President Biden’s new goal to reopen schools – to have more than 50% of public schools offering at least one day of face-to-face classes per week – is behind what the country’s public schools already have.
According to data from Burbio, a digital platform that tracks school data from across the country, 66 percent of students from kindergarten through 12th grade are already attending traditional face-to-face classes five days a week, or are on a hybrid schedule – which means they attend at least one day a week or more.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki surprised reporters earlier this week by saying that schools will be considered “open” as long as they teach in person at least one day a week – a goal that the US is already largely achieving .
Psaki tried to soften the White House announcement on Wednesday, telling reporters that the president’s ideal goal “is that all schools reopen, remain open, open five days a week, for children to learn.”
“This is where our focus is,” said Psaki. “This is simply a goal for 100 days.”
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Psaki said that the “majority” of schools across the country are not operating with “open” status – although only 34 percent of students in the U.S. are still attending “only virtual” classes, without the option of attending in person.
“It really depends, it differs from school district to school district,” she said on Wednesday.
While the White House’s goal of “reopening” schools remains dubious, they are facing a reality check in urban areas like Chicago and San Francisco, where teacher unions are resisting re-entry into classrooms.
The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against the Education Council and the San Francisco Unified School District in a final effort to reopen schools across the city.
“The Education Council and the school district had more than 10 months to launch a concrete plan to put these children back in school,” said city attorney Dennis Herrera in a statement after last week’s lawsuit. “So far, they have earned an F.”
“Having a plan to make a plan is not enough,” he added.
The city claimed that the school is violating the state constitution by providing access to public schools and discriminating against low-income students, who cannot afford to attend one of the more than 110 private schools in the city that have reopened.
Chicago, meanwhile, officially avoided a strike on Wednesday after the Chicago Teachers’ Union and Mayor Lori Lightfoot finally reached an agreement to put teachers back safely in classrooms, the report reported for the first time. Chicago Tribune.
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Swarms of teachers initially rejected Lightfoot’s attempt at an ultimatum, telling them that if they weren’t in their classrooms on Monday, they would be considered absent without a license and would be fired – which led some to worry that the city could have a teacher strike hands.
The mayor did not live up to the threat and a deal was struck on Wednesday, meaning that teachers will be back to school starting tomorrow.
CDC director Rochelle Walensky told reporters last week that the vaccine is not a requirement to put teachers back in the classroom.
“There is growing data that suggests that schools can reopen safely and that the safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated,” Walensky said at a news conference. “Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools.”
The CDC is expected to release additional details this week to schools on how to safely reopen and return children to the classroom for face-to-face training.
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But even if more teachers agree to return to their classrooms without first receiving a vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned in January that reaching this goal of reopening schools across the country “cannot happen” due to unforeseen circumstances.