Hey everyone, and welcome to Parenting Beyond the Headlines. I'm Sarah Cody.
I'm here along with my friend and co host Amy Alabar. How you even
today, Amy, Hey, Sarah, I'm doing well. I am now
from Texas. We used to go Bite coastal and now we're sort of mid
country from one another. Guess where I've gone since you've moved to the West
Coast. I don't know nowhere. I'm still in the same living room that
you know. I keep bouncing around. So it's good to talk to you.
We're in the end of summer and kind of looking forward to back to
school, looking forward with a little bit of nervousness. We've seen a rise
in COVID cases, breakthrough cases, and we're very excited to be talking with
Kiln Belsha, who's a national education reporter for Chalkbee. Thank you for joining
us, kailin Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. Yea, So
we talk to you a couple months ago, and we were in the heart
of things then and since then it felt like we were really on the right
track, that vaccines were happening, that school might happen without masks and in
a normal fashion. And then all of a sudden, what amy the past
two weeks seems like we're looking at a different scenario again. The CDC has
been speaking out the last few days about masks and schools. What is your
understanding about where we stand? It seems like we're looking towards masks in school.
Yes, so I would say yeah, if you would ask me this
question a couple weeks ago, my answer would have been very different. So
this week the CDC did reverse some earlier GUIDANCETEAD had put out at the beginning
of July, suggesting that it would have been okay for vaccinated students and staff
to go maskless, and this week they're saying that their recommendation is that everyone
inside school buildings K twelve keep those masks on, especially to help prevent again
the new more highly contagious delta variant. There's been some new science that shows
that vaccinated folks can spread that if they're infected, and so out of an
abundance of caution, that is their recommendation. The American Association of Pediatrics Academy
of Pediatrics also had issued similar recommendations. A lot of teachers unions are on
board with that, so it seems in general like that's the recommendation, but
we've seen lats of states that may not be following that. So I think
we're heading into a time where there's going to be a huge patchwork of policies.
Is this complicating planning for a lot of school districts. So I think
it's going to be really interesting in the fall to see where the chips fall
and who actually follows that. So, you know, you talk about changing
policies, and we saw companies kind of inviting people back or starting to make
preparations, I know for maybe after Labor Day, and now they're holding off.
We're seeing some companies saying nope, not going to start just yet,
We're going to wait, maybe require vaccines. What are you seeing with schools
have they made decisions, had they even made them yet to reopen in person
like, what are you seeing as trends across the country? I would say,
you know, I'm still seeing the push for reopening five days a week,
full time in person learning. I think that that is not going to
change. I think people know that some of the academic effects of the pandemic
have been really strong, and we've gotten a lot more data recently about what
those effects have been. So I have not seen districts kind of scaling back
their plans to reopen, But I mean it might change what some families feel
and whether or not they want to try to take a virtual option. There
are some states that tried to ban virtual options, so again, it's going
to really depend on what your state says and does. But I could see
some families choosing maybe a different choice for their child and seeing how comfortable they
feel, especially if their kid is under twelve and is not eligible for the
vaccine. I could see some families being hesitant. We've seen polling data that
shows black and Latino families are still the most hesitant about in person learning,
although by the end of the school year, nearly every child had the opportunity
to do in person learning, but many families were still choosing to stay home.
So it really kind of it's unclear what's going to happen, but I
haven't seen anyone totally rolling back saying we're not going to reopen. I read
a tweet this morning that Governor DeSantis in Florida is going to let families do
whatever they want to do despite the CDC's recommendation. So I think you're right
that we're going to see just a cacophony of confusing differences amongst the state,
which is the way it's been, frankly with masks and for the past few
months. My son asked an interesting question. So we got an email from
my son's schools school. They both go to a private, all boys Catholic
school, and it said that as of now, of the six hundred students,
two hundred have sent in vaccine cards, and that you know, wasn't
a great number, and that anyone who hasn't sent in the vax the scan
of the vax card send it on in and they hope it grew by the
time school started, etc. Etc. My son said to me, since
we go to a private school, can they mandate masks, mom, like
a college's I guess the college is mandating vacs, That's what he said.
