Despite the pandemic, California students are beginning to return to campuses for in-person instruction. In this episode, we connect with education leaders in San Diego and Napa counties to explore how schools in their regions are addressing key guidelines for reopening safely, including partnering with their county health departments to test employees for the COVID-19 virus.
OUR GUESTS:
When and how best to safely reopen our schools for in-person instruction remains top of mind for students, families, educators, communities, and the whole state. It has also become highly politicized. Under California's color-tiered monitoring system, schools in many counties across the state are now eligible to resume in-person classes, as long as they follow guidelines for safety and physical distancing -- and many students are indeed back on campuses. Josh and Paul share challenges to reopening in their counties, strategies being utilized to address them, and protocols in place for when positive cases occur.
Also, series host Paul Richman shares a few highlights from recent informational hearings in the state legislature.
JUST OUT: To help organizations, including schools, increase COVID-19 testing capacity, on Nov. 4 the California Department of Public Health issued a letter to school leaders and a Playbook regarding the new Valencia Laboratory state partnership.
MORE RESOURCES
ABOUT the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL BUSINESS OFFICIALS
CASBO is the premier resource for professional development and business best practices for California's school business leaders. Be sure to visit CASBO.org and check the “Learn” tab for more information about our many valuable professional development programs; @CASBO
Your series guide Paul Richman is a public education advocate and consultant; @pjr100.
Contact us at edfundingca@gmail.com
Despite the pandemic, California students are beginning to return to campuses for in-person instruction. In this episode, we connect with education leaders in San Diego and Napa counties to explore how schools in their regions are addressing key guidelines for reopening safely, including partnering with their county health departments to test employees for the COVID-19 virus.
OUR GUESTS:
When and how best to safely reopen our schools for in-person instruction remains top of mind for students, families, educators, communities, and the whole state. It has also become highly politicized. Under California's color-tiered monitoring system, schools in many counties across the state are now eligible to resume in-person classes, as long as they follow guidelines for safety and physical distancing -- and many students are indeed back on campuses. Josh and Paul share challenges to reopening in their counties, strategies being utilized to address them, and protocols in place for when positive cases occur.
Also, series host Paul Richman shares a few highlights from recent informational hearings in the state legislature.
JUST OUT: To help organizations, including schools, increase COVID-19 testing capacity, on Nov. 4 the California Department of Public Health issued a letter to school leaders and a Playbook regarding the new Valencia Laboratory state partnership.
MORE RESOURCES
ABOUT the CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION OF SCHOOL BUSINESS OFFICIALS
CASBO is the premier resource for professional development and business best practices for California's school business leaders. Be sure to visit CASBO.org and check the “Learn” tab for more information about our many valuable professional development programs; @CASBO
Your series guide Paul Richman is a public education advocate and consultant; @pjr100.
Contact us at edfundingca@gmail.com
California Schools Put to the Test: COVID-19 Testing and Safely Reopening Campuses
With special guests Paul Gothold, Superintendent, San Diego County Schools, and Josh Schultz, Deputy Superintendent/CBO, Napa County Office of Education
[0:01]
Opening
Josh Schultz:
I'm watching a lot of really dedicated bright, hardworking people, trying to create certainty in an environment where there is no certainty.
Series theme music begins.
Paul Richman, Adventures in Ed Funding host:
Welcome to "Adventures in Ed Funding," the podcast series presented by the California Association of School Business Officials, CASBO for short. The decision of when and how best to safely reopen our schools for in-person instruction remains top of mind for students, families, educators, communities, and really the whole state. In this episode, we'll explore how schools in some counties are reopening and how they're addressing one of the key guidelines related to testing employees for the COVID-19 virus.
We’ll visit with Dr. Paul Gothold, Superintendent of Schools for San Diego County and Josh Schultz, deputy superintendent and chief business official for the Napa County Office of Education. Plus, we'll highlight some recent hearings in the state legislature on this subject.
Theme music ends.
