Thread by @Brandi_Buchman

Join me at 2PM ET as I live-tweet the @COVIDOversight Cmte's hearing with education and public health experts examining challenges to the safe reopening of K-12 schools.

https://twitter.com/COVIDOversight/status/1290693534996205568

You can catch the live-stream here:

We begin with @WhipClyburn remarks.
Trump threatened to cut funding to states that won't open schools. Trump said the virus will just "go away." Trump is basing his push to open schools not on science or safety but politics and "wishful thinking."

Clyburn's first job was as as HS history teacher. His wife was a school librarian. 2 of his grandkids are school age.
There is great anticipation to return to school. He knows this.

But the admin must do more than it has been.
Reopening schools safely is just not possible across much of the country, Clyburn says.
The virus spread so thoroughly in U.S. because of a slow-rolled response by Trump admin, per Fauci last week, he notes.
courthousenews.com/white-house-vi…

Thousands of children have tested positive for the virus.
Children are not immune.
To believe children are immune is to be engaged in magical thinking.
Schools in red zones or high-risk areas are facing massive challenges.
It's not much better outside of those zones.

"Our schools face life or death decisions to reopen because the federal government has failed to get the virus control over the last six months, Clyburn says, but there are steps the govt can take to help schools safely reopen in person and stay open."

How to do this? There must be sufficient funding for schools to clean schools, to reconfigure ventilation systems, to start.

.@BetsyDeVosED was invited to speak to Congress today about how to reopen schools, but she declined to attend today, per @WhipClyburn

Ranking member of the cmte Steve Scalise is going over stats on children and Covid-19 and insists that children are low-risk.

From JAMA Pediatrics - the science says: children under 5 carry just as many of the virus cells in their noses as older children and adults.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…

Scalise is also advocating social distancing in schools and widespread mask wearing to safely reopen.

Six feet between desks, open windows to improve ventilations, conduct classrooms outdoors where possible, increase wipe downs.
If someone is going to get sick, and we know its going to happen, have a plan in place, Scalise says.

DC schools are not reopening in the fall in person.
Scalise laments: Not one child has died in the D.C. area but they've shut down schools.
If you consider the damage keeping kids out of school does, how do you justify the closures, he asks

Our witnesses today include: Secy Arne Duncan, former Secretary of Education; Dr. Caitlin Rivers, sr scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; Robert Runcie, superintendent, Broward County Public Schools in Fla. & Angela Skillings, teacher @ Hayden Winkelman USD in Az.

Runcie is beginning the school year online. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, notes, and leading the way in that county for school reopening precautions.

Skillings contracted the virus while teaching summer schools. She recovered, other teachers did not. One died.

Everyone has been sworn in.

Arne Duncan, frmr ed secy under Barack Obama, opens his remarks today by saying the pandemic started as a natural disaster but turned into a "man-made catastrophe" because of the lackluster response

"Everyone is looking to our fed govt to show some leadership here because in the absence of a plan, superintendents are forced to solve problems on their own."
We are asking them to make life and death public health decisions, he says.

There are 15k school districts that we are now asking to become 15k health care providers "without any real resources or expertise."

Schools are being forced to choose between protecting health and keeping funding flowing after Trump's threat.

Duncan: We are in this situation because our fed. leadership failed us. Period. It did not have to be this way. If we had done what was necessary in the spring; wearing masks, socially distancing, testing at scale, contact tracing...

"We could have brought back school in the summer to recoup lost learning time. If we valued teachers and students more than our bars and restaurants, we would be sitting here today with a better chance of our schools reopening." - Arne Duncan, former Secy of Ed
@CourthouseNews

Our goal can't just be reopening schools. It must to be to keep them open.

While we can't go back in time to redo the fed response at the start of the pandemic, Duncan argues, what we can do now, at the least, is put children front and center.

Dr. Caitlin Rivers of Johns Hopkins delivering her remarks now. No one is disputing the value of schools - whether that's the ed they provide or free meals or counseling etc.
Schools are closed because it was dangerous to keep them open. It is that simple, she argues

Less than 1% of Covid-deaths in US are kids but important to remember, less than 1% isn't zero, Rivers says.
Schools are not only attended by children. There are high risk older staff present. Children return home to parents.

The most imp. factor in determining whether schools should reopen is how the virus is spreading in the community.

State/local control and mitigation measures are directly tied to in-person learning.

In the meantime, here's my report on a related subject:

https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1291447376377454592?s=20

I have to take just a quick break from live-tweeting as witnesses deliver opening remarks but we will get deep into their testimony under questioning momentarily.
Apologies for unexpected interruption.
But here's a stream in the meantime:

I'm back.

Clyburn begins with questions to @DanLips who in his remarks noted how wealth disparities between families will have a significant impact on children's learning during the pandemic.
How to address this?

Deploying remote tech to families who need it is a key strategy, yes, but providing direct aid to families for tutors, child care, things that will help address the "outside school" learning gap - also critical.

Forming "pandemic pods" works for some families. Not all. nytimes.com/2020/07/22/par…

Providing remote instruction to disadvantaged children by providing subsidized internet access and hardware, again, critical.
But directing scholarship aid to families, maybe even partnering families together to receive aid in micro-school would be feasible.

