State officials have launched an online hub intended for school staff and parents to find guidance and resources on the state’s planned resumption of in-person classes, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday.
The website, schools.covid19.ca.gov, allows school staff and parents to report coronavirus-related health and safety concerns and access resources about the state’s education-related public health directives and on-campus coronavirus testing.
“Learning is non-negotiable, and getting our kids and staff back into the classroom safely will help us continue turning the corner on this pandemic,” Newsom said in a statement.
The website will accompany the state’s $2 billion Safe Schools for All plan, which Newsom outlined in December and will focus on reopening schools in February for students in transitional kindergarten through second grade and progressing into higher grades later into the spring.
The funding will support testing of school staff and students, personal protective equipment, contact tracing and vaccinations.
Newsom, in unveiling his proposed state budget last week, asked the state legislature to preemptively allocate the $2 billion before the end of the month to ensure the reopening plan proceeds smoothly.
Many schools across the state have resumed in-person classes in recent months in some form or for certain groups like special needs students.
The state allowed schools to resume in-person classes once their county had been out of the purple tier – the most restrictive in the county’s four-tiered pandemic reopening plan – for at least two weeks.
Those schools were allowed to continue holding in-person classes even after the state issued its regional stay-at home order for roughly 80 percent of California’s counties.
As of November, schools in 41 counties were holding in-person classes to some extent, according to Newsom, while schools in the remaining 17 were mostly holding classes online.
“With proposed new funding and ongoing conversations with districts, school employees, stakeholders and the legislature, we remain committed to our Safe Schools for All Plan and helping all students – with a focus on those in disproportionately impacted communities – get the help they need to return to in-person instruction,” Newsom said.
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Voice your concerns and worries at meltingsnowflakes.com
The teacher unions ‘violate’ taxpayers every day.
Do the surging youth depression and suicide rates count?
Learning is non negotiable? Well, then how do they justify this distance learning, which consists of very little learning through a medium in which most kids don’t learn well? If it was non-negotiable, then he would have ordered the teachers back into the classrooms. This neve should have happened in the first place.
They refuse to negotiate. And that’s why is is non-negotiable.
Well, sounds like mass layoffs are in order. Fire them for dereliction of duties. At this point, most parents are the ones delivering the actual schooling. What the teachers are doing is not really teaching. I am doing just about everything for and with my kids, all while working full time in person (because I will not abandon MY duties). Even if we don’t have enough teachers, fie them anyways. Fewer teachers can be used for “online learning.” At that point, they won’t be so happy that so many are being let go and the unions will cave. We need to play hard ball and take back the power. Too bad the school board in the in union’s pocket.
The California ‘education system’ is designed to compensate and protect teachers, and garner donations to the reelection of Democrat politicians, not to actually educate children.
The rats are out.
Teacher like doing half the work from home while wearing their underwear rather than come into work and do twice the work for the same amount of money. This must have been the greatest year of any teacher’s life, professionally speaking, like a big ol’ partially paid vacation.
What a surprise.
You’re ridiculous.
here’s the first complaint:
why have the governors children been in in-person classes all along while the rest of us have had our children’s education and lives turned upside down?
#RecallGavinNewsom
It’s “do what I say, not what I do”.