Can they mandate vaccines like a college is? And I said, I don't
know. So do you have any wisdom on that public schools versus private schools
can some mandate things that others can't. Well, I can say, like
in general, you know, we know that schools are allowed to mandate vaccines,
they have for many, many years. But I think the problem right
now is the FDA hasn't issued its full approval of the vaccine, and many
kids can't get the vaccine yet. So we've seen a hesitancy of K twelve
public schools to require it. Yet because of that, I think there is
an expectation that eventually it will be required. So I haven't tracked exactly how
private schools have been responding, but yes, we have seen certainly colleges are
starting to indicate that they're going to ask their staff and students to do so.
We saw recently the New York City Public Schools is going to start wiring
its staff to get it. We've also seen discussion of perhaps like federal employees
will be required to get it. So I think we're starting to like see
movement in that direction. But it's certainly in the past. You know,
there hasn't been problems with requiring the facts like vaccines in general, So you
do see that somewhere down the line when all of this works out further,
maybe the next school year or even the next It wouldn't surprised me yea if
that became an eventual requirement, But I think right now. It's just there's
a lot of questions about whether or not younger children it's safe for them and
things like that. That's interesting, and I've seen it with my older kids.
You know, their colleges are requiring it and their public colleges. You
know, what do you see into I feel badly for my sons. I'm
not a mom who's like parents against masking. I'm not if masking is going
to solve this, let's mask up. But on the other hand, my
boys are high school age, so all those kids have the ability to get
the vaccine if they can. We've tried to do all the right things.
They're fully vaccinated, We've followed the rules. So I do feel bad if
if high school comes in September and they have to wear masks again for tests
and things like that, where it is somewhat distracting. So do you find
I know you're you're focused more on the academics and the education, but in
terms of the social world around that parents, and I think there's going to
be shaming too, right, Yeah, judgment going to be an uncomfortable situation
in school come fall because of all that I'm saying. Yeah, I mean
I think because the previous CDC guidance had indicated that it probably would have been
okay for a lot of high schools to go without masks, and so I
think probably a lot of kids were excited about that. It is a lot
easier to talk to your friends and to your teacher. It's easier for your
teacher to hear you. We have heard teachers say like, there's just it's
harder to make connections when you can't see facial expressions, and for sure that
can impact kids who already went a year with a lot of social isolation and
not getting to spend as much time with people. I do think that in
general, we've seen like pretty good compliance rates when schools have asked their students
to put them on in the classroom. But I also know that it's really
hard to enforce a policy that's not equally applied across everyone. And so some
folks have said, well, when you have universal policies, it's just easier
to know you're not constantly asking kids are you vaccinated? Are you not?
And like you mentioned earlier, we've seen just the uptake and students getting vaccinated
that being as high as many federal health officials had expected. Recently this week,
the President directed school districts to hold more pop up vaccine clinics and is
asking all the pharmacies that are participating in the federal pharmacy program to try to
work with them to do that. So I think just right now, while
the vaccine rate among a lot of students is low, it's just a difficult
time. But I mean, in school still have the ability to make these
policies, and so if they see that there's a really big vaccination rate in
their school, like, they have the ability day to make that call.
So it's going to be again by the state, by the community, and
kind of what the behavior husband. But for sure it's still not going to
be a normal school year, and there are still going to be some effects
on kids socially, academically and emotionally. Yeah, you talked about that before,
you talked about the academic loss, and I'm curious to know, you
know, if they are offering choices for kids, will we see a further
gap do you think between the kids who choose to be in person? I
mean, I don't even know how the schools would would plan to staff for
both versions. Are you looking at how they're doing that. I mean again,
I'm sure you're going to say it varies state to state and school to
school, but you know, any trends any ways that people are trying to
face this. Yeah, I mean, I think we learned a lot about
what works for a virtual education and what does not, and for a lot
of studenss is not work. I mean, I think one thing we've seen
is that schools are really trying to move away from hybrid where a teacher is
responsible for teaching in per and kids who are home virtually at the same time.
