILLINGS, TEACHER, HAYDEN WINKELMAN
UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
Ms. Skilling. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member
Scalise, and the rest of you distinguished members of this
committee for taking your time to hear us today.
Chairman Clyburn already talked about Ms. Byrd and her
story. We were virtually teaching summer school when we
contracted COVID-19. Ms. Byrd did pass away less than two weeks
after her--after going into the hospital.
I am a second grade teacher. I've been teaching for 17
years. This will be my 14th year at this district. We are a
very rural, small town in eastern Arizona. We only have 3--
around 300 students, kindergarten through 12th grade, 90
percent Hispanic, 84 percent free and reduced lunch. Our
students start school in kindergarten or preschool, and they
stay in the same cohort, same classrooms, all through senior
year unless they move out of our district.
Our school is a community, but we're also a family, and we
are all worried about the struggle of returning to school. Our
district was just hit again last week. We had four more support
staff members contract the virus. Seven staff members out of
the 60 members of our district staff, that is a little over 11
percent. We need to--together as a staff, we are worried about
each other and about what can happen, and we are not ready to
lose another staff member.
I think about the emotional impact of our students and them
not being in the classroom. I also think about the impact of
them losing Ms. Byrd. She was here for 38 years. She was my
son's teacher for second and third grade. She was a dear
colleague, a mentor, and a friend.
Our students have expressed to me how they were concerned
that even I would pass away, and that right there is
emotionally damning. It would bring them into the classroom,
and when somebody passes away, how is that going to affect
them?
I cannot speak for all teachers, but I can speak for the
teachers in our community and the teachers I have talked to
throughout the United States in the last of couple weeks. We
have continually been told that children don't contract and
transmit the virus, but how do we know that? We put them in
seclusion. We took them out of the classroom in March. They
have been sheltered, at least in our community.
To me, we are forcing schools to be open, and that is going
to put those students back into the petri dish that we have in
our classrooms. They spread everything. Students are children.
Children are children. They like to be around each other. They
like to share.
Why are we putting them in there? Do we need that to gain
more data on that age group? We need it--we do know that it
doesn't spread or that they're not affected as much and that
only one--around one percent have passed away.
But do we need the statistics, or should we more think of
the humanitarian value of when our students going home after
being--after contracting it in our schools and then giving it
to their family members. Our community--when I first tested
positive for COVID-19, in the small town of Winkelman, I was
the only person. Just me. No. 1.
Now in the last six and a half, seven weeks, we are up to
28, so we need to be careful. We need to think about our
community. I can tell you after teaching seven years in second
grade, I have seen them pass everything around from pink eye to
stomach flu to even influenza. So, passing around COVID-19 will
not be something we can stop, and we all know that.
My main concern is if we, as adults, cannot be in a
classroom together or into a meeting together, we have to
cancel work. We are working from home. Then why are we forcing
children back into the classroom? Why are their lives more--not
as important as adults?
I understand that adults, you know, contract and have
problems, but if we bring kids into the classroom, they're
taking it home. And these kids, yes, are our future. They are
our--they are our leaders. They're going to be there 30, 40
years from now, and we need to protect them now.
Teachers will be teaching in our district online. We will
be teaching face to face, offering whole group and small group
instruction on a virtual platform. Schools are making
adjustments to address the student needs per their district.
Our district is also putting an emphasis on social and
emotional learning. Yes, teachers want to be in their
classrooms, but teachers also need to think of themselves and
their families. Our jobs, our careers are not just about our
students. We also have to worry about our community and the
people we work with and our own families at home.
I was looking at the money, and yes, I would like to thank
our government--excuse me--our government for what they have
given to us. That helped our district by the things that we
needed to get started with students in our classrooms, but we
also have to think about the other stuff.
If our buses are going to be making more runs, we are going
to need more money to help with transportation. We're going to
need more money to help with substitute teaching. If a teacher
has to teach from home, and we have students in the classroom,
we will have to have someone in the classroom with them. They
cannot just sit in the classroom while the teacher is online.
My finishing quote is--I love to say this one. We can
recover a child's lost education, but we cannot recover a life.
Thank you again for taking the time to hear my story.
Chairman Clyburn. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Skillings.
We'll now hear from Mr. Lips.
STATEMENT OF DAN LIPS, FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH ON EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY
Mr. Lips. Good afternoon, Chairman Clyburn, Ranking Member
Scalise, and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify.
My name is Dan Lips, and I'm a visiting fellow with the
Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity or FREOPP, a
nonpartisan research organization that focuses on the impact of
public policies and reforms on those with incomes or wealth
below the U.S. median.
As we've heard today, communities across the country are
facing difficult decisions about how to begin the school year
during the pandemic. The prospect of any child, teacher, or
school employee contracting COVID-19 and facing the possibility
of death or serious illness should weigh heavily on all
policymakers involved in decisions affecting schools' plans.
But it's critical that policymakers also recognize the serious
risks associated with prolonged school closures, particularly
for disadvantaged children.
Researchers studying the educational effects of school
closures warn that time out of school results in months of lost
learning and that the learning loss are most acute for low
income students. The bottom line is that prolonged school
closures will create a large achievement gap for a generation
of American children.
Beyond these educational effects, prolonged school closures
create significant risks for children's health and welfare.
There's alarming evidence which I describe in my written
testimony that prolonged school closures since the spring have
endangered child welfare.
Closures also have significant negative effects for
parents. Many parents have been forced to choose between their
jobs and their childcare, and this challenge is, of course,
most difficult for single parents.
The good news is that it's possible for schools to reopen.
Health experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics,
have issued guidelines for safely reopening schools with
certain precautions such as physical distancing, utilizing
outdoor space, cohort classes to minimize crossover among
adults and children, and face coverings for students,
particularly older students, and for teachers and school
personnel.
We're seeing many school districts choose to reopen across
the country with in-person instruction or hybrid learning
options at the beginning of this fall. According to a new
analysis from University of Washington researchers, 41 percent
of rural districts and 28 percent of suburban districts plan to
provide in-person instruction this fall. But the majority of
the Nation's largest public school districts are not reopening
with in-person instruction.
Seventy-one of the Nation's largest 120 school districts
are beginning the school year with remote learning. Altogether,
these school districts serve more than 7 million children,
including 1.4 million children living in poverty.
It's important to recognize that children from low income
families have fewer resources to learn outside of school and
their peers. According to one estimate, rich families spend
more than $9,000 out of pocket on their children's educational
and enrichment outside of school each year while the poorest
families spend $1,000 or so.
Today, families with financial means are working to create
better options than remote learning, including home schooling,
setting up pandemic learning pods or micro schools by forming
co-ops with other parents and hiring teachers or tutors, but
children from lower income families have few options.
Policymakers must address this inequality. For example,
states should use existing CARES Act funds to provide aid
directly to parents in the form of education savings accounts
or scholarships to support their children's outside of school
learning needs. Oklahoma, New Hampshire, South Carolina are
already doing this. Other states should follow their lead.
