It’s back to school for Jill Biden and new education chief
CONN» Jill Biden, the teacher in the White House, along with new Education Secretary Miguel Cardona went back to school Wednesday in a public push to show districts that have yet to transition back to in-person learning that it can be done safely during the pandemic.
“Teachers want to be back,” the first lady said after she and Cardona spent about an hour visiting classrooms and other areas at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School in Meriden, Connecticut. “We want to be back. I’m a teacher. I am teaching virtually.”
Biden is a veteran community college English professor who is now teaching remotely from the White House. She said her students recently told her they can’t wait to be back in the classroom.
“But we just know we have to get back safely,” she said.
The trip was the first order of business for Cardona, Connecticut’s former education commissioner, who was sworn into his new Cabinet job only the day before.
Biden and Cardona also visited a Pennsylvania middle school on Wednesday. They were joined by the heads of two big teachers unions during the trip, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers in Connecticut and Becky Pringle of the National Education Association in Pennsylvania.
The visits came as the clock ticks down on President Joe Biden’s promise to have most K-8 schools open for classroom instruction by the end of his first 100 days in office, or the end April.
To help nudge that along, Biden said Tuesday he is pushing states to administer at least one coronavirus vaccination to every teacher, school employee and child-care worker by the end of March.