That really does not work. Kids are distracted, the teacher is distracted.
It's really hard to teach that way. So we're seeing a lot of
places get rid of that. But there's also just going to be just fewer
kids who are probably learning virtually, and so when you lose that scale,
you lose some of the structure. And so I think there are concerns about
what kind of quality education kids will get if they are staying virtual, and
whether or not there will be as many dedicated teachers, if some of that
might be outsourced to companies. So I think it's going to be trickier when
there are fewer kids learning that way. But there's also more teachers who have
more practice doing it, and so there's like a little bit more experience and
comfort level, and kids are more comfortable doing that too. So I think
we're going to see kind of it'll go both ways. But yeah, we're
definitely very interested to see what those virtual options look like, and many school
districts are still offering them. Anecdotally, to me, it seems like people
are leaving the field of education. Is that happening, Like I've just noticed
in my area where I moved from in San Francisco and now I'm in a
new district, and it looks like they're having trouble hiring and that people are
retiring superintendence principles teachers. You know, is that happening? Is that a
trend or am I just sort of magnifying it in my head because of what's
going on. I mean, there is some level of turnover kind of every
year, and so, you know, teachers retire and things like that.
So the research that I have seen has not shown a dramatic uptick in teachers
leaving the field, although I think that there are some expectations that over the
coming school year we might see that. But by the end of last school
year. In the states that looked at this, there were not indications at
the pandemic had done that. I think for a couple of reasons. We
were, you know, in an economic recession, and a lot of people
don't leave their jobs when that's happening. It was also the middle of a
difficult school year, so I think this next school year will be really interested
to see what those effects are. We have seen some very high profile superintendent
turnover. You're right, a lot of the big districts lost their superintendence and
there was a lot of fatigue and burnout. So I don't know if those
superintendent turnover rates were higher than normal, but we did see a lot of
high profile ones turnover, and I think in general, I mean there's a
lot of movement, but we're also trying to staff up, Like a lot
of schoolerships have more money and they're trying to hire more people, and so
some of the vacancies that you're seeing are probably new positions too. And we
know in general that some specialty positions are just really hard to fill. Special
ed math, English language learner positions like bilingual ed fools have always been harder
staff and will probably continue to be. So. I did a story amy
a couple months ago about there being a shortage of preschool teachers in Connecticut due
to the pandemic because they just weren't paid enough to not stay home with their
own kids who had to stay home to learn. And it was kind of
this vicious cycle that Congresswoman Rosadelora was getting involved in. So I do think
there are shortages in some pockets of people. We talked about learning loss the
last time we had you on the podcast. Do you feel that at you
know, our students stepping back? Are they going back a year? Two
years? I mean, how severe is the learning loss? Water statistics showing
Yeah. So some of the new data that just very recently came out in
the last couple of weeks has shown that some of the projections that happened earlier
in the pandemic did not come to pass. It was not as dramatic like
this kind of regression of multi year like loss that people thought might happen.
So kids are behind by a couple of months to several months typically. We
saw that in math kids tend to be behind even more in elementary school,
especially younger students, and also in reading, but math has been the big
trouble. Math builds on itself, and so once you lose a couple of
skills, it becomes harder to build your knowledge. So we know that math
will probably be a challenge for lots of kids going into the new school year.