As Congress considers future aid packages for K-12
education, you should provide aid directly to parents to help
disadvantaged children learn when their school is closed.
There's precedent for providing emergency education relief in
this manner.
After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, many children
were displaced and had nowhere to go to school. Congress
provided more than $1 billion in aid that followed affected
children to a school of their parents' choice, allowing them to
continue their education.
If millions of children are unable to attend school this
year, Congress should focus much of its aid in a similar
manner, providing direct assistance to help children continue
learning while schools are closed.
In my written testimony, I discuss these and other
recommendations for how school systems can prioritize and
address the needs of disadvantaged children during the
pandemic.
Since 1965, Congress has rightly focused Federal education
aid on promoting equal opportunity for at-risk children. In
2020, this will require focusing aid to support disadvantaged
kids who cannot go to school.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to
your questions.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Lips, and let me thank all
of the witnesses here today for their testimony, and we now
will move to a period of questions and answers, and I would
like now to yield myself five minutes for questions.
Mr. Lips, I'm particularly interested in your testimony.
You indicated the challenges that rural districts have and low-
income districts. When I taught school, I taught in a very low-
income district, and trying to teach history to low-income
students who do not have as much support in the home as some
others. It's a pretty significant undertaking, I'll promise
you.
I would like to know from you, though, what would you
suggest that, as lower--rural, low-income school district would
do with parents incapable of investing the amount of resources
in their children's learning, as you have highlighted here,
what would you say the school district ought to do with that
school district?
Mr. Lips. I think there are several options, Chairman.
Thank you for the question.
I think that we're hearing encouraging strategies of
deploying remote learning technologies, trying to close the
digital divide. That's an important way to try and address this
gap.
I also think that providing aid directly to these families
to hire tutors, to provide childcare would be a compelling way
to address the outside-of-school learning gap that we've seen
in pretty stark terms since the spring. Some of the divergence
of the learning that was provided--the instruction, I should
say, that was provided while schools were closed is
discouraging. There were lots of pandemic dropouts of kids not
logging into remote learning.
I think gearing more resources directly to the parents of
disadvantaged children to make better decisions on their behalf
and try and take advantage of some of the options that more
wealthy people have been trying to do: to hire tutors, forming
pandemic pods. That's not to say that schools themselves don't
need resources. I'm suggesting that some of that aid should be
provided directly to parents.
Chairman Clyburn. Well, I agree with that, but let me
followup a little bit. I'm concerned about--you mentioned
online learning at the outset, which is great if you're
connected. If you're from a school district where the adoption
rate is around 35 percent, as it is in my congressional
district, and you're low income in the first place and,
therefore, you aren't able to hire tutors--and if you're able
to hire tutors, then we have another problem with distancing
and masking and other issues--how would you suggest that school
district function?
Mr. Lips. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question.
On the first point, I absolutely agree with some of the
conflicts that were described earlier in terms of providing
remote instruction to disadvantaged children and trying to
close the digital divide by providing subsidized internet
access and hardware--information technology hardware to close
that gap.
At the same time, I think there are real great
opportunities to provide direct scholarship aid or education
savings account aid directly to low-income families so that
they can partner with a couple other families and hire a tutor
to make sure that their children don't suffer the learning loss
that we--you really should be expecting at this point with
these prolonged school closures.
Understanding that there are likely risks of people
gathering in--together in any circumstance, under a pandemic
pod or micro school, it would at least be a smaller group of
children. The ability to adhere to CDC guidelines by social
distancing would be very feasible if a tutor was working with,
say, four or five kids at a time while schools are closed.
Chairman Clyburn. Well, thank you.
I'll now yield to the ranking member for any questions you
may have.
We're not hearing you. I now see you, but I can't hear you.
Mr. Scalise. Is that working now, Chairman?
Chairman Clyburn. OK. OK.
Mr. Scalise. All right. Thank you.
I know, when we heard some of our witnesses testify, it was
clear that they didn't watch last week's hearing because there
was a lot of talk last week by some of the President's best
medical experts about the different steps that the President
has taken that have not only laid out a clear plan but also how
it saved lives, saved millions of lives, in fact. So, you know,
maybe they should watch a replay of that hearing, and they
could learn some things themselves about other things that this
administration has done working with very smart people,
including, last week, we had Dr. Fauci, we had Dr. Redfield,
and we had Dr. Giroir all talking about different steps that
the President is taking as part of an overall plan to help us
find a vaccine, which, as we've seen, is revolutionary in where
we are in stage three testing for two different major drugs
that could be ready to go possibly in a month or two that are
showing incredible promise.
That's only happening because of the President's plan,
called Operation Warp Speed, which I would direct them to go
see. It's a way that the President has moved all of the red
tape of agencies like the FDA out of the way so that we can
focus all of our resources from our smartest scientists in the
world into finding a vaccine and other therapies, like
Remdesivir, that they have also approved for treatment for
COVID-19.
But we have also seen all of the steps that have been taken
by the administration to lay out guidance, from the Centers for
Disease Control to CMS and other agencies, to safely reopen
businesses, nursing homes, and of course, as we're talking
about today, Mr. Chairman, safely reopening schools.
And it's not just the CDC that's put out these guidelines.
It's other respected agencies, like the American Academy of
Pediatrics, probably the most well-respected people who deal
with the health of our children, pediatric doctors, and they
laid out guidelines. They didn't say that you just throw the
kids back into school and have a petri dish setting, probably
like we did before. You know, I think that, when you go back to
a setting that we'll see in the next few weeks, it won't be
anything like we've seen before, and there were things like all
kind of viruses where a common flu killed kids all across the
country, and maybe we should have been taking better steps like
we're taking now on hygiene and washing hands and other basic
things. But now we know a lot more than we did just a few
months ago.
We know how to reopen safely, and the guidelines are there
very clearly for how to do it. What's interesting is that some
school systems have spent all their time working to get it
done, and then you see a few, unfortunately, that are trying to
find reasons not to get it done, and it's not for lack of the
money. I know I've heard a lot of talk about money, but as I
talked about last week, states have nearly $100 billion that
we've already sent them that can be used to safely reopen
schools. And I haven't seen a run on that money. The money is
still there. It's still there.
Most states have over 70 percent of the money that we,
Congress, sent them in the CARES Act, and so I know some people
want to talk about new money and, you know, hundreds of
billions of dollars, but when you still have nearly $100
billion that's unspent and available, sent to states to do
things like safely reopen schools, I hope they would go look to
that money first and find a way to get it done for the
children.
That's what I wanted to ask you, Mr. Lips, about because we
know that being in person works much better for most people.
Home schooling is a very successful part of our education
system, but it's a very small percentage of parents who choose
that option for their kids. Most want the in-school setting,
and there are a lot of studies that show, for many kids, in-
person is just--there is no substitute for it, and so that's
why we need to put such a focus on it.
Have you seen in those guidelines that it's flexible enough
to handle different kinds of school systems in different kinds
of parts of the country, Mr. Lips?