Richman:
Hi, again, I'm Paul Richman, your series guide. By the time you're listening to this, the country will have had an election. And we may in fact know the final results. Either way, whatever the results, we know that, unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us. Under California's color-tiered monitoring system, schools in many counties across the state are eligible now to resume in-person classes -- as long as they follow guidelines for safety and physical distancing -- and many students are back on campuses.
So, here's a quick pop quiz: Under the state's color tiered system for safely reopening communities, do you know what the main indicators that a county needs to meet are to stay out of the purple, which is the most restrictive tier?
Ticking clock, buzzer sounds.
In general, to stay out of the purple, a county needs to maintain a seven day average of less than seven new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people and less than 8% positive tests county-wide.
All the specifics can be found on the state's COVID-19 website at https://covid19.ca.gov; along with critical guidelines on the California Department of Education's page at cde.ca.gov.
And hey, while I'm telling you about essential websites to visit, if you'd like to learn much more about many of the topics we discuss on this podcast -- from school funding to facilities to maintenance to human resources, child nutrition, and more be sure to check out all of CASBO’s professional development programs, including online workshops at casbo.org under the "learn" tab.
All right, it's time to journey to San Diego County, currently in the red tier for reopening, which allows students to return to campuses if certain guidelines and modifications are followed.
I had the chance to speak near the end of October with San Diego County Superintendent of Schools. Paul Gothold.
Paul was appointed County Superintendent in 2017 after four years leading the Lynwood Unified School District in Los Angeles County. He has more than 25 years of experience in K through 12 education with a focus on building school systems with equity at the core.
Superintendent Gothold, I heard you refer to San Diego County as sort of a "test kitchen" for school reopenings and getting students back safely to campuses. Could you give us a quick sense of how many schools across the county have been able to reopen and to what extent?
Paul Gothold:
Certainly. We were one of the first out of the gate after the new tier system. And currently we have about 33 of our 42 districts that are open to some in-person learning -- and those are varying degrees from individual appointments of kids to small groups to cohorts. There's probably over 85,000 kids who have returned to our schools thus far.
Richman:
That's great. And I know it's extremely early on, but what's your sense of how it's going so far?
[5:00]
Gothold:
I think for the most part it's going well. Our districts have done a really good job. They created dashboards around what type of learning environment [to provide]. We have examples of kids on campuses Monday through Friday, of an AM-PM model, and we provided sample schedules. At the end of the day, it's really up to the local districts, the local school boards as to how they create their reopening plans and bring students back.
One thing that I'd like to emphasize that I think is important is when you look at the county criteria, when you look at the conditions in which schools can reopen, it's a county average. So, when you're in, for example, the red tier and that case rate is under seven – there are areas in this county that have much higher infection rates and surges than others. And so what we tried to do to give districts as much data as possible is that we break that down by zip code, so they can make an informed decision about their local school communities -- and we say that if those conditions are higher than the thresholds, then you really have to double and triple down on the health mitigation.
Richman:
And so that's in part what explains why I think some of the school districts in the Southern-most part of the county, they are the ones that mostly haven't been able to reopen yet?
Gothold:
They are eligible to, but again, we have to be mindful that some of those regions in our county have some of our highest infection rates -- where the communities have seen the highest rates of hospitalizations and death. We have a lot of kids that are in multi-generational households. The impact has been different than in other parts of the county and school boards and superintendents have to look at all of those conditions and decide what is best for our students and keeping our staff safe.
And so these are complex issues that require a lot of thought, a lot of planning, and we provide the guidelines for that, the support, but at the end of the day, it really is about the local decision. And I know for a fact there are some administrations and school boards that are not in a rush to do this because of those conditions.
Richman:
What are some of the biggest challenges that you're seeing or hearing so far?
Gothold:
Well, with respect to just coming back to school...I hope that there's going to be a renewed appreciation for teachers and educators during this time. I think that the biggest challenge with all of this has been that everything around this pandemic has been politicized and as it's been politicized, it makes it increasingly tough on our local superintendents and school boards.