We also saw that in general, Black, Latino and Native American and
students from low income families have been hit harder and had some of the biggest
gaps that they were behind. A lot of students were already behind their peers,
so I think that there's a lot of concerns about how do you focus
on those students make sure that they get the attention that they need. But
in general, like kids were behind by a couple of months, and so
there's definitely gaps that need to be filled, and there needs to be work
done, and I think, you know, there's going to be time to
do that. Not all of that catching up has to happen, like right
away. Do school districts have more money now because they saved on substitute teachers
and field trips and cultural arts department that cultural arts performances and things that they
would bring into the school last year. It's kind of a mixed bag.
Some districts spent more money on cleaning protocols and other kind of safety protocols that
they weren't prepared to, but they also have gotten so much more money from
the federal relief packages. A lot of school districts are getting hundreds more dollars
per child, and they normally would high poverty districts are getting more. So
in general, schools do have much more money to operate with. They have
several years to spend that money. So maybe it's not all happening at once
and you won't just see a giant increase in the budget, But a lot
of our big urban school districts have a lot more to work with right now.
Do you think they'll put provisions in place with that money so that they're
more prepared if this continues, if something like this goes on again, you
know, laptops for each kid. I know in Hartford there was some scramble
to do that. I don't know are they going to put that money to
use? Thinking about it practically in terms of what our world is like now,
I mean, yeah, we definitely saw that technology was a huge way
that school districts spent their first round of coronavirus relief money, and we've seen
there's a lot of money going into broadband right now. In the new infrastructure
build that's being talked about, there would be even more money for internet.
So I do think there's been some long term thinking about kids will need technology
and internet access going forward forever. So I do think that a lot of
districts have much more than they did when the pandemic started. We're also seeing
a lot of school districts we're talking about spending their coronavirus really funny to make
building improvements, So things like ventilation that districts struggled with significantly, air conditioning,
making sure that air quality is good. We're seeing a lot of investment
in that. So that is kind of long term thinking. But some the
other ways that school to shifts are spending money kind of it's going to really
depend and we've seen some folks are talking about making class sizes smaller. I
don't know how much longer they'll be able to keep that up. That can
be expensive hiring more staff. That's also kind of a temporary thing. So
some of the changes we're going to see may not be long term, but
might be around for a couple of years. So this is I mean,
it's daunting, right, Like, we're parents here and we're talking to parents.
What can you leave us with any words of wisdom? How can parents
go into this with hope and excitement and embrace the new year and feel like
they're giving their kids what they need? Is there any thing you can offer
us, any advice and talking about it or otherwise? I mean, I
think in general, the advice that I've heard a lot of teachers giving is
to not focus so heavily on whether or not kids are behind academically. Right
now there will be time to make a lot of those things up and to
just kind of focus more on the social and emotional aspects. How kids are
feeling. Are they feeling comfortable at their school, They feeling comfortable with what
our protocols are being followed? Are they excited about seeing their friends? So
I think a lot of that is what schools say that they're going to be
focusing on at the beginning of the school year, and I think parents can
do the same thing and just make sure that their kids are happy and a
lot of kids are gonna get to spend time with kids that they didn't over
the last year, and so I think they thought is a you know,
that's a positive thing to take a step back, enjoy the transition as best
you can, and you know, know that we're all in this together kind
of thing, like, yes, you might be behind, but we all
have to kind of catch up. Yeah, yeah, going to not be
so focused on that. Yeah, yes, thank you, great advice.
How can people find your work? I write for a chalkbeat dot org and
so they can find my work there. Wonderful. Well, thank you so
much for joining us. This is wonderful information as we embrace the new school
year, and thank you listener for joining us. We're always glad to have
you along for the ride. Please do follow us, like us find us
on social media. I'm Amy Alamar and Sarah is Sarah Cody Media. You
got it. And Kaylin, I have kind of a sixth sense that we're
going to have to see you again and maybe like November to see where to
see her again. You have to kind of keep tabs on where this year
is going and hopefully, who knows, hopefully it'll be okay, but fingers
crossed all around. I look forward to it. All right, We'll take
good care of Kaylin, and thank you, as Amy said, thank you
listener for taking part, and we will chat again.