Mr. Lips. Absolutely. I think that what we really need here
is flexibility, and, for schools to respond effectively, we
need to think creatively about bringing kids back into the
classroom. We clearly know that in-person instruction is the
best way to educate children. What we saw during the spring
when many school districts were not providing one-on-one
instruction when schools were remote, lots of parents reported
that they--their children really didn't learn very much and
weren't logging in consistently. We saw pandemic dropouts of
kids. In some cities, as much as one-fifth of the kids never
logged on.
We need for an--educationally, we need kids to be in the
classroom to be able to benefit from in-person instruction,
but, also, there is the critical element that you discussed
before about the schools being on the front lines of our child
welfare systems. There have been alarming reports of
undercounts of child abuse reporting that's happening, yet we
are concerned that those abuse incidents are happening, just
not being reported. There has been an alarming increase in
calls to the National Sexual Abuse Hotline, including increased
calls from children.
We need kids back in school if--when it's safe, both
educationally but also for children's welfare.
Mr. Scalise. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
The chair now recognizes Ms. Waters for five minutes.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm very, very pleased that you're holding this hearing.
This subject of whether or not we're going to be able to
educate our kids is a subject that's on the minds of so many
families, so many parents, and so many people who don't have
children in school anymore. We're really, really, really
concerned about all of this, amazed at those who are insisting
that we open the schools and disregarding all that we have
learned about, you know, what should and should not be done
basically as we deal with this pandemic.
We know that some, like Mr. Scalise is saying, that they
know that we'll lose some kids. Well, what percentage of kids
are you willing to lose? I'm not willing to lose one kid when
we don't have to.
So, I think it's very important for us to listen to the
parents, and from what I can understand, most of the parents
are saying they are afraid. They don't want the kids back in
the classroom. We have not been able to guarantee their safety.
Let me ask the Honorable Arne Duncan--and thank you for
being here--have you heard about the percentage of parents who
are saying they don't want the kids back in the classroom, they
don't believe that we have the safety measures that are
necessary to protect them? If so, what percentage of parents
are frightened to send the kids back?
Mr. Duncan. That varies community by community. And it's
great to see you again.
That varies community by community. Parents are very
concerned. You know, my wife and I are concerned. We see that
in urban districts. We see that in rural districts. Again, I
think the thing that frustrates me the most is, if had we done
what we needed to do as a country in March and April and May
and June and July, and now in August, all of us parents would
have less concern.
Had we invested in schools to get them all the--you know,
the equipment that Bob Runcie talked about, had we done the
things we did to secure our schools and make them more viable
to open now, we would have alleviated those parents' concerns.
But our lack of action, our lack of investment, our lack of a
plan has heightened that concern, that fear to a level that it
just--we just don't need to be here now, and so that's----
Ms. Waters. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Arne, I understand that some of the schools in the richer
areas certainly are not sending the kids back. They are opting
for tutors, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm not being facetious
when I ask this, but I understand that the son of the President
of the United States is attending--would be attending a school,
but his school will not be opening up, and they're projecting
that maybe they'll open up by October.
Have you heard this information?
Mr. Duncan. Well, not only is that correct, but this
pandemic doesn't know political party. It doesn't know wealth
versus poverty. It doesn't know urban versus rural versus
suburban versus, you know, Native American country. This
pandemic doesn't discriminate.
And, for all of our children--and not just our children;
for their parents, for their grandparents, for our teachers,
like Angela and her colleagues, for them to be safe, we have to
do the right thing here. So, many schools--again, I'm pushing.
I don't want to delay the start of school. Our kids have lost
too much learning time. I want to have an almost mandatory
summer school starting July to get kids caught up because we
didn't have the discipline as a country, as adults, because we
had such horrific leadership from the top, we did not do what
we needed to do. So, we need to open, and we need to close that
digital divide.
So, you know, the idea that children can only learn, you
know, five days a week, six hours a day, in a physical
building, that doesn't make any sense. Kids should be able to
learn anything they want anytime, anywhere, anyplace.
Ms. Waters. Well, let me just say that I met with
Superintendent Beutner for the Greater Los Angeles area, LAUSD,
and he was talking about our Title I students, how Title I
students we know are poor. They have dysfunctional families,
whatever, what have you. And he said, if he had $350 million
for the state of California to ensure that they have the
technology, the supplies, and the ability to do distance
learning, he believes that we certainly could do learning with
them. We should not allow them to be dropped off of the agenda.
Do you think we should pay special attention to those
children whose parents have not been able to afford the
computers, and we need the broadband and all of that for them
to be able to participate in distance learning? Do you think
that we can direct the money directly to those students like
title I students?
Mr. Duncan. We have to do that, and what this pandemic has
done, what the murder of George Floyd has done is it's just
slapped us all in the face at these massive, long-standing,
systemic inequities that have existed forever, and now, as a
country, we can't hide from them. So, making sure that
children--every child has access, not just to a computer, but
to the internet, to Wi-Fi, that should be as ubiquitous now as
water, electricity, making sure those families have access so
that kids can learn anything they want anytime, anywhere,
anyplace, find their path and find their
[inaudible]. We have to do that. We should have done it
before, but we have to do it now.
Let me just say what troubles me so much is districts like
L.A. are----
Ms. Waters. My time is up, but I want for them to know that
I like what he's talking about with tutoring and teaching one
and two and three kids in a community. I'm going to get in
touch with him and talk with him about that some more. I wish
we had more time.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mr.
Luetkemeyer for five minutes.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, just to followup on last week's hearing, in that
hearing, I had a long discussion with Dr. Redfield with regards
to the incorrect coding of individuals' deaths so that there
was an overstatement of deaths due to corona, which was a
followup to a previous question I asked of Dr. or Admiral
Giroir in a previous hearing, and, as--and we found out two
more states now are actually looking into this as well, and we
are--we have sent a letter--I think I sent a copy of it to
you--requesting information from both Dr. Redfield and the
admiral with regards to what they're going to be doing about
it. So, just to give you a heads-up.
Mr. Lips, I just want to talk to you just a second with
regards to something that Dr. Redfield said last week. He said:
I want to reemphasize here, because I don't think I can
emphasize it enough, as the Director of the Centers for Disease
Control, the leading public health agency in the world, it is
in the public health interest to these K-12 students to get
those students back open to face-to-face learning. We have to
be honest that the public health interests of students in this
Nation right now is to get a quality education in face-to-face
learning.
I--from your previous statements, I assume you agree with
that statement, Mr. Lips?
Mr. Lips. I do. I think that that should certainly be the
goal. We should be doing everything we can to get children back
into school in a safe manner, and we should be giving
flexibility to parents and teachers and school personnel to
make decisions about risk, to create the best circumstance for
our local communities. But certainly, the goal should be to
trying to get kids back in school. These prolonged school
closures are devastating for children, particularly for low-
income children, who are--we know are falling further and
further behind every day that schools remain closed.