You know, we all love and care about kids. We are doing the very best we can to open schools safely, to make sure that the conditions are right, so that we don't have to continue to close and reopen. And I think that there's been, you know, heightened emotions on both sides of this, that our superintendents face; there've been different data points and in fact, different arguments on both sides of the health community. And so at the end of the day, what we try to do is just de-politicize this, and really go back to the facts and say, Hey, what are the conditions that are safe? What do we know? What do we not know? And explain that thoroughly to our communities and do the best we can to get kids back on campus.
[8:47]
Music interlude
Richman:
We'll come back to Superintendent Gothold in San Diego in just a bit, but first we wanted to delve even more into one of the key components that needs to be in place for students to safely return to campuses: COVID-19 testing for staff. For more insight, we talked with Josh Schultz, who had served as deputy superintendent and chief business official in the Napa County office of education for the past 12 years. Josh also served as a director in the office of research at Sonoma State University, and prior to that, he taught high school for seven years in Napa County. Thank you, Josh, for joining us on the Adventures in Ed Funding podcast.
Schultz:
Happy to be with you.
Richman:
I was wondering if first, if you might be able to give us a quick refresher on what the state's guidelines are for testing for schools?
Josh:
So, as I understand the guidelines, the recommendations that were put out over the summer were to do surveillance testing of staff with a rotation of about 25% of your staff being tested every two weeks, such that all staff would be tested over a two-month period. And those are are recommendations -- and there's language about "if capacity exists and if practical."
Richman:
So that's sort of the best-case scenario in terms of recommendations. It's not a hard and fast requirement?
Josh:
That's my understanding -- although I would say, I think there might be some dispute about "best case" scenario. I think that's considered reasonable and practical and wise, but I know that there are local education agencies (LEAs) that are considering doing more than that, if they can.
Richman:
So, tell us how your county, Napa, has been approaching COVID 19 testing to try to meet those guidelines.
Schultz:
So, we've gone through quite an odyssey with this actually. When we first started looking at this, when the guidance came out in July, we had conversations with our county public health officer -- and we've had a great partnership with county public health. We've had weekly calls with all the LEA superintendents and even the private schools and county public health for months now. When we first had the conversations with them, public health was uncertain whether they would have the capacity to do the level of testing that was being recommended, and they suggested that we start looking for other options, just in case. We spent quite a bit of time and energy here at the county office of education, really on behalf of the districts and ourselves, researching private labs. We probably talked to at least 15 of them and got quotes from more than 10, and, you know, ran the gamut from folks that would just send us kits and we would have to administer the tests ourselves, to those who would come out and do the testing for us if we had a minimum quantity; and there was the saliva-based test versus the swab-based test.
And while there were lots of options available and many labs interested in the business, the costs were quite high, I think ranging from $75 to $150 per test for the quotes that we got. So when you're talking about thousands of staff countywide, you can see how that could quickly mount up to millions of dollars of costs over an extended period of time that we would have to do this. So, we were concerned about the cost. Even though we've received learning loss mitigation funds that we could use for this purpose, there are lots of other good uses that we can put those funds to. And we were also concerned to some extent about the liability of us being the driver of a testing program, you know, we're not in the business of public health. So we re-engaged in conversations with our county public health and over time, they kind of changed their perspective on it.
One, you know, the state's rules changed such that there were incentives for counties to do more testing in order to move more quickly through the tiers of the state's color-coded ranking system. And, two, they started expanding their capacity in various ways. So what we've landed on now in this county, and we've been fortunate to have a great partnership with our labor partners and with county public health, is that we have agreements in place where all of our staff will voluntarily go to either a county public testing site to get tested or to their healthcare provider. And we've worked closely with Kaiser in particular on this to make sure that there are no barriers to school personnel getting tested. We set a schedule that they go and they get tested on the schedule we set, so we've got a rotation going, and they submit the test results to us. And so far it seems to be working pretty smoothly. We are paying a small stipend (at least at the county office,) I believe it's $15 per test, if an employee has to go on their own time. But if their work schedule allows, of course, they can go and do it during work hours as well. So that's where we're at. And we're really have only gotten started in the last few weeks, but so far so good.
Richman:
Great. I bet that when you started in the county office and as a CBO, you probably never thought you'd be doing bids for medical tests, right?
