Schools Weigh Options to Reopen
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Is the school ready to protect children and employees at higher risk for severe illness? Are you able to screen students and employees upon arrival for symptoms? If the answer to any of those questions is no, the CDC advises don't open. Could you guys meet all of that, do you think, by September?</s>ALBERTO M. CARVALHO, SUPERINTENDENT, MIAMI-DADE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS: Well, number one, thank you for the opportunity to have this important conversation with CNN. We will be able to implement the vast majority of those protocols if we receive the appropriate support, particularly from the federal government. We had already implemented</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. And you make an important distinction there, right, you know, that education may begin, but the schools may not open to the same degree that we imagined. Debra, I have a question for you. This is the big one. And Poppy and I both have kids and our schools are making decisions and thinking about the fall. You know the big question here is, what is the risk to children, right? And I'm curious, what guidance you're getting on how at risk they are and then, of course, you have the component question, which is, even if children are more protected, you've got the teachers and the other staff to think about who are adults and who do have, you know, much greater risk from this.</s>DEBRA DUARDO, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Right. So we're -- we're following the research that, you know, right now tells us that when students or children do get Covid, they're more likely to have a lesser negative response to it, although we know in similar situations children can get a more severe reaction. What we're really doing is making sure that we are mitigating those risks to the extent possible. And, you know, some of the questions that you asked about, when we're ready to open our doors, we need to make sure that we have the PPE equipment, that we have the disinfectants and the hand sanitizers. You know, a lot of those things right now are on backorder and they're difficult to stock our schools currently to make sure that our schools have all of the supplies that they need. So, in the meantime, we are continuing with our distance learning, with our online instruction and making sure that we're planning for when we do return to school, implementing all of the things that we can do to make sure that children are safe. There are challenges, you know, with physical distancing and young children wearing masks. And so we're planning now. We have task force of superintendents that are coming together and really thinking about how do we implemented the physical distancing and the safety precautions that the department of mental health -- the department of public health is asking us to implemented. But, you know, again, we need to make sure not only our children are safe, that our employees are safe. We have a lot of employees that fall into that high risk category.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes.</s>HARLOW: Alberto, one question to you, because we're looking at Miami- Dade and Broward County starting to reopen under phase one. You said something interesting recently, which is that the 2021 school year for some may actually start earlier than September. Are you looking at a July or August start date for some?</s>CARVALHO: Yes. When I made that announcement it was really out of concern for what I believed would be an historic precedent setting academic regression. You know, we all know what the summer slide is, particularly fragile kids, poor kids, students with disabilities and English language learners, over the summer lose part of the learning from the previous year. Look, we have a significantly disruptive fourth quarter and now we're going to enter the summer, but we have to believe that these fragile children will lose a lot of academic ground. That is why we planned and are ready to implemented two summer virtual sessions for those students who are planning to bring 25 percent of our student population, the most at-risk students, back to school two weeks earlier. [009:35:01] That's about 46,000 students. We will be adding an additional hour of instruction for those same students and assigning virtual tutors and mentors to all of them. Now, the geography of where and how education will take place is still up in the air. There's a lot of uncertainty.</s>HARLOW: Of course.</s>CARVALHO: And I would not take a cavalier attitude, as Dr. Fauci said, when it comes to the health of children. There's a lot that we do not know and the decision to bring student's back into a physical environment shall be guided by science, medical opinion, and the best logistics on how to do it safely in Miami.</s>HARLOW: Well, we wish you guys so much luck as you do that and thank you both for looking out for those most at risk children, especially, Debra, good luck. Alberto, we'll talk to you soon. Tomorrow, talking about students, CNN will honor the graduates of the 2020 class with a special two hour event starting with the "Class of 2020: In This Together" featuring Bill Clinton, Gal Gadot and more. And then join LeBron James and President Obama for "Graduate Together." The celebration starts tomorrow night, 7:00 Eastern, right here on CNN.