After Trump tweets, CDC changing guidelines
Back to class: Pressure to return clashes with concerns over health, staffing He criticized guidance on reopening schools
WASHINGTON – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is revising its guidance on reopening schools after President Donald Trump tweeted his disagreement with them, Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday.
“The president said today we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough,” Pence said at a news conference at the U.S. Department of Education. “That’s the reason why, next week, CDC is going to be issuing a new set of tools, five different documents that will be giving even more clarity on the guidance going forward.”
Trump tweeted Wednesday that he disagrees with the CDC’s “very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools” as the pandemic continues.
“They are asking schools to do very impractical things,” Trump tweeted. “I will be meeting with them!!!”
He also threatened to withhold funding from schools that don’t populate their classrooms this fall.
Asked about that threat, Pence said the administration wants to include “incentives for states to go forward” in the next federal stimulus package.
“And as we work with Congress on the next round of state support, we’re going to be looking for ways to give states a strong incentive and encouragement to get kids back to school,” said Pence, the head of the White House Coronavirus Task Force.
Most education funding comes from state and local levels, but the federal government provides billions to schools through grants for low-income schools and special education programs.
At Wednesday’s news conference at the Education Department, CDC Director Robert Redfield said he wanted “to make it very clear” that the guidelines are intended to help schools reopen and are not “to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.”
Pence said that was the sentiment behind Trump’s tweet about the guidelines.
At a later briefing at the White House, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany cited one example of a CDC recommendation she saw as problematic: “Have children bring their own meals as feasible, or serve individually plated meals in classrooms instead of in a communal dining hall or cafeteria, while ensuring the safety of children with food allergies.”
McEnany focused on the first part of that recommendation, saying there are millions of students who depend on schools for meals and can’t bring their own.
“There are 28 implicit acknowledgements that these guidelines aren’t even feasible,” she said.
On funding, McEnany said Trump is looking at “potentially redirecting” federal dollars so it’s “tied to the student, and not to a district where schools are closed.”
In Pence’s home state of Indiana, the Republican state superintendent of education expressed her displeasure Wednesday morning with the threatening message coming from the White House.
Jennifer McCormick tweeted that while schools and health departments are working on re-entry plans, schools “cannot & should not be bullied from DC into ignoring safety concerns.”