So, we've seen public health guidance from the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, of best practices that can be
used to reopen schools. Wherever possible, schools should think
creatively about following those guidelines to bring kids back
into the classroom.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Well, I know that there is a paper put out
by the CDC that is very extensive, eight pages here, and it
deals with everything from comparing this--the COVID to the
flu, harmful learning aspects that, if we don't go back to
school, with regards to losing past education, how they fall
backward, and then the digital way--the virtual way of
learning, while it can get you by, it's not a very efficient
way of doing it; the social and emotional skill development
that is not there; the safety, which I think you mentioned--
you're one of the few people who mentioned safety today;
nutrition; physical activity. These are all important things
that I think we need to consider when you start taking a look
at--and this is why the professionals have all said that we
need to go back to school.
With that in mind, Secretary Duncan, in May 2009, during a
spring H1N1 outbreak, the outbreak that killed 358 children
between April and October of that year, you said to the school
superintendents and principals, I quote: I urge you to take
your queues from public health officials in your area, in your
state, and at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But this time around seems different. Last Friday, in this
committee, CDC Director Redfield testified and confirmed an
urgent needing to get students back to school. As I've
indicated with this report, it's very extensive. It deals with
all of the myriad of issues there.
But, however, the following day, you tweeted: Why are we
asking 15,000 school districts and 100,000 schools to figure
this out by themselves?
So, my question is, why is it acceptable for
superintendents to rely on public health officials when you
were Secretary, but not now?
Mr. Duncan. You know, they need to absolutely rely on that.
And what the challenge has been, at the Federal level, there
hasn't been a plan, there hasn't been investment, we haven't
done what we needed to do for the previous four or five months
to make this possible, and now we have a thousand people dying
per day of COVID-19.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Let me stop you right there, and let me
put some more facts on the table here. This was a brand new
disease we knew nothing about. As of January 1, it was a clean
slate. We never heard about the coronavirus.
Now, over the last several months, we continue to develop
plans and strategies as new evidence comes out, as new
information comes out. And I think, last week, we saw in our
committee, Ranking Member Scalise had a stack of papers about
18 inches tall that were different plans that were in place to
try and address many of those things.
So, I think that that argument rings pretty hollow whenever
you look at the bulk of evidence that's there to show that
there are plans, that we are trying to be flexible and continue
to improve and address issues as they pop up, and this is an
ongoing thing, and we have to manage this virus.
This is why I think, you know, as we go through and we have
schools open up--in my area, it's not unusual to have a school
close down for a day or two or three with the flu because as it
runs through the community. I would anticipate that same thing
happening here. As the COVID runs through the community, go
down for a period of a week or so and come back up. I think we
can manage this thing, and we just have to learn to do that.
So, with that, I yield back to the chairman.
Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
The chair now recognizes Mrs. Maloney for five minutes.
Mrs. Maloney. Can you hear me?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Can you hear me? I can't hear him.
Chairman Clyburn. I do hear you, Ms. Maloney.
Mrs. Maloney. OK. Great. Great. I couldn't hear you for a
while.
The evidence shows that children catch coronavirus, and
they spread it to adults, including teachers, bus drivers,
cafeteria workers, parents, and grandparents.
Just last Friday, the CDC released a report about a
coronavirus outbreak at a Georgia summer camp. Three quarters
of the campers tested positive. Children under 10 got the virus
at higher rates than older kids and adults.
This is not just an isolated incident. The American
Association of Pediatrics reports that more than 338,000--
100,000 children have tested positive for coronavirus.
Secretary Duncan, you coauthored an article with one former
Education Secretary and one former head of CDC that identified
eight basic steps to reopen schools. In that article, you
stated, and I quote, ``Despite precautions, there will
inevitably be coronavirus cases at schools,'' end quote.
So, the distinguished Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining
us once again. Why are you so sure that there will be
additional coronavirus cases if we fully reopen all schools?
Mr. Duncan. First, I'll just say both education and
fighting pandemic, there is nothing partisan about this. This
is all bipartisan. We all care about kids. We should all care
about our--the health and safety of our children, their
education, and the adults.
I was very pleased to be able do that with Dr. Frieden and
with my predecessor, Margaret Spellings, who happened to be
Republican. We've done a lot of really important work together.
Unfortunately, our schools are not islands. They don't have
bubbles wrapped around them. Our schools reflect our
communities, and as we have seen across the country, as schools
have tried to start to reopen in the past week or two, in some
cases, they've had cases of the coronavirus literally on the
first day that they opened.
And the best thing--as I said in my oral testimony, the
best thing we can do to keep our children, our teachers, our
parents safe is to beat down the percent of cases in our
communities.
Superintendent Runcie desperately wants to open schools.
There is nothing in it for him not to open schools. He can't
afford to do it because it is not safe for his community
because his community has not done the right thing over the
past four or five months. We have lacked discipline. We have
lacked the willingness to listen to science. We have lacked the
willingness to invest in our communities. We have not socially
distanced. Instead, we have chosen to open bars rather than to
be able to start school on time.
So, we will continue to have cases. Our goal should be to
minimize that. Then we have to do all the things that we know--
we have to test. We have to have accurate tests. They have to
be reliable. We have to get them back fast. We have to contact
trace. We have to isolate.
And the worst thing in the world for me would be if we open
prematurely, not thoughtfully, open for two or three weeks and
have to shut everything back down. It just further traumatizes
children, endangers adults--you know, endangers teachers,
endangers parents. We should open very slowly, very gradually,
very carefully, with the goal of not being to open, but to stay
open.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. And, now that some schools have
started, we know that you're absolutely right. In fact, one
Indiana junior high school was notified of a student COVID case
just a few hours into the very first school day of the year.
This school had to use its emergency protocol and order some
students to quarantine on day one.
You also wrote, and I quote, ``All contacts of new cases
must be traced and quarantined,'' end quote. If the government
does not provide support for testing, tracing, and containment,
can we really expect schools to be able to stay open in
communities where the virus is present?
Mr. Duncan. Let me be really clear. If we can't test
accurately and quickly and get those results back, if we can't
contact trace, if we can't quarantine, we cannot open schools.
It is not safe to do that. And that's a recipe not just for
disaster but for death. So, for us to open, for us to stay
open, for me, that's a prerequisite. We have to be able to
test, to contact trace, to quarantine, and socially isolate--
self-isolate.
Absent that, we cannot entertain the conversation of
opening in person.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you very much.
Dr. Rivers, as a former teacher, I loved your explanation
of how schools and all the different facets of how they serve
society, but I want to talk to you about what we've seen in
other countries, that they've reopened schools during the
pandemic. I understand that some countries have done very well,
but others have experienced massive new outbreaks.
What factors, in your opinion, whether a country was able
to be safely to open and sustain that reopened school, and what
lessons does that hold for the United States? What impacted
whether you could safely open and sustain it and other schools
were not able to do that?
Ms. Rivers. I think the two major factors are the
background prevalence of disease in the community and
mitigation measures. Places that have a lot of virus
circulating will have difficulty remaining open safely, even
with good mitigation measures, because there is the potential
to have so many introductions of cases into the schools that it
becomes difficult to control even with their own mitigation
measures.
