HAMPTON ROADS, Va. - Can schools reopen safely in the wake of COVID-19? That's the question so many parents, students and educators want answered.
Local Congressman Bobby Scott says so many issues must be tackled first.
"What are the plans? How do you protect the students? What happens if someone comes in, appears to be infected - what is the plan? What is the plan for ventilation? What is the plan for cleaning? What is the plan for instruction? What is the plan for the physical layout of the classroom? How are you going to get them there? What transportation system are you going to use? You're going to use the same buses, packing the same number of students into a bus or you're going to have fewer students on a bus, and how's that going to work? Are you going to have more buses scheduled? That takes time, resources, planning, and that planning is not going on right now. One of the other problems we have is the testing. We don't have enough tests - you'd like to be able to test everybody on the first day to make sure there's no one in school that's positive. Then you have to have recurring tests, not everybody every day, but enough so if there's an outbreak you can detect it before it's too late," Scott said.
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Congressman Scott says there's no debate that students need to be back in school, but he added that if it can't be done safely, remote learning is the best option until COVID case numbers drop and there's been proper planning.