Newsom touts California as ‘getting kids back in the classroom’ in speech
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to shape California in multiple ways, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday night he wouldn’t be satisfied “until everybody is back in school” and pledged to invest record amounts in education this year.
In his third State of the State speech, delivered in an eerily vacant Dodger Stadium, now being used as a mass vaccination site, Newsom said that 7,000 of California’s more than 10,000 schools are either opening or planning to open in April.
“There’s nothing more foundational to an equitable society than getting our kids safely back into classrooms,” he said.
Newsom delivered the speech against the backdrop of a likely recall campaign and anger from a growing number of parents frustrated at the pace of school reopening in California — an issue that could play a part in the outcome of the campaign.
He also did not mention that while more schools are opening, the return to class in many districts is happening perilously close to the end of the school year and, in most cases, for only part of the school day, often in just the elementary grades.
“Look, we’ve made mistakes; I have made mistakes,” he said, without specifying the mistakes. “But we own them, learn from them, and never stop trying. After all, that is the California spirit.”
His only apparent reference to the recall campaign was to take a jab at “California critics who are promoting partisan power grabs and outdated prejudices.”
He said that since the pandemic started, “uncertainty has been the only thing we could be certain of.” Now, Newsom said the state is providing certainty, including “certainty that we are getting kids back in the classroom.”
Almost exactly a year since most schools hurriedly closed for in-person instruction, by far the majority of students in California are still studying via distance learning. While many parents prefer that their children remain in distance learning, Newsom along with health officials have come under fire from a growing number of parent groups and others for setting too high a bar for schools to reopen and not pushing back sufficiently against teachers’ representatives who have set an even higher bar for teachers to return in many districts.
But Newsom argued Tuesday that massive progress has been made in opening schools for in-person instruction in recent months and weeks. As recently as December, he said, many schools were contemplating what he called “an alarming decision” to give up on in-person instruction for the remainder of the year.
“In the few short months since — working together with parents, teachers, and school leaders — we have turned the conversation from whether to reopen, to when,” he said.
In many school districts, negotiations with teachers unions have proceeded at a tortuous pace, as school employees sought more safety protections. However, even in Los Angeles, a tentative agreement announced late Tuesday between the district and United Teachers Los Angeles pointed the way to school openings, albeit only beginning in mid to late April when school employees are fully vaccinaed.
As a parent of four young children, Newsom said he understood why parents are frustrated with what he called the “fatigue of what my youngest son calls Zoom school” and “the loneliness of missing their friends.”
He referred to the $6.6 billion just approved by the Legislature in emergency spending to invest in schools, and said that in the first week of his plan to reserve 10% of all vaccines for teachers and school employees, some 210,000 people have already been vaccinated.
“In the few short months since — working together with parents, teachers, and school leaders — we have turned the conversation from whether to reopen, to when.”
— Gavin Newsom