Rep. Maxine Waters asked Arne Duncan how many parents are frightened to send their kids back. Duncan said most are concerned sending back generally and also how time away impacts learning. He underlined later how infection doesn't discrim. on wealth lines.

Duncan: "The murder of George Floyd slapped us in the face w/longstanding existing inequities. We can't hide that." Making sure every child has access to wifi, making it as ubiquitous as water/electricity is the way thru now.
"We have to do that. We should have done that before"

.@RepMaloney notes report from CDC last Friday on Covid outbreak in GA summer camp - children under 10 got the virus at higher rates than older kids and adults according to that report.
Not an isolated incident, 338k children tested positive for Covid.

The politicization of reopening should be put to the side. But schools reflect the communities they are in.
The best thing we can do to keep children, teacher, parents safe is to beat down the % of cases in our communities, Duncan tells lawmakers.

Superintendent Robert Runcie wants to open schools. There's nothing in it for him to not do it, Duncan says.
But his community in Fla. has not done the right thing broadly to keep #s down.
We chose to open bars instead of opening schools, Duncan says again.

If we open prematurely and not thoughtfully, we risk shutting everything back down and all that does is retraumatize children and disrupt life for teachers, he says.

Background prevalence of disease in a community is a huge factor in reopening, Dr. Caitlin Rivers says
In places with moderate/mild level of infection, if schools can put in universal masking, teaching pods/cohorts, widespread use of sanitizer - this could be successful gradually

Republicans on the cmte today are beating the drum very hard on the danger of keeping kids out of school: incomplete learning, exposure to domestic abuse while at home more.
Democrats are not contesting that there is a negative impact to children if they are kept out of schools

Rep. Mark Green, R-TN, urged consideration of the benefit/ratio to reopening. He compared risk to kids from pandemic to the number of children killed in car accidents.
By the logic Dems apply, he argued, kids should never ride in cars because there's a chance they might die.

Duncan on reopening: Nothing is 100% guaranteed but you can try and keep people safe.
Social distancing is obviously critical and it's hard for 4 to 6-year-olds to understand things like no playing tag.
New norms must be established.

Masks are a must.
Plexiglass between desks and teachers.

But we need to start figuring out solutions to the more complex factors: how do we change walking in hallways or keeping bathrooms clean. How do we think about buses and transportation or delivering food?

All of this is really hard, Duncan says, but teachers and principals will have to lead by example and if they don't - the person responsible for that building will have to consider things like asking students or teachers to leave.

And that's to protect not just people in the school but families at home.

.@RepRaskin argues everyone agrees in-person instruction is better than online instruction. That's not the Q.
The issue is that no one knows what is safe in "conditions of chaos" America leads the world in death counts. 338k children have been infected. The admin sows disinfo.

Decisions must be made at the state and local level, not by "heckling" from feds, Raskin notes.
Trump dictates everyone must go back 100% - even when private schools his cabinet members kids go to is private -So, "Federalism is on the side of the majority here, he says.

"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." - @RepRaskin

Runcie emphasizes that testing results have to come back within 48 hours in order for containment to be truly effective. 2 negative tests as well. Tracing for direct/indirect contact would have to be conducted.

Runcie notes if outbreak is limited to 1 classroom, it's easier to deal with. But if other cases materialize, then you're looking at a possible shut down, clean up and return.

"It's an enormously disruptive situation and a large part of it you 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. " - R. Runcie, superintendent of Broward County Schools in Fla.

Rep. Andy Kim, D-NJ, says he is frustrated when he hears GOP colleagues cite the American Academy of Pediatrics to support its push to reopen schools ASAP.
Kim says he wonders why GOP doesn't pick up the phone and call AAP given all the citations.
He did call.

They told Kim their original guidance was misrepresented and misunderstood and they were tired of being used as a prop by Trump admin.
"So let's just stop," Rep Kim says. "There is a common ground approach to this."

Kim: I think both Rs and Ds believe in-person education would be best if we can achieve that with the health conditions we face. Most Rs and Ds believe science should play a key role in making public health decisions.

Many of us agree there's no one size fits all solution and that states/local govt should be able to make decisions.

When Trump suggests Ds dont want to reopen schools, its flatly false, Kim argues.

Kim asks Runcie, is there any truth to Trump's claim that school districts are not opening for political reasons.
Runcie: Absolutely not.

His entire community has worked 7 days a week and overnight to find solutions.

Runcie: Our buildings may be closed but education is still open. We've spent the entire summer training our teachers with laser-like focus to make sure the e-learning experience we'll deliver will be substantially different.

They've been working on providing tutors for parents who work in Broward; ideas like a homework hotline offered by a certified educator to help students w/subjects in core areas from 3 to 9PM is something that will be retained probably long after the pandemic, Runcie says

Clyburn in closing remarks: public health experts are recommending in person learning but the president's own public health experts have made clear that opening schools in areas where there are high rates of contagion is dangerous.

If you have high caseload and active community spread, just like we're asking people not to go 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- Dr. D. Birx

.@WhipClyburn, chair of @COVIDOversight Cmte: "Not attending school in person causes harms that are not be taken lightly but there are ways to at least partially mitigate these harms. There's no way to bring a parent, teacher or child back to life once they die from this virus."