Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) announced Tuesday evening that the California public school system, which consists of more than 6 million students at over 10,000 locations, will be unlikely to open before summer break.
According to KTLA-5, the governor revealed his assessment in order to encourage parents to prepare for the challenges of uprooting the standard school day for an extended period of time.
“I would plan and assume it is unlikely that many of these schools, few if any, will open before the summer break,” said Newson during the press conference, reports the news agency.
“I don’t want to mislead you, to six-plus million kids in our system and their families, they need to make some plans at a time when a lot of plans are already being curtailed,” he said. “But planning with kids is some of the most challenging planning.”
According to The Los Angeles Times, Newsom said that over 98% of public schools in the state have already closed, and California has begun developing plans to ensure that students continue to learn while out of class.
The news agency reports that “teachers in most closed schools are trying to continue instruction through online coursework and extended homework assignments.”
The California governor’s decision was announced shortly after Kansas Governor Laura Kelly (D-KS) announced, definitively, that schools would stay closed for the remainder of the academic year, reports Fox News.
“I am ordering all K-12 to close and cease in-person instruction for the duration of the 2019-2020 semester,” said Kelly, reports the news agency. “The steps we’re announcing today will create the space we need at the state level… so that we can get ahead of this threat and limit its long term impact.”
The Trump administration is looking at different ways to give American citizens relief from the pandemic, following an increase in national cases — nearly 900 cases in the last 24 hours and 5,587 total as of Tuesday evening — and large-scale disruptions to normal life.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a press conference Tuesday that the Trump administration has been considering the idea of sending a paycheck to every American citizen as an emergency measure.
“The president has instructed me we have to do this now,” said Mnuchin. “Americans need cash now — and I mean now, in the next two weeks.”
“I think we’re going to do something that gets money to them as quickly as possible. That may not be an accurate way of doing it. Some people obviously shouldn’t be getting a check for $1,000 but we’ll have an idea at the end of the day what we will be doing,” he said.
Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) announced Monday morning that he was in favor of sending a one-time $1,000 check to every American adult in order to combat the economic effects of the coronavirus. Romney’s proposal would also provide grants to small business, student loan deferment for recent college graduates, and expand access to Pell Grants for affected college students.