California schools are likely to remain closed for the rest of the school year as coronavirus escalates

Seven states have officially shut down public schools for the remainder of the academic year due to the coronavirus. Yahoo Finance’s Melody Hahm breaks down the school closures.

Video Transcript

- One of the things we've been tracking amidst this pandemic are the closures around the country, particularly of schools. Melody is joining us from Los Angeles. And she's been watching what's been going on there. Melody, by the way, here in New York City, looks like kids are not going to get the spring break that was scheduled for early April. So I'm sure that a lot of other changes are coming out there.

MELODY HAHM: Exactly. California public school campuses are actually projected to not reopen for the remainder of this school year. And that was according to a letter sent by the Superintendent of Public Instruction here in California. And he sent it to all school district officials. I want to point out that seven states-- Arizona, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alabama, Virginia, and Vermont-- have already shut down the public school campuses for the remainder of the academic year. And this is according to Education Week, which is the leading indicator and publication for public schools. And others appear to be headed in that direction overall.

I think what is so interesting, Julie, is even looking at the health care system, right, looking at the esoteric components, where a lot of things are not digitized, where tech is sort of an afterthought in some areas, I think schools are very similar, where of course if you're privileged enough to have access to a very robust database, to great technology, you are obviously in much better shape than many communities and districts around the country. And I want to point out that those states that I mentioned, many of those districts are the ones that do not have access to high-tech and digital opportunities in ways that perhaps New York and California do.

Teachers Pay Teachers is actually a platform where teachers and parents now can actually buy lesson plans and download certain lesson plans for free. And they just conducted a survey, and there are some really interesting results. Only 17% of educators that were surveyed said they felt prepared to implement this so-called distance learning. Of course, face time depends on what kind of teacher it is, what grade, the level of interaction.

But as you are aware as the mother of two sons, I think there's a lot of disparity between parents who are able to dedicate the time, who do have the luxury of working from home to carve out those 20 minutes here, 10 minutes there to be able to pay attention to their kids, and their de facto students, right? But I think a lot of communities, the onus is now on the parents because teachers are not able to really govern the classroom. And we're seeing that further and further chasm being created. And we still do not know if some of those credits will actually be counted. So that's a pending question that I have out to educators, whether, come fall, if things are back to normal, whether they'd have to make up for lost time.

- Yeah. It seems like, from my personal experience, there is going to have to be some lost time to make up for.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

MELODY HAHM: --not doing the trick?

- Oh, Professor Hyman's trying, but yeah. And it depends-- as you say, it depends on the teacher, depends on the grade, depends on the kid, as well, and their willingness to be self-directed at home, as well as parent-directed. A lot of challenges in all of this that all of us are grappling with. Melody, thank you so much for walking us through what a lot of different places are doing. Appreciate it.