Newsom on coronavirus: California schools likely closed through summer break

It’s unlikely many of California’s schools will reopen before the summer break, Gov. Newsom said Monday, sending shock waves across the state and jarring parents who are just a few days into the widespread closure of classrooms.

The hope has been that schools can open in three weeks, maybe four, after spring break and when the current shelter-in-place policy in six Bay Area counties is scheduled to end. Newsom said the state should start preparing for what would be a worst-case scenario. Closures through the end of the school year would hit disadvantaged and struggling students particularly hard.

“I would plan and assume that it’s unlikely that many of these schools will open before the summer break,” he said at an evening press conference.

If Newsom is right, it would mean a five-month break from a formal education for nearly six million students across the state.

Nearly 99% of students are now out of school, Newsom said, and he expects that a few small district that remain open will likely soon close. Newsom also said he is seeking a federal waiver that would allow schools to forgo standardized testing for students when they do return. He said exams would be “totally inappropriate.”




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