Josh:
Yeah. That, that's absolutely true. There are a lot of new jobs that I have had to learn, and I think that’s true for a lot of us in education over the last six months, you know, distributor of PPE and researching testing and figuring out protocols for closing classrooms if there's an outbreak, um, yeah, it's a whole new world.
Richman:
Right. All part all under the category of lifelong learners, right?
Josh:
Yeah, absolutely. Yep. And, uh, you know, we thought we were, uh, challenged with earthquakes and fires and public power shutdowns, you know, but now this is the next level…
Richman:
Right, So you mentioned liability. I wanted to talk just a little bit more about that, especially if, if that's a concern maybe for some of your neighboring counties or school districts, um, this worry that if, if the district itself is administering the tests, they might be opening themselves up to greater liability. Is that the issue?
Josh:
Yeah, exactly. I mean, first of all, of course, as I'm sure you're aware, um, districts have been seeking just, uh, some general liability protection for, you know, what happens if someone contracts COVID as a student or a staff member while they're on our campuses. But the, the testing question raises, you know a different level or aspect of that. And it's really the question of if we are administering tests, whether that means, you know, we have our staff actually doing the swabbing, maybe a nurse, or if that means we're giving a test kit to a staff member and telling them to do it themselves; there is some question about whether that opens us up to, um, additional liability if something goes wrong, if a test result is inaccurate, et cetera, um, I don't have a definitive answer to that, but I know I've talked to at least one county colleague who was considering doing that for all of their districts, you know, having county office staff do it, and their liability JPA told them that they would not have coverage if their staff was conducting the testing.
Richman:
Mmmm. And we know for our educators and school employees, We know testing availability and access is a very important issue to them in terms of their safety. Are you seeing and hearing that that's coming up as a sticking point in labor management agreements?
Josh:
So I, I certainly am, am reading, you know, the news reports from around the state where that's, that is coming up in, in, some cases. Um, and I think even there was the letter released by, um, CTA, not so long ago, to the state, um, raising those concerns. I would say in this county, I think everybody agreed that surveillance testing was in our best interest. Uh, and I think everybody came to the conclusion that it didn't make sense for us to spend millions of dollars of school district money on those tests when an option that would not cost us anything was available. And I think everybody's feeling pretty good about what we're doing right now. Now there's still the question of, of testing students that I hear come up from time to time, and that's not something we're doing right now in this county. Um, but I haven't heard it be, um, such a sticking point here that anybody was not able to reach an agreement.
Richman:
Mmm-hmm. I, I hadn't thought about that, but what's your sense of if students showed symptoms, would they be going to get tested through their own coverage at this point?
Josh:
So that I think is what what's being recommended if a positive student case is is being found, or even if symptoms are being shown, um, but we don't have the ability to compel that, of course. And we also don't have the ability, uh, as I understand it, to compel a student or a family, to tell us what the results of their tests are. So the best we can do really to say, you know, you're showing symptoms, uh, you have to stay off of our campus and until those symptoms are resolved and whatever appropriate quarantine period is.
Richman:
So, there's still several aspects where additional guidance would be helpful for districts?
Josh:
Yeah. I mean, I, I think, uh, I wouldn't want to see guidance, uh, telling us we have to do something related to students without the resources to make it happen and the legal ability to make it happen, you know, so it wouldn't necessarily be helpful to say you should test students when we don't have the legal ability to compel students to be tested, nor do we have the ability to test them ourselves, uh, or necessarily even to send them to, for example, the public testing sites -- a lot of them, I don't think, don't test kids, right? Um, my understanding is the healthcare providers maybe will, but some of these county public sites aren't taking, uh, people under 18 as I understand it.
Richman:
Mmmm. And let’s circle back to San Diego, where, similar to Napa, the county is partnering to make testing available to school employees. And, as a reminder, the California Department of Public Health or CDPH guidelines for in-person reopening recommend, that as practical, periodic surveillance testing of all staff be conducted every 2 months, with 25% of staff tested each 2 weeks on a rotating basis. As Superintendent Gothold notes, especially in some large regions, that can be a lot of tests.
