Amid growing evidence about the negative impacts of remote learning on children and the science showing that it is safe to reopen schools, the California business community has put forth a unified call for the state to reopen schools.
“There’s no substitute for children being in a physical school,” John Grubb, chief operating officer at the Bay Area Council, told the Northern California Record. “There is no reason not to be open now, there is a huge amount of federal and state funding that have prioritized safe reopening.”
State lawmakers are scheduled to hold hearings this week on proposed legislation – SB 86 and AB 86 – which would provide financial incentives to districts that reopen for in-person instruction by April 15, but Gov. Gavin Newsom has said that plan does not move quickly enough.
Among the roadblocks is teacher unions’ push for staff vaccinations as a condition of reopening, and they have started running television ads that warn against reopening too soon.
“The images used in these new inflammatory ads do not reflect the reality of what is happening in classrooms across the state and nation where mitigation has worked to keep kids and teachers safe," Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable (CBRT), said in a news release.
Two dozen organizations have joined the CBRT and Bay Area Council in the business community’s call to reopen schools, citing guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and the state. It’s estimated as many as three million women have had to leave California’s workforce in the past year to watch over their children during remote learning.
“Given all of these examples, we need to move past the fear of reopening the schools,” Grubb said. “We all want to have the governor’s back, the governor is trying to get the schools open, but they’re run by local school boards and the teachers are often unionized and in many cases the teachers have not agreed to return, or the leadership of the union has not agreed to return.”
A Stanford study estimates economic impact losses in the trillions due to students struggling with remote learning possibly earning lower incomes over the course of their lifetimes.
“We have to think of the larger good, and the big picture is helping families, kids, and the economy,” Grubb said.