School Reopening Guidelines Modified After Trump’s Disagreement

Life in the USA has been badly affected by the coronavirus spread. It has made the states lockdown and led a lot of activities on a halt. Schools and colleges have been shut for long, and now new guidelines are declared by the administration. After Trump expressed his dissatisfaction over the guidelines issued by the CDC with regards to the reopening of schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is all set to issue a new set of guidelines. Vice President Mike Pence said that the president was not happy with the CDC guidelines as they were too tough and impractical.

CDC Set To Modify School Reopening Guidelines After Trump’s Disagreement Says Pence

Attending a news conference at the US Department of Education, Pence said that CDC will be issuing a new set of guidelines which will include five different documents for reopening of educational institutes. This will give more clarity on the entire guidelines for the reopening of schools across the United States. It will guide the school and college authorities as well as parents to follow certain rules that are declared in the public interest by the administration. However, there is a huge resentment seen among the school authorities about following the same.

On Wednesday, Trump had tweeted about his disagreement with CDC guidelines and said that they are too tough, and it will also become very expensive for schools to follow all the guidelines mentioned by the CDC. He had expressed his desire to meet the CDC to work on the new set of rules as the current guidelines included many impractical things for schools.

The Trump administration had threatened to withdraw funding for educational institutes that do not work towards bringing kids back to schools. Speaking about the issue, Pence said that the administration was focusing on providing incentives for states in the future that will work towards populating the classrooms in the upcoming season.

It is interesting to note that while regular funding towards education comes from state and local agencies, the federal government also contributes a lot of money towards special education programs. The amount runs to billions of dollars of grant that is specially provided for low-income schools across the country.

The Trump administration is eager to reopen schools at the earliest, and the president himself staged a White House event along with Melania Trump to push local schools towards reopening in this fall. The event focused on best practices that can be adopted for the safe reopening of schools, and it was attended by school administrators, teachers, students, and parents from different parts of the country.

Speaking at the event, Melania Trump urged school authorities and parents to inform kids about CDC guidelines on coronavirus before the reopening of schools. This will help them to implement the guidelines when schools are reopened during this fall.

Speaking at a news conference at the Education Department, CDC Director Robert Redfield said that the CDC intends to make it safe for schools and children during this pandemic, and they are not in favor of keeping the schools closed during this situation.

Pence said that the Trump administration is keen to work on any recommendations of CDC that serve as a barrier for reopening of schools so that the schools can be safely reopened across the country. It must be noted here that one of the CDC guidelines mentioned that children bring their own food instead of using the community dining hall or cafeteria. However, this is a huge hurdle at the macro level as millions of students depend on meals served at schools, and they cannot bring their own meals to schools.

The other guidelines issued by the CDC include regular cleaning of premises and daily health checks for students and staff members. It also calls for limiting contact during various activities in the school and proper response when some student or staff member gets infected in the future.

It is interesting to note that the Trump administration is eager to bring back life to normalcy, and they are working on several aspects at a time. They are even looking at bringing back students to colleges and universities and avoid online classes for everyone. It has recently put some restrictions on foreign students attending online classes and asked them to go back to their native places if they want to take only online classes.

As the colleges and universities get a major share of their revenue from foreign students, they will be hit hard if the foreign students go back to their homes. In this way, the universities will be forced to conduct regular classes and offer online classes. The Trump administration is forcing the colleges and universities to take this route by putting pressure on them indirectly.

Commenting on the CDC guidelines, health officials said that most of them are required to ensure the safety of children at school. They don’t want to create panic or cause trouble to school authorities. Their only intention is to ensure the safety of every kid that attends the school during this pandemic.

The present situation with regards to the spread of coronavirus is not at all encouraging as the country is reporting record numbers every day. The number of per day cases crossed 60000 marks today, and this speaks volumes about the surge in the number of cases across the country.

In the early part of June, the cases had dropped to under 20000 for a brief period, and it was thought that the virus was under control. However, the recent spike has left the health authorities wondering about ways to control the pandemic.

In this situation, the new guidelines of the CDC may provide some flexibility to schools with regard to managing everyday activities. They may consider what is feasible in a given place and provide some flexibility towards tweaking the general guidelines. Several communities are also involved in this process, and their opinions will be considered before the new set of guidelines are formulated by the CDC.