But for places that do have moderate or mild levels of
community transmission, if they're able to put in place things
like social distancing, universal masking, hand hygiene, maybe
pods or cohorts, that will improve the probability that
classrooms can stay open with onward transmission.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. My time has expired.
Chairman Clyburn. The chair now recognizes Mr. Green for
five minutes.
Mr. Green, you're now recognized for five minutes. Not
here? Where is he?
Mrs. Maloney. Chairman Clyburn?
Chairman Clyburn. Mr. Green, can you hear me?
Mrs. Maloney. Chairman Clyburn?
Mr. Green. Are you talking to me, sir?
Chairman Clyburn. Mr. Green, yes. We had some malfunction
here.
Mr. Green. Can you hear me OK now?
Chairman Clyburn. Yes, sir.
Mr. Green. Is it my turn to go? Is that what you're saying?
Chairman Clyburn. Yes. Yes, sir. You're now recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. Green. OK. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chairman and Ranking Member and our witnesses. I
want to first address an issue of concern to me, the handling
of positive COVID tests and death reporting. From some
estimates, the Federal Government has been reimbursing
healthcare providers anywhere between $5,000 to $39,000
depending on the severity of the case, and that is providers
get a 20-percent add-on payment for Medicare and COVID-19
patients over non-COVID patients.
Clearly, there is a financial incentive to report, if not
inflate, COVID cases. The Democrat Governor of Colorado
retroactively lowered their fatality count due to
inconsistencies by 12 percent. Cause of death after a motor
vehicle trauma that sudden death listed as COVID is not proper.
If it's just 10 percent inflated nationally, that's 15,000-plus
cases getting the extra 20 percent where it's not warranted. It
also affects the number upon which important decisions are
made.
And I'd like to take this opportunity to ask the chairman
to request that the GAO conduct an audit of every single COVID
death, how the reimbursement payments worked, how exactly the
amounts are determined, the extent to which waste, fraud, and
abuse may be occurring. This study would be extremely helpful
to Congress and how we can protect taxpayer dollars and direct
relief to legitimate causes.
Now on to the topic of sending kids back to schools. I
believe we must listen to the experts. The CDC says, quote,
``The best available evidence indicates, if children become
infected, they are far less likely to suffer severe symptoms,''
end quote.
The CDC advised that, quote, ``Aside from a child's home,
no other setting has more influence on a child's health and
well-being than their school,'' end quote. Let me note that
children account for less than seven percent of U.S. cases,
less than 0.1 percent of deaths, and almost all of those have
confounding medical variables.
In other testimony before the Oversight Committee, Dr.
Redfield said 7.1 million children get nutritional, behavioral
health counseling from school. Adolescent suicides are on the
rise. Chide abuse is on the rise, and schools and teachers are
typically the first to report it.
Dr. Redfield even said: This is not public health versus
the economy. For the children, it's public health decision
versus a public health decision. Let's open the schools.
That's what he said.
As a physician, I'm keenly aware of the risk-benefit
decisions. Often, we prescribe medications with significant,
even deadly, side effects. But we weigh the benefits of the
drug with those risks, and we make the decision, many times to
give the drug, because the chance of good--a good outcome
outweighs the chance of a bad. I promise you, everyone
listening to me has done just that. Motrin causes gastric
ulcers, and aspirin toxicity can kill.
Dr. Redfield from the CDC was clear. The risks to students
being out of school, risks to their nutritional health, risk of
suicide, risk of a child abuse, loss of mental health
counseling, loss of school nurses providing a degree of health
that they can't get at home, all will produce far greater harm
to our children than will be harmed by COVID-19. It's not even
close.
On the other hand, the argument for adults, 33,800
additional dead from undiagnosed cancers, additional 77,000
suicides, the massive increases in out-of-hospital cardiac
arrests may or may not balance those lost due to COVID. So, for
adults, the risk-benefit ratio is harder to make; I completely
agree.
But, in children, that risk-benefit ratio is undeniable and
undebatable. If we do not open our schools, we will do far more
harm to children than we ever would letting them return to the
classroom with social distancing, et cetera, and while
protecting at-risk students and teachers.
One witness today stated that we had lost over 400 children
to COVID-19, all of which are tragedies. The witness mentioned
that we should act to save just one life, or, in other words,
we should close the entire Nation's schools to save one life.
If we followed that logic, we will never allow a single
child to ride in an automobile. Last year, 4,074 children died
in automobile accidents. If my math skills served me well,
that's 10 times more than died with--to COVID. Should we stop
all children from riding in cars? No. As a physician, I firmly
believe the right decision is to reopen our schools. The risk-
benefit ratio is right there.
Now I'd like to make one more point. Nowhere in the
Constitution of the United States does it give the Federal
Government a right to tell Tennessee whether we can open our
schools. This whole discussion is Federal Government overreach.
Tennessee is quite competent enough to make this decision on
its own. We need to stay out of Tennessee and our other states
making this decision.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With that, I yield.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you for yielding.
Now, I might add, as I--before recognizing Mr. Foster, let
the chair recognize Mrs. Maloney for a UC, unanimous consent,
request.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
I have a unanimous consent request. I seek unanimous
consent to enter into the record the following 21 documents
detailing cases of COVID across 19 states contracted or
transmitted at childcare facilities, camps, or schools this
summer. Included among these outbreaks are fourth graders and
their teachers at one location of a network of for-profit
schools in North Carolina, where Secretary DeVos and Vice
President Pence visited without wearing masks just last week.
Here are the documents. May I put them in the record,
please?
Chairman Clyburn. Without objection, so ordered.
Chairman Clyburn. I think you submitted them in advance,
and I thank you for doing that.
Mrs. Maloney. Thank you. Thank you.
Chairman Clyburn. The chair now recognizes Mr. Foster for
five minutes.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. And thank you to all our witnesses
testifying today.
As you all spoke about, while teachers, students, and
parents would ideally like to return to school as soon as
possible, many school districts are not in a place right now to
safely reopen schools for in-person learning.
As a scientist, I think it's important to--for people to
remember that just because people wish that something were true
does not mean that science says it will be true. Science will
never tell you that there is a safe way to detonate a nuclear
bomb in your backyard, and they will--or that there is some
magic device available today that will allow you to safely open
schools in areas where there is a high level of community
spread with no prompt testing available.
The CDC has issued guidance that schools should continue
remote learning until the number of positive coronavirus cases
drastically decreases below levels we're seeing today, or we
have a vaccine.
Dr. Rivers, in a National Academy of Science report that
you coauthored, you discuss that, in order to meet these
benchmarks to safely reopen, schools will need to implement a
long list of mitigation strategies, including wearing masks,
hand washing, physical distancing, eliminating large
gatherings, creating cohorts, cleaning, ventilation, air
filtering, and temperature and symptom screening.
So, how important is it to these strategies to reduce
transmission of the virus when a school reopens? Can
communities, for example, pick and choose which ones they will
comply with and still safely open their schools?
