“Everyone wants schools to fully reopen for in-person instruction. Creating the conditions to make it happen should be a top national priority. Joe Biden believes that the decision about when to reopen safely should be made by state, tribal, and local officials, based on science and in consultation with communities and tribal governments. It should be made with the safety of students and educators in mind. And, it should be made recognizing that if we do this wrong, we will put lives at risk and set our economy and our country back.

Joe Biden has a simple five-step roadmap to support local decision-making on reopening schools safely and to help students whose learning was interrupted:

Get the Virus Under Control…

Set National Safety Guidelines, Empower Local Decision-Making: The Trump Administration’s chaotic and politicized response has left school districts to improvise a thousand hard decisions on their own. Schools need clear, consistent, effective national guidelines, not mixed messages and political ultimatums...

Provide Emergency Funding for Public Schools and Child Care Providers…

Ensuring High-Quality Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic... Biden would mobilize a large-scale U.S. Department of Education effort to work with practitioners to develop, adopt, and share the latest tools and best practices to ensure high-quality learning during this pandemic.

Closing the COVID-19 Educational Equity Gap: Despite the best efforts of educators, students, and families, this crisis, coupled with long-standing racial inequities, has led many students, especially low-income students and students of color, to struggle and fall behind. New research shows that some students could even lose an entire year of academic gains.”

Source: Joe Biden, “Joe Biden’s Roadmap to Reopening Schools Safely,” joebiden.com (accessed Aug. 27, 2020)

“President Donald J. Trump is taking action to ensure schools safely reopen in the fall and empower parents to make decisions about their children’s education.

• President Trump is calling for legislation to ensure that schools have the funding and incentives they need to safely reopen this fall and to empower families with school choice...


• It is vital that parents be allowed to weigh both the benefits and risks of sending their child back to school, including the level of community spread and the makeup of their household, especially for multi-generational households…


• Lengthy time away from school both harms a student’s ability to advance academically and prevents educators from best ensuring the wellbeing of students.


• Furthermore, school closures make it difficult for parents to work, potentially hampering the financial security of millions of working American families...


• While studies have shown that long-term school closures adversely impact students from all backgrounds, they are especially harmful for those with fewer resources…


• Without in-person learning, educators are also unable to monitor important learning deficits, as well as report signs of abuse and address mental health problems…


• Lack of in-person learning also deprives students, especially the most disadvantaged students, of access to important services.”

Source: Donald Trump, “President Donald J. Trump Is Working to Give Students and Parents Flexibility and Schools the Support They Need to Reopen This Fall,” whitehouse.gov, July 23, 2020