Governor Gavin Newsom has addressed the coronavirus pandemic with admirable calm.
Today, he announced his views about a gradual reopening of the state, depending on the state’s progress in combatting the virus.
Part of his plan–or at least speculation–was the possibility that schools might reopen in late July or early August.
Is this a wise move? I don’t know, neither does anyone else?
Will the disease be under control by then?
There will not be a vaccine. Will the adults who teach and lead and staff the schools feel that the time is right?
Governor Newsom needs to hear from their leaders and work with them to be sure that the schools are safe for both children and adults.
The one overriding lesson of this tragedy is that health matters more than test scores. The grown-ups should stop worrying about children “falling behind,” because everyone is in the same boat. Make sure that everyone is safe.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Will we have sufficient testing to be able to locate hotspots for the virus and contact tracing so that those can be isolated? No, we won’t. We don’t have any leadership.
Asymptomatic kids will give it to their teachers and administrators who then will die. And some of the kids will, too, especially among those who have preexisting conditions, such as diabetes.
Every teacher knows that after a holiday break, the kids bring back colds from all around the country, and then everyone in the school is sick for a few weeks. Let’s try doing that with a lethal disease. Great plan. On the level of “I don’t know, what about injecting yourself with Lysol?”
Asymptotic kids will give it to their math teachers.
Also their English teachers and social studies teachers.
You say asymptomatic, I say asymptotic..
LMAO!
Test scores….most middle class and wealthy parents love them. They are addicted to the fake data. The parents have had to give up those scores “cold turkey” and they are having breakdowns. School was over anyway since it was test prep season going into testing season. The kids will be OK without the tests and the prep…but will the parents?
Nailed it, LisaM!
No tests means no bragging rights for the parents.
“My Suzy got a perfect score on her SAT. She’s a stable genius. By the way, not that it matters, but what did your Johnny get?”
I live in a whole district of these kind of parents. We have the whole “deform” package of goodies here! It’s why child #2 now goes to private HS. Child #1 will be “graduating” out of the public system this year and I can’t wait to leave this area for more mentally grounded and civil human beings. The farther away one gets from DC, the more sane the parents become in relation to schools and learning.
My question, being in a school in Utah in this situation, what about buildings without air conditioning?
This conjecture, without addressing the transformational shifts remote learning has unleashed, is uninformed. Sorry, Governor. How will our school budgets handle the new normal? We have an unprecedented opportunity to re-envision teaching and learning. Add in support for authentic learning and assessment (not DeVos’s sham “grants,”) and maybe we might stop teaching for the 20th century. We need to aim for the 22nd century!
This is a lot of nonsense. Exactly which schools are expected to “reopen” in July?
The school year begins in August for half of the State’s public schools, September for the other half (including colleges and universities.)
He should have called the directors of UCSF’s, UCLA’s, UCI’s, UCSD’s and UCD’s medical programs back in January and put pressure on them to get a COVID-19 antibody test ready by March. Then, they should have started testing the millions of school kids that were sick back in January and February, to see what percentage of them had picked up the virus during the THREE SEPARATE WAVES of “flu” that hit schools after winter break.
You know what they would have found? That 20-30% of the kids already got COVID-19 a couple months before. Instead, we’re siting here, twiddling our thumbs. In their infinite wisdom they’re only testing adults for coronavirus…and finding that 10-20% of them have already had it.
Newsom is a tool, and he’s probably going to get recalled next March…
IMHO, this would be a useless move if the intent is to provide additional time to “cover” an outdated and unresponsive curriculum. Assuming increased confidence in safeguarding the health of these involved, having additional to help students and teacher adapt to a more student centered, experiential approach to expanded and more equitable learning opportunities would worth serious consideration.
Newsom has shown real leadership during the pandemic, but this is the third time during COVID that he has dropped important school news without telling the school districts. He has also not offered us any money for this initiative.