Ms. Rivers. My recommendation is that schools should
implement as many of these as possible, particularly if they
have high levels of virus in the community. Places that don't
have a lot of virus circulating may be able to scale back the
mitigation measures, but in places that do have many new cases,
it will be important to be vigilant about implementing these
measures.
Mr. Foster. So, are there any examples of any countries
anywhere who have successfully opened schools and kept them
open with the level of community spread that we're now seeing
in many areas of the Southern United States?
Ms. Rivers. I don't think there are many examples worldwide
of places that have as much outbreak, as much virus as we have,
and so I don't have any examples of schools reopening that have
been able to do that successfully.
There have been a number of countries that have reopened
where reopening has not gone well. In Israel, for example,
schools were reopened in May, and that led to the acceleration
of the outbreak in the community, and so they had to close down
again. I think that's a cautionary tale for what may happen if
you do reopen when there is a lot of virus circulating.
Mr. Foster. Thank you.
Secretary Duncan, what enforceable policies can be put into
place so that all students, teachers, administrators, and other
school employees can follow the CDC safety guidelines about
wearing face coverings, maintaining social distancing, washing
hands, and so on, and, in particular, how do you enforce these
guidelines? You know, how do you detect violations, and how do
you respond when violations are detected?
Mr. Duncan. Yes. I think there are a number of things that
don't--aren't 100 percent guaranteed for success but at least
gives you a chance to try and keep people safe, and you just
touched on a lot of them, Congressman. It's good to see you
again.
You know, first, obviously, the social distancing is
absolutely critical. That has to happen. You know, that's a
hard thing for, you know, four-year-olds, six-year-olds, eight-
year-olds to not play tag or not do whatever, but we have to
establish new norms there.
The masks are a must, a mandatory thing. You're going to
see things around--you know, Plexiglass shields around desks or
maybe in front of the teachers' desks, but I just want to, you
know, elaborate on just the complexity of this? How do we keep,
you know, bathrooms clean? How do we change walking in terms of
hallways? How do we think very differently about buses and
transportation? How do we think differently about delivering
food?
All of these things are really hard, and I think what we
have to rely on are our teachers and principals leading by
example, and then, if--you know, if students don't do it or
teachers don't do it, that principal, that, you know,
accountable, responsible adult at the building, just as now,
you know, people who go on airlines and aren't wearing masks
are asked to leave, unfortunately we're going to have to do
those types of things in schools if we're concerned about
everybody's safety, not just the children, but the staff and
parents and grandparents at home.
Mr. Foster. Yes. I'd like to ask quickly about just how
prompt the testing has to be to be useful. Last week, the
committee heard from Admiral Giroir that over 40 percent of the
tests that we're seeing nationwide take more than three days to
get results, while Dr. Fauci testified that waiting multiple
days for a test result is not good enough, and I think, quote,
in many respects, obviates the whole purpose.
So, you know, for example, professional sports teams or
those visiting the White House, you know, are tested promptly,
and they get the results quickly.
So, Dr. Rivers, is this level of testing realistically
going to be available in most school districts, and what are
the implications if the testing takes longer?
Ms. Rivers. I think the first goal is to have test results
returned within 48 hours, and the second goal is within 24
hours. And that's to enable the isolation, the contact tracing,
and the quarantine that allows us to break trains of
transmission. If we don't have those capabilities in place, it
becomes very hard to get ahead of the outbreak, and we see a
lot more virus circulating, and we'll have a lot more
difficulty maintaining or regaining control.
Mr. Foster. Thank you.
I'm out of time and yield back.
Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As Secretary Duncan observed, we're in this agonizing
situation because of the miserable failure of the
administration to develop an effective national strategy to
defeat COVID-19. And I say defeat it. I don't say limit it,
manage it, contain it, and all of these other euphemisms for
passivity, but we don't have a strategy to defeat the disease.
Now, all of the dads and moms in the country want our kids
to go back to school. Students want to learn together. Teachers
want to teach in the classroom. And everybody agrees that in-
person instruction is better than online instruction. That's
not the question. If that were the question, it would be easy.
We would just say go back and do it.
But nobody knows whether it's safe today or what is safe
and how to make it safe under these conditions of chaos. This
is a time when America leads the world in case counts. America
leads the world in death count. 338,000 children have
contracted the disease and been infected by it, and COVID-19 is
spiraling out of control in many parts of the country, and we
get from the administration nothing but confusion,
disinformation, and quack miracle cures coming from the highest
levels.
Now, given the refusal or the inability of the
administration to create an effective nationwide strategy to
defeat the disease, these decisions must be made at the state
and local level, not by random heckling of local governments.
I'm amazed that our distinguished colleague, Mr. Green,
rails against the Federal threat to local decisionmaking here
when it is precisely President Trump who is trying to dictate
to state and local governments all over the country that
everybody has to go back 100 percent according to his
specifications, even when the private schools that his
Cabinet's--Cabinet members' kids go to are all doing it online
or some mixed version of online instruction and in person.
So, federalism is on the side of the majority here. It's
the administration that is defeating the values of federalism
by trying to use money as a threat to force people to meet the
will of the President.
Now, Mr. Runcie, six weeks before the fall back-to-school
period, 210 of your teachers and contractors in Broward County
schools tested positive for COVID-19, representing 138
different school campuses.
Can you explain what happens concretely if a teacher or
student gets sick in a classroom of 25 students and one or two
teachers? What happens from there, and what does that do to the
entire school environment?
Mr. Runcie. Well, that's certainly--thank you, Congressman,
for the question.
That's certainly going to cause some major disruption. We
require everyone to self-report. We would then have to isolate
the individuals. They would have to go under, you know,
quarantine. They can't come back until they get tested, two
negative tests. So, they would be out for at least a couple of
weeks.
We then have to go trace and identify everyone who has been
in direct contact as well as indirect contact and establish
protocols for them to quarantine or be able to monitor
themselves.
If it's limited to one particular classroom, we could find
a way to obviously deal with that. If we see other cases that
materialize in the school, then you're looking at a situation
where you may need to shut down the entire school and then, you
know, clean and then potentially come back.
So, it's an enormously disruptive situation, and I'll tell
you that a large part of it, you just have one case in a
school, it's going to create a climate of fear that makes it
difficult to have a reasonable learning environment, right? So,
we really need to take that into account, that what happens in
the school and the climate that's created when you have that.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you so much.
Ms. Skillings, we're very sorry about the loss of your
colleague and your friend to COVID-19.
Can you tell us what the impact of this tragic loss was on
her students and then the rest of the school body and the
teachers in terms of thinking about what to do with respect to
returning in the fall?
Is----
Chairman Clyburn. Ms. Skillings?
I don't think Ms. Skillings--Ms. Skillings, can you hear?
Ms. Skillings. That's for me?
Mr. Raskin. Yes, that's for you.
Ms. Skillings. Can you hear me OK?
Chairman Clyburn. Yes, we can hear you.
Ms. Skillings. I cannot hear any of you. I have a friend
who is live streaming and letting me hear her through her cell
phone.
