President Trump slammed school districts that are hesitant to reopen for in-person classes in the fall over concerns about the COVID19 pandemic, telling CBS News that the districts were making a “terrible decision.”
Mr. Trump told CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge that the Los Angeles Unified School District had made a “mistake” in deciding not to reopen in the fall, joining a number of school districts across the country who have said the same.
During this interview Herridge asked,
“What do you tell parents and teachers who feel that it is unsafe to go back?”
“I would tell parents and teachers that you should find yourself a new person whoever is in charge of that decision, because it’s a terrible decision,” Mr. Trump said. “Because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. They’re dying because they can’t do what they’re doing. Mothers can’t go to work because all of a sudden they have to stay home and watch their child, and fathers.”
The president said that being unable to send children to school puts a “tremendous strain” on parents, and called the issue a “balancing act.”
“We have to open our schools,” Mr. Trump said. The president has repeatedly pushed for reopening schools and universities in the fall, even as coronavirus cases climb in dozens of states.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, warned that the country has to maintain control over the pandemic to get children back to school in the fall, Trump slammed the CDC’s existing guidelines.
He tweeted they were “very tough” and “expensive,” while in another tweet threatened to cut off school funding if they resisted opening, though the federal government’s ability to do so is limited.
However, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield also said last week that the CDC is not planning on rewriting guidelines for educators for reopening schools. He said the agency would issue “additional reference documents,” but added that these documents are “not a revision of the guidelines.”
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