At the beginning of the COVID-19 health crisis, Advancement Project National Office quickly realized the ways it would upend our country's public school systems.
 We witnessed massive, widespread school closures and in our March letter to Congress we urged Congress to provide:
- Funding for school meals for all children and families;
- Internet connectivity to meet students' online learning needs;
- To end the use of school police -- particularly surveillance and monitoring technologies on devices loaned to students; and
- Necessary mental health support to children so that they are equipped to handle these troubling times and are able to cope with the trauma that our society faces.
While Congress did allocate some funding for education, most of our demands were not met.
September is here and we are facing the same uncertainty we did earlier this year. But now, there is an increasing pressure to ignore recommendations from scientists and doctors and to instead physically reopen schools.
Advancement Project National Office adamantly opposes the physical reopening of schools while this health crisis continues. Once the pandemic has been controlled and there is agreement that indoor spaces are safe again, we will support the opening of schools, but they will need to meet the following basic needs:
- Free school meals for all students;
- Guaranteed basic income for parents so they do not have to choose between working to survive, educating their children who are at home, and the health of their families;
- Free high-speed internet access for all students at home;
- Prohibition of police working in school buildings, including but not limited to as "school resource officers" or "school safety agents";
- Banning of all surveillance and monitoring technology in schools, including but not limited to social media monitoring and facial recognition technology;
- PPE for all staff and students who must physically return to schools;
- Infrastructure updates to school facilities;
- Including the addition of air conditioning and/or heating systems with filters
- Removal of mold, lead and asbestos
- Access to clean drinking water in fountains
- Clean, working bathrooms equipped with toilet paper, soap, sanitizer
- All schools have nurses, counselors, psychologists, and social workers at the ratio recommended by the respective professional organizations
- Creation of on-site medical and mental health centers on school campuses.
Many of the issues that our communities face now are problems that have existed before the pandemic, and they will not disappear once this crisis is over. The systemic racial inequalities in public K-12 education in the U.S. are decades-long issues that will require years of progressive commitment. In this time of crisis, we all have the responsibility to care for and support our most vulnerable communities. Young people and their concerns have often been left out of relief efforts, despite their vulnerability to crisis as they are developing and growing into their own.
To read our open letter on the reopening of schools and to demand safe schools, click here.
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