I can tell you that, in our community, the parents have
expressed that the students are feeling a lot of stress with
the loss of our colleague. Yesterday, many of them got her
letter from the end of the year with a poem with their names on
it, and a parent shared on social media their students crying
and reading the heartfelt poem that she wrote for each
individual student.
As for former students, I have had former students call me
and express how it is hard for them at the loss of a teacher
that they all have come to love and admire. So, many of them
have gone into education because of being in her classroom.
As for the teachers and our staff, we have been devastated.
It is the hardest thing to go through the loss of someone who
you are so close to.
We have a very low teacher turnover. Teachers are here to
stay because we come from this community, and we stay in our
community and dedicate ourselves to this family.
Chairman Clyburn. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you.
And, Secretary Duncan, what would it mean for schools
across America----
Ms. Skillings. You're behind, Jena, so I don't hear.
Mr. Raskin. I'm sorry. What would it mean----
Chairman Clyburn. Mr.----
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. for schools across America if they
decide quickly to reopen in the fall and then large groups of
teachers----
Chairman Clyburn. Mr. Raskin?
Mr. Raskin [continuing]. staff, and students get sick----
Chairman Clyburn. Mr. Raskin?
Mr. Raskin. Yes?
Chairman Clyburn. Your time has expired.
Mr. Raskin. Ah, OK.
Chairman Clyburn. You are recognized. Do you have a request
to make?
Mr. Raskin. I would like to submit for the record a letter
from the National Education Association on behalf of its 3
million members to the committee.
Chairman Clyburn. Thanks for submitting that in advance,
and, without objection, it will be entered into the record.
Chairman Clyburn. And, with that, Mr. Kim is recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. Kim. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to all the
witnesses for joining us here today.
As a father of two boys, I know firsthand what worried
parents are feeling as they're getting their kids ready for
this next upcoming year, and what we all want to do is do
everything right for our kids, make sure that we are taking
care of them, and making sure that they are safe.
What we owe the American people coming from Congress,
coming from our government, is to talk straight about the
challenges that we face, and make sure there is no
misrepresentation, no way that we're trying to skew facts or
other assessments here, and that's why I find it so frustrating
that, in the last several hearings, I continue to hear
colleagues of mine cite the American Academy of Pediatrics to
support their arguments.
Given how much time they cite the American Academy of
Pediatrics, I wonder if they actually took some time to be able
to just pick up the phone and call them and talk to them about
their perspective because I did that just yesterday. I called
the American Academy of Pediatrics and talked to them, and what
I heard from them was a crystal-clear frustration on their part
by having the Trump administration misrepresenting their
position and using them as a political prop. And that's
something that we just need to make sure we get past because
they have also spoken out publicly about this, saying that the
original guidance of theirs was, quote, misrepresented and
misunderstood.
So, let's just stop this and make sure that we have a
discussion straight with the American people and talking
through what it is that we need to do to get our kids an
education and to keep them safe.
I personally believe that there is a common-ground approach
to this that a lot of Americans understand. I think both
Republicans and Democrats both believe that in-person education
would be best if we're able to achieve that with the health
conditions that we face.
I also believe that most Americans, Republicans and
Democrats, believe that science and medical expertise should
play a key role in making these decisions, and that the health
of students, teachers, and education support professionals need
to be high in the mind as we're making these critical decisions
going forward.
I also believe that many of us agree that there is no one-
size-fits-all solution across this country and that states and
local communities should be able to make these decisions. I
agree that--I also believe that Republicans and Democrats
agree--and I hope they agree--that we should be prepared to
provide significant support and funding to our schools to be
able to achieve this.
That's why I get so frustrated when I continue to see
comments coming from the President to other elected leaders
that are saying otherwise, so I wanted to--just yesterday, I
saw an interview on Fox News, the President told the American
people, quote, we're set to rock and roll, but the big problem
we have is Democrats don't want to open their schools because
they think it's going to hurt the elections for the
Republicans.
Mr. Runcie, I wanted to direct this one to you: From your
perspective, is there any truth to the President's claim that
school districts are not opening up for political reasons?
Mr. Runcie. Absolutely not. I can tell you that my school
board, this administration, our entire community has been
working day and night, seven days a week, trying to figure out
how we can open schools, and our intent, as with the planning
that we started last spring, was to get to a point where we
could at least do a hybrid, right, where we have some days in
school, some days online where we could execute CDC guidelines.
That's not feasible, again, because of what's going on in the
community. Our schools are connected to that.
The other thing I would say is that, look, our buildings,
they may be closed, but education is still open. We spent the
entire summer training and training our teachers with a laser
white focus to make sure that the online experience, the
eLearning that is going to be delivered, is going to be
substantially different, and so we put a number of things in
place, in addition to training, to make sure that they're
effective, they can engage their students.
We've also created two different schedules for our
elementary so that there is a morning session and there is an
afternoon-evening session for K-5 to accommodate parents who
may have to work or may not be there to support their youngest
learners.
We were talking about tutoring earlier. At our secondary
level, we are creating what some may call, you know, homework
hotline, but it's after-school support, where there is going to
actually be an educator that's certified and available to help
students in core subject areas or their families now be
available between 3 to 9 o'clock. That's something that we'll
probably retain going beyond this pandemic, and so----
Mr. Kim. Look, I really appreciate that, and the
thoughtfulness that you've put into this really comes across,
and I've talked to a lot of school districts in my own
district, and none of them are looking at this through the
local lens. Enough is enough, and we need to make sure that
we're getting our kids the education that they need, and we
don't need to have that politics as a part of that. And any
assessment or any statement that accuses our education
officials across this country of doing so is just flat-out
wrong.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to turn back to you and just
continue our work to try to come across and build this common-
ground approach to be able to get our kids an education safely
and responsibly.
Thank you so much.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you, Mr. Kim, and thanks to all of
you for your participation here today.
Let me thank all the panelists. And, at this point, I am
ready to yield to the ranking member for a closing statement,
but I can't see him. Under the rules, I've got to be able to
see him. I don't know if he's still with us.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Mr. Chairman, the ranking member had to
step off. He's got another event to attend, and I have been
volunteered to close for him, if that's OK?
Chairman Clyburn. Absolutely. I now yield to you for that
purpose.
Mr. Luetkemeyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all our
witnesses. It's been a great hearing today, and, you know, the
title of the hearing was ``Challenges to Safely Reopening K-12
Schools.'' And I think we all thoroughly vetted the problems
that we see.
There's concerns obviously for many in many different ways,
and I just want to go through some of the things here that I--
you know, the scientists and the pediatricians that we rely on
for the scientific and the data to show that we can do this
safely are all recommending this, whether it's Dr. Fauci, Dr.
Redfield at the CDC, the academy of pediatricians, they all
have guidelines. They all have plans on how we can do this
safely.
You know, throughout this situation, we've talked about the
health risks, and there is no doubt there are some health
risks. But, again, in the paper I showed earlier of the CDC,
they discuss very thoroughly the health risks with regards to
the common flu, how your children are more at risk of the flu
than they are of the COVID. In our state of Missouri, we lost
more people to the flu than we have COVID.