Gothold:
That's, that's an extraordinary task in and of itself. We have over 80,000 school employees in San Diego County. And so, in this guidance and looking at what we were trying to do with testing our, county health and human services had already come up with a very robust T3 plan of testing and tracing -- And, and we went to them and had a conversation. Is this something that you could support because they're, uh, I think at the time were already 30 testing centers around this county. And, uh, they went to the board of supervisors and and agreed to,to cover the costs and, and make this a priority. So the long and short of it is that we have now in addition to probably 38 to 40 testing sites that our school employees can utilize. We also have, uh, five sites that are dedicated exclusively just for school employees, to be tested. So, um, I honestly, I, it's an extraordinary, commitment on the part of our supervisors and County health to be able to support this, you know, we have about a thousand schools. So again, I really thank them for their partnership and what they've been able to do.
Richman:
Mmm-hmm. So, the County of San Diego is, is paying for all of those tests?
Gothold:
That's correct.
Richman:
That's great. Do you have any concerns sort of about long range being able to, to maintain that?
Gothold:
I think everybody is, I know that, they're supporting this with the CARES stimulus and we're eagerly awaiting whatever the feds are going to do, because that next round of stimulus is, is critical on so many levels. Um, it's not just the continued commitment that they've made through June, that they, they are going to rely on stimulus money for our small businesses and K-12 education. Quite frankly, our, our budget is loaded with deferrals and contingent upon some of the support coming from the federal government. So, we'll have to see what happens with that. Uh, and we're hoping that that gets resolved obviously before the end of December.
Music interlude.
Richman:
Dr. Gothold, I also wanted to ask you about some recent news regarding some outbreaks in San Diego county schools that have started back in-person. But first of all, I mean, I want to say, that’s to be expected, right? As we start reopening schools even part-way, it’s likely there are going to be some positive cases?
Gothold:
We are going to see positive cases. What I would tell you and what I know to be true today-- the vast majority of positive cases are just positive cases of kids that didn't necessarily happen at schools. And I want to make that clear. Through contact tracing. We will find out that a kid has tested positive; uh, we'll shut the classroom down for two weeks in an abundance of caution to prevent any further exposure. Um, we do see this and the school or the classroom will pivot to distance learning. In the case of, uh, Vista, I know that there were positive cases. I don't, Icouldn't tell you whether or not that was a result of exposure during school, or if just kids had tested through contact tracing or part of the families had tested positive. I honestly don't know, but I do know that one outbreak that we had where, it was because it was in direct defiance of the health order. There was a, a staff party, no masks, potluck, um, relatively large assembling or gathering in in a room. And, and, you know, how they define outbreak is three or more cases tracing back to the same event or uh place. And so that's the one that I truly know of, um, definitely from public health of the others, it's from barbecues, it's from, uh, classes that are outside of school, such as, uh, dance and things of that nature, where it gets traced back. And once the school is informed, they'll close a classroom for two weeks, like I said, an abundance of caution and go back. So I think that, you know, the medical, that's more of a medical question. And quite honestly, the doctor in front of my name does not give me authorization, you know, license to practice epidemiology….
Richman:
(Laughter) Well, it seems like a lot of other people are taking that on…
Gothold (overlapping):
…Virology….Nor any of these things. Um, but I think if you look at it, when you look at, we have 85,000 kids back on campuses, and there were 335 positive cases in the vast majority of those did not occur at schools. I think our, our, folks are doing a really good job. Where w where we have seen incidents is when those health conditions and health guidelines were not followed. And so there's a reason why they're there and, and it's really important that we adhere to that and the spirit and intent of why those things are there. I will tell you that none of this is perfect. Um, but we're doing the best we can under the circumstances.
Richman:
Mmm-hmmm. In the couple cases that you have seen so far where there were positive tests, does it seem like the state-local guidelines and procedures for what's supposed to happen next in terms of reporting and contact tracing and moving to quarantining -- that those steps are making sense so far?
