Thread by @Malinowski

I've spoken to dozens of school superintendents and principals in the last few weeks.

My takeaway is that if we truly cared about our kids and opening school safely, we'd shut down the country, all of it this time, for 3 weeks and get this over with. npr.org/sections/coron…

Of course that could only happen with bipartisan buy-in, including from the president, and that won't happen. So we're stuck with Plan B: prolonging the pain and saddling our educators and parents with impossible choices.

What, then, should be done?

My main priority as a member of Congress has been to fight for relief for our state & local governments, so our schools have the resources to do the impossible, whether learning is remote or in person.

This is the key issue in our negotiations with the president right now.

If we have any in-person instruction, I've urged Governor Murphy to prioritize schools for our limited rapid COVID testing resources. Teachers & students are going to seek tests when they feel sick. If they have to wait 10 days for results, there will be chaos and closures.

Guidelines on issues like masks and mask breaks, screening students, distancing, & quarantine times should be applied uniformly across the state. Educators shouldn't be making public health decisions, and don't want school districts pitted against each other.

My personal view is that it would be better to ask schools to do one thing right rather than juggling in-person & remote learning. And the benefits of in-person will be limited if kids can't play or interact with each other and everyone is on edge about masks and distancing.

But I recognize this is a painful call. Parents need to work, and remote learning fails many kids.

I'll keep doing what I can to get us the resources to make this tolerable. And then let's get some national leadership that cares more about protecting kids than opening bars.