So, I think perspective is needed here to be able to
understand the risks that are involved, and I think the points
have been made a couple different times that it's up to local
officials to make those decisions based on their science and
the involvement that you have with the community and the
medical community with regards to how COVID is progressing in
your community. That needs to be paramount.
Obviously, it's low risk with regards to children. It
doesn't mean no risk, but there is very, very minimal risk.
Science has shown that children under 18, there is a minimal
risk to their being exposed to some learning issues that we
have.
The fourth thing I want to talk about here is, the system
that we have in place, if we do the virtual learning--I admire
the testimony today of the different folks talking about
virtual learning. That's fine, but we've heard over and over
again, even from the American Academy of Pediatricians, as well
as the teachers unions--and I can read the statement from
teachers unions: This past spring, unwanted--this spring's
unwanted experiment has made clear what we had long known
before the pandemic: remote learning cannot be a substitute for
in-person learning. Eighty-six percent of our members--this is
the teachers union now--said we believe the digital learning
time this past spring was inadequate for their students.
So, while it is a substitute and can get us by for a period
of time, it is not a long-range strategy. We need to understand
how we have to manage this disease so that we can get control
of it, so we can get our kids in the classroom in any way
that's possible.
Other countries have done this--a lot of the countries
include Austria, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway,
Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore--have
implemented different types of protocols in place that have
helped the students be able to stay in school and learn that
away.
Then one of the things that we don't discuss very much that
was mentioned a time or two today was the safety factor for
kids. Last week, Dr. Redfield made the comment about how the
opioid problems, the suicide problems are exacerbated by kids
staying at home. The child abuse problem, there has been a 50
percent drop in children being reported as being abused, yet
the emergency rooms are being flooded by kids.
So, there's a lot of things to consider here. Again, the
challenges, as the title of this committee hearing was
challenges to safely reopening our schools, it is great, but
it's not something we can't overcome, and it's not something
that we don't have a plan for, a plan that can be--that we can
be flexible enough to be able to be changed as we know more
about the disease, and as we learn better processes and
procedures.
So, with that, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for the
opportunity to close and to also our guests today for their
testimony.
I yield back.
Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much for yielding back the
time.
Before I make my closing statement, let me briefly address
the repeated claims that have been made that public health
experts are recommending reopening all schools for in-person
learning.
The truth is the President's public health advisors have
made clear that reopening schools is especially risky in
communities where the coronavirus is spreading at a high rate.
Dr. Redfield, the CDC Director, said--and I quote--in areas
where there are hotspots, remote and distance learning may need
to be adopted for some amount of time.
And Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House
Coronavirus Task Force, explained--and I quote--if you have
high caseload and active community spread, just like we're
asking people not to go to bars, not to have household parties,
not to create large spreading events, we're asking people to
distance learn at this moment so we can get this epidemic under
control.
So, the experts are unanimous: Further reopening schools in
virus hotspots is extraordinarily risky.
Now, as I close, I want to thank all of our guests here
today, and I want to say that your remarks have been very
powerful.
Superintendent Runcie, I know you are starting school for
270,000 students and 30,000 staffs in about two weeks. Everyone
here wishes you and your colleagues across the country the very
best as you shepherd students and families through a very
challenging school year.
Ms. Skillings, I want to express again my condolences for
the loss of your colleague. I am hopeful that your testimony
today will help others understand the risks faced by teachers
and staff. Absolutely everyone on both sides of the aisle
recognizes how important it is to reopen schools.
I'll say it again: We all want schools to open, and we want
them--our students to thrive. But this cannot come at the cost
of lives. Not attending school in person causes harms that are
not to be taken lightly, but there are ways to at least
partially mitigate these harms.
There is no way to bring a parent, a teacher, or a child
back to life once they've died from this virus. I was
particularly interested in Dr. Green's comments about his state
of Tennessee. He has pleaded for us to listen to the people of
Tennessee.
Well, we are. That's exactly what everybody's been saying
here today. But what we're hearing is that, irrespective of
what may be going on in your state, if you don't reopen
schools, we're going to cutoff funds.
That's not coming from anybody on this panel. Mr. Lee, I
believe--we heard from Mr. Lips. He has repeated the word
``flexibility'' several times. That flexibility, it seems to
me, has got to be throughout the system. Flexibility has got to
be there for local school districts. And when it is determined
by the school district that there is too wide a spread in this
community for us to have in-school learning, they ought not
have their funds cut off; they ought to have more funds coming
in order to have online learning. And for some strange reason,
no one has talked here today about the heating and air
conditioning units.
To me, when there is an outbreak, we could talk about
cleaning things up. If this virus gets into a school maybe from
three or four children and they've got a faulty HVAC system, it
seems to me that we ought to be giving them the funds that's
necessary to repair that system, not take the funds away for
not opening the schools.
So, let me just say that I, as a former public school
teacher, I recognize that children can catch and spread the
viruses. I've been in the classroom with a flu outbreak. I also
know how high-risk hotspots can be, and so this is why CDC must
provide school districts with clear, science-based guidance
about the risks of physically reopening schools.
Second, we must take affirmative steps to control the
spread of the virus in communities. This is going to require
shared sacrifice. Some sacrifices are minor, like requiring
everyone to wear masks. We need strong Federal leadership and a
national plan to guide these choices, not wishful thinking.
Finally, instead of illegal threats to cutoff Federal funds
schools that follow public health guidance, we must provide
school districts the funding and assistance they need to
educate children safely. Regardless of whether a school opts to
begin the school year remotely or in person, significant
resources will be required for them to be flexible. Congress
must allocate these resources.
We have heard today about the struggle of remote learning
for students and families, and especially heartbreaking are the
challenges faced by children with special educational needs or
mental health concerns and children in hard-hit communities
already struggling with this pandemic.
Families living in red zones will not benefit, however,
from sending their children into unsafe schools. The only way
we can provide real relief to these families is to take control
of the pandemic as fast as we can.
So, if my colleagues are serious about getting kids back to
school safely, I want to ask them to join me in demanding
Federal leadership to contain the coronavirus instead of
wishing it will go away. As the President said, it won't go
away. We have to make it go away.
Our country failed to follow the science-based guidance for
safe reopening provided by the select committee's first public
briefing, and, as a result, more lives were lost; more
livelihoods were destroyed; and, according to the CDC, we are
not in a position where all of our schools can safely resume
in-person operations.
We must learn from these mistakes, not repeat them. Our
children's futures are at stake.
Before we close, I want to enter into the record a report
of the American Federation of Teachers called ``Reopening
Schools Safely,'' as well as a position statement of the
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and a letter they
sent to Secretary DeVos.
I ask unanimous consent for these materials to be entered
into the record. So ordered.
Chairman Clyburn. Now, without objection, all members will
have five legislative days within which to submit additional
written questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be
forwarded to the witnesses for their response.
I ask our witnesses to please respond as promptly as you
are able to.
This meeting is hereby adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:14 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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