Gothold:
Yeah, I, I think our county health has done an extraordinary job with that. There's a decision tree, um, and really a flow chart that every principal in our county has; there's been extensive training. Um, there's not a lot of guesswork within the school nurse community about how to treat this. So I think that the mitigation efforts and the protocols that our county health has put in place, um, I've seen folks really adhere to them. They've been accessible and again, these are, more medical questions, but I think we're comfortable in utilizing the protocols that have been put forth and how we execute them on a day-to-day basis.
[26:08]
Music Interlude.
Richman:
We've been highlighting two examples where counties have been able to work collaboratively to meet the need for COVID-19 surveillance testing for their employees. Of course, California has 58 counties and nearly 1000 school districts. And we know that challenges and progress have been different all around the state. To further gain insight into what’s happening across California, the State Legislature convened two informational committee hearings at the end of October about different aspects of school reopening as well as distance learning. State education, health and finance experts, along with school district administrators, teachers, and community group representatives all shared data and their perspectives. A lot of good questions were asked, issues discussed and valuable information shared.
A few key takeaways from the legislative hearings for me:
[28:32]
Paul Richman:
Something else we heard expressed at the hearing and we also hear around the state, is frustration. It’s of course understandable. It reflects the day to day lived experiences of parents, students and educators who have been at home for several months. There’s a feeling, a perception by some that it’s taking too long for students to return in-person to their schools. Josh, I wanted to loop back with you about this, this perception. What are your thoughts when you hear concerns that this critically important work is taking too long?
Josh:
The reality is both the epidemiology and the understanding of the virus and the rules and the guidance that we are operating under have changed multiple times in the past few months. Uh, and every time it's changed, it's forced us to reevaluate our plans. And, you know, just as for an example of the kind of the cycle we went through here in Napa, which I think is common to many other places, um, late spring as we were winding up last school year, all of our districts were doing, you know, multiple surveys of, of their stakeholders. And what they were hearing was 80% plus of their families were saying, we want our kids back in school full time next year. And so they all started developing plans to do exactly that, um, you know, very detailed plans with lots of consultation with stakeholders with public health, uh, and then come mid-July, or or going into July, we start to get both a spike in cases, right? And then the state unveils its watch list system, and the watch list says, uh, the status in our county – and this was true in many places in state – was such that we can't reopen in-person. So, the districts had to change all their plans. They had to change all their communication with their constituents and start planning for opening only in a virtual way. Uh, and then of course developing kind of these phase plans for here's what reopen will look like once we're allowed to do it. You also had at the same time, a lot of large districts around the state, and even some county-wide declarations saying we're only going to open virtually for at least a full semester. Um, and you had CSU system saying, you know, we're going to be virtual all year. I think so. So that was out there in the air changing people's thinking. We opened the school year, virtually, and then at the start of September, you know, a couple of weeks in the state changes the rules and changes the system and it goes to this new color format. Um, and lo and behold, Napa was in a status where two weeks later in mid September, we might be allowed to reopen. But again, the districts had just started the school year. They had just geared up to do all this virtual learning, and suddenly the rules are changing. And of course here in Napa County, this is in the middle of, you know, we have two major fires within a month, smoke shut downs, and at the same time, everybody's trying to figure out what does this rule change mean? Is it really safe? Are we going to go back to purple? Uh, so they started making their plans, for reopening, um, and you know, one district, uh, uh, a very small little elementary district did open in, in mid-September September 9th. I think it was when we were first allowed to -- but the rest of the districts really had to take some time to work with their constituents. both families and, uh, staff in order to agree upon, you know, how, and when are we going to be open? And now, of course, it's just happening here in Napa. And I will tell you that the family's perspective has changed pretty dramatically in that time as well. So when we had 80% back in the spring saying they wanted to come back, now it's less than 50%, and most of our districts are saying they want to come back in person. And this, this week, when we actually reopened, I think the numbers that actually showed up have been even smaller than that. We'll see how it goes over time.
[32:28]
Paul Richman:
Mmm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you so much for the, I think that's an extremely helpful chronology that, that you walked us through, too, because it really points out there's so many moving parts to this process of reopening.
