Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott asked CDC Director Robert R. Redfield to provide clear evidence of school safety citing Donald Trump's repeated push to reopen schools across the country. On July 8, Scott wrote a letter to Redfield, noting that it is a chance for Subcommittee Members to connect directly with him regarding the CDC’s guidance to schools about how it can safely reopen amid an ongoing pandemic.
In the letter, Scott invited the CDC's director or his designee to appear before Elementary and Secondary Education, and the House Committee on Education and Labor’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood on at 10:15 a.m. ET on July 23 to discuss the needs to safely reopen K-12 public schools immediately for the 2020-21 school year.
In a tweet on July 8, Trump said he would cut funding from schools if they refrain from opening in-person classes in the fall, paying no heed to CDC warnings. It is worth noting that the president can't independently cut these fundings.
The CDC coronavirus pandemic guidelines that offer instructions on how to bring children back to schools without jeopardizing their safety, includes making proper sanitization available on desks, following social distancing, wearing face masks, and offering proper ventilation. The guidelines also insist on keeping playgrounds and cafeterias closed.
Published in May, the guidelines rubbed the president the wrong way, since it didn't coincide with his push for reopening schools to improve the economy by getting parents back to work. Trump disagreed with the CDC's guidelines for opening schools, deeming them as tough and expensive.
He tweeted earlier this week that the CDC wants schools to open, but are expecting them to do very impractical things, adding that he will be meeting with them. Redfield said the organization's policies will not be changed to suit Trump's theory.
Insisting that the organization's guidelines are its guidelines in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America earlier this week, Redfield said the CDC will be offering additional reference documents to help communities that are trying to reopen K-12 schools. The organization will be providing reference documents for face masks, reference documents for how to evaluate and monitor, reference documents for parents, and reference documents for schools to monitor symptoms, he added.
Redfield said the guidelines have not been revised, but they simply offer more information to help schools reopen safely. The Education and Labor Committee Chairman also criticized Trump's push for lighter guidelines and even pointed out that last month's a Government Accountability report showed that over half the school districts in the country need to either repair or replace their ventilation systems.