Trump Pushes Schools To Reopen, Michigan Sues Ed Dept Over CARES Funding, Airborne Transmission

Jul 8, 2020, 4:37 PM

(from U.S. News & World Report) "We hope that most schools are going to be open. We are very much going to put pressure on governors and everybody else to open the schools to get them open," said President Trump yesterday. In making the argument for a full reopening of schools, White House officials pointed to a recent report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that advised school districts to do everything they can to bring students back to classrooms. Still, the United States has been averaging roughly 50,000 new cases a day this week -- double what it reported in mid-June.

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(from MLive) Announced yesterday, Michigan is spearheading a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over the distribution of funding under the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. CARES distributed $13 billion in emergency education funding to states to support school districts. The funding was allocated for things like sanitizing schools, purchasing educational technology and training teachers to use online tools. Michigan state officials say the guidance the U.S. Department of Education issued on how to actually distribute those funds runs contrary to the law and pushes money toward private schools.

(from the New York Times) After hundreds of experts urged the World Health Organization to review mounting scientific research, the agency acknowledged on Tuesday that airborne transmission of the coronavirus may be a threat in indoor spaces. What does this mean for school reopenings? Many schools are poorly ventilated and are too poorly funded to invest in new filtration systems. Most children younger than 12 seem to have only mild symptoms, if any, so elementary schools may get by. The problem may be larger for secondary schools.

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