Josh:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, in watching this play out here in this county and talking to all my, colleagues at other county offices and just across the state, you know, the observation that I've made repeatedly people is, you know, I, I'm watching a lot of really dedicated, bright hardworking people trying to create certainty in an environment where there is no certainty, and school administrators, we kind of feel like that's our job, right? We need to tell people, this is the plan. This is what's going to happen. But, uh, we're in an environment where we really can't do that with, with, with any, um, with any certainty within confidence that what we're planning now is going to be the case two weeks a month, you know, three months down the line.
Paul:
Mmm-hmmm.
[33:25]
Josh:
And then I think, you know, really from what we've seen here in Napa County and from what I'm reading about, what's going on with both schools and communities around the country and even internationally is, you know, we need the whole community to keep the case rates down, so that we can make sure that it's manageable within our schools as well, because, you know, from a lot of the research, I've seen the transmission rates in schools that are reopening, in most cases have not been higher than the community transmission rates. So the places where you've seen big outbreaks and you know things shut down as in places where cases were ramping out in the community as well. So I think it's, it's everybody pulling together.
Paul Richman:
Mmm-hmm.
Josh:
And then obviously, you know, there's also the challenge of just resources. So even though we've been fortunate to not have testing cost us a lot in this county, you know, there are a tremendous amount of other expenditures that people are doing specifically to make all this work, rather it befor PPE or screens or shields, extra facility costs for, you know, spreading out classes, extra cleaning costs time for custodial staff. So, um, I know I heard some reports recently that, that the state was concerned, um, that, uh, districts were going to spend their coronavirus relief funds in, in time by the end of the summer. And I can tell you here in this county that that's not a concern, people are burning through those dollars very quickly.
Richman:
Mmm-hmmm. Well, and there was an assembly budget finance subcommittee hearing yesterday, and the, and the chair actually asked, you know, is the money that the State’s provided so far sufficient for all these costs.
Josh:
Yeah. And you know, what I would say is it's it's maybe sufficient for a short period of time, but, but if we're in this situation for months or, or a year, you know, no, it won't be sufficient.
[35:22]
Music interlude
Richman:
Hopefully this episode has enhanced your understanding about challenges and strategies for safely reopening schools for in-person learning and especially approaches being taken for COVID-19 testing of employees. It's not easy. Superintendent Gothold, is there anything else that you'd like to emphasize in terms of areas that our state legislators and leaders in particular could be doing more of or understand better that would really help with reopening schools?
Paul Gothold:
I honestly think they've been, they've been, uh, extraordinary champions to even to allow K-12, to continue to operate without facing severe cuts. I know we're potentially headed for a, you know, a fiscal cliff if things don't change, but I think that just their commitment to K-12 education was evident when they went through the process of, and the governor signing off on, on the budget and, and giving us an opportunity to work through this without facing, uh, really would have been historic cuts and at least given us time to adjust. AndI think it, when it comes to reopening, uh, again, um, we're doing the very best we can under the circumstances. And um, I I would just lean toward them for continued support down the road, particularly when we get into that arena of, of the funding issue, because we can't afford to lose any more teachers or classified staff -- and if anything, we need to have more resources to spend on our kids and our families, uh, just based on what we've gone through the past six months.
Richman:
Well, Superintendent, thank you so much for sharing your insights on the podcast.
Gothold:
It's my pleasure. Thank you.
Outro Music Starts
Richman:
Well, that's going to do it for this episode of adventures in ed funding. Thank you so much for joining us. And many thanks to our guests, Josh Schultz and Paul Gothold for sharing their expertise and experiences. Our show is presented by CASBO, the California Association of School Business Officials, be sure to find out about the many great professional development opportunities and online workshops that CASBO has available by visiting C a S B o.org. And looking under the learn tab. Also be sure to subscribe to our podcasts wherever you listen, if you haven't already done so. And Hey, if you like what you hear, give us a review many, thanks as always to Tommy Dunbar who handles all of our sound editing and music. My name is Paul Richman, and I'm your series guide. until next time, be sure to keep wearing those masks and maintaining that physical distance.