Newsom Offers California Schools $2 billion in ‘Incentives’ to Reopen by April 1
The California Teachers Union: Getting richer by refusing to work while everyone else clamors to return to their jobs.
How concerned is California Governor Gavin Newsom about the possibility of being recalled?
The evidence suggests he is petrified. He is offering schools $2 billion in “incentives” to reopen by April 1, which will be well ahead of any recall vote.
The plan, detailed in Assembly Bill 86, provides financial incentives to school districts that offer in-person instruction at the beginning of next month in counties with fewer than 25 new daily confirmed coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents, a threshold almost all California counties currently meet as the winter’s rapid spread of the virus slowed.
School districts in counties in the state’s red tier, with seven or fewer cases per 100,000 residents, would be required to extend classroom learning to all elementary school students and at least one grade of middle or high school in order to access all available funds.
But the proposal, expected to receive passage in the Legislature on Thursday, stops short of mandating that schools across the state must reopen. Instead, it leaves the final decision up to local education officials and, in some areas, subject to agreements between districts and the unions representing school employees.
Given the news with the Berkeley Federation of Teacher president, it’s no wonder Newsom has to shower the teachers’ unions with money in hopes of inspiring the reopening. However, over $4 billion has been set aside for other perks.
In addition to the $2 billion, the legislation would give all school districts access to $4.6 billion to help students who have struggled with learning from home. Districts could use this money to add another month to the school year or they could spend it on counseling and tutoring for students who need the most help.
To get their slice of the $2 billion, districts in counties under the state’s most restrictive set of coronavirus rules — known as the purple tier — must offer in-person learning for transitional kindergarten through second grade, plus certain vulnerable students in all grades. This includes students who are disabled, homeless, in foster care, learning English, don’t have access to technology or are at risk of abuse and neglect.
Indeed, it appears local education officials will find it difficult to wrangle teachers back into school.
LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner has set a target date of April 9 for reopening elementary schools, but the powerful teachers’ union — United Teachers Los Angeles — has not agreed to that date, which it said is subject to labor talks.
The union is demanding that all teachers and school staff be vaccinated before they return to in-person instruction. It also does not want campuses to reopen until Los Angeles County moves out of the “purple” tier.
All of this intransigence on the part of teachers’ unions in California is certainly not based on any science: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported scant evidence linking schools to transmission.
Schools operating in person have seen scant transmission of the coronavirus, particularly when masks and distancing are employed, but some indoor athletics have led to infections and should be curtailed if schools want to operate safely, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded in papers published Tuesday.
The CDC team reviewed data from studies in the United States and abroad and found the experience in schools differed from nursing homes and high-density work sites where rapid spread has occurred.
“The preponderance of available evidence from the fall school semester has been reassuring,” wrote three CDC researchers in a viewpoint piece published online Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. “There has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission.”
The California Teachers Unions: Getting richer by refusing to work while everyone else clamors to return to their jobs.
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In his presser yesterday, the Warden admitted that his “science” is at odds with the CDC, Fauci and Biden. His “science”, which he is now ignoring, still places most of CA in the “purple” zone. The UTLA called him out on it and further declared the plan to be a “white supremicist” ploy since (according to union leader Cruz), white school systems are not as infected as the “colored” school systems and so would get most of the money.
This is NOT a payoff to the unions. Far from it. There is absolutely no chance that the unions will accept this deal regardless of whether the counties agree to it. The unions are clearly in charge. Newsom is merely pawning of the blame to the unions while cloaking himself with sanctimonious statements about “leadership” and the tragedy to children and families of not opening the schools immediately.
It’s all BS and it is not selling. Everyone know that Newsom does not have the balls to take down the unions.
Bribing taxpayer-paid employees to return to work by promising them billions more taxpayer dollars.
This is how stupid CA taxpayers are: they’re putting up with this.
Yeah. Really. We are stupidly recalling him.
Not all Californians are putting up with this, Observer. Since “their” votes don’t count anymore many are voting with their feet. I can personally count 6 families that I know, neighbors, who are moving or have moved out of state just to get their children into “in-person” schools. When your son, the child of brilliant parents, is failing first grade, or a daughter is failing kindergarten (HOW do you fail kindergarten?!), or a former straight A senior is failing English, desperate measures are taken by parents who feel otherwise powerless.
Call them what they are: Education Refugees.
The L.A. Basin and the Bay Error-ia counties did.
They know Newsom is a cowardly little shit, and they think they can get a better deal ‘negotiating’ with his replacement after he gets recalled.
How many Californians hate that $4 BILLION of their tax dollars will be wasted to pay teachers, who are already being paid, to go back to work?
Suppose every single one of these people, and every Republican, and everyone who knows there is no “science” here goes and gets tested?
It’s free!
You don’t think those people with positive tests don’t test ever day, till it goes away? Test numbers are controlled by who is going for a test! If everyone with no symptoms went (hey, let’s be democratic about it) also went, the so-called purple tiers would go away in a week. He’s not scientific, why should we be?
Speaking of tests, why don’t they test Biden for dementia? They could at least show a photo shopped Doctor’s report to put world leaders minds at ease?
until they meet him
In my old town in the SF bay area grade K-6 finally started hybrid/open school in Feb. There are NO plans to open middle or high schools. Meanwhile the Catholic High Schools have been open since August. Parents are now starting to recall the school board. No surprise the parents are furious.
A better offer would be for Nuisance to be gone before April 1st. Maybe the greaser can be a plug donor for O’Biden’s cadaver like skull.
One “blessing” of the covid scam has been to demonstrate how useless physical property is in the indoctrination process.
Save the children, keep them away from state sponsored terrorists aka public schools.
And that $2 billion will come from California’s cut of the Biden Junta’s ‘Covid Relief Bill’.
The way I would have handled this it to order them to return to work, stop paying those who do not return.
Unemployed teacher could file for unemployment, and that would cause school system unemployment withholding to increase.
Then I would tell the union to go ahead and strike, and start depleting their strike fund.
Next, bring in substitute teachers, then wait for them to beg.
The scam here is continuing to pay the teachers. The government could force them to strike and stop paying them, any time they want to, but they aren’t actually opposition to the teachers.
Do we call this a ransom or a bribe???
How about something a bit more inexpensive and guaranteed to work. Classes open Monday morning. If for some strange reason you are not at work, then you are FIRED!
CaliMexico is already bankrupt so where does the LunaticGov think he’s going to get all that money from ? Is his relative Piglosy going to sneak it in the next Stimulus Bill ? At the rate the rich people and businesses are leaving CA the state can’t pay their regular debt.
Pay them my a$$! Fire them if they refuse to work.