Education Sec'y Cardona: Students in School, Full-Time Should Be 'Default' But 'Short-Term Closures Might Be Needed' at Times

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona stated that hybrid schooling “is probably the most disruptive” model and the “default model should be full-time, five days a week, in-person,” but there may be times where due to an “increase in cases, in spread, and inadequate staffing that short-term closures might be needed.”

Cardona said, “[I]t’s critical that we do what we can to make sure that our schools stay open full-time, five days a week. I recognize there are going to be some bumps along the way, but the goal for all of us, I know educators across the country know, we don’t want to go back to how it was, fully remote. We don’t want to go back to hybrid. Our students learn best and our schools thrive when students are in-person.”

He added that, with precautions, “our default should be to have our students come back in. We recognize that there, as I said earlier, are going to be challenges with that and in some places, a short-term closure may be necessary in order to safely return students back and have adequate staffing, but we really need to learn how to thrive during this pandemic. We opened school when Delta was rampant. We have the tools, we have the resources, states and districts have access to resources.”

Cardona further stated that the “hybrid model is probably the most disruptive. And we don’t know that we’re keeping our children any safer when they’re not in our schools. We know schools provide structure, masks are required, students get meals, they have connections with peers and with their teachers. So, in my opinion, our default model should be full-time, five days a week, in-person, recognizing that there may be times, due to [an] increase in cases, in spread, and inadequate staffing that short-term closures might be needed. But our mentality should be that our students suffered enough, we have the tools, we have the resources, they should be in the classroom.”

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