FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/p>\n
October 28, 2020<\/p>\n
Albuquerque, New Mexico<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 This week, Congresswoman Deb Haaland (NM-01)<\/strong> joined a bill that would help keep schools safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Safe Schools Act, introduced by Rep. Chuy Garcia<\/a> (Ill.-04), to provide $17 billion to school districts to pay for PPE, cleaning supplies, technical training, and additional staff support needed to keep students, educators, and communities healthy.<\/p>\n As New Mexico schools face a surge in coronavirus cases, administrators and teachers are struggling to acquire adequate PPE<\/a>. Schools managed tight budgets before COVID-19 and the emergency relief funding in the CARES Act helped schools with initial moves to remote learning. Now, many districts are moving to hybrid models and bringing students back into the classroom creating a need for PPE, hand sanitizer, and other supplies to keep students, teachers, and staff healthy.<\/p>\n \u201cOur teachers and school districts are doing everything they can to keep our students from falling into the gaps during this pandemic, but the Trump Administration continues to push reopening without giving them the proper resources. The PPE for Safe Schools Act<\/em> works to address this, by providing crucial funding for our schools that will make sure we keep school staffs, teachers, students and the broader community healthy,\u201d said Congresswoman Deb Haaland.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe COVID-19 pandemic has drastically affected our education system. Whether in-person, remote, or a combination of both, students and teachers have returned to vastly different classrooms this fall in Chicago and around our country. Despite the uncertainty, one thing is clear: students, educators, and support staff returning to in-person classes should not have to worry about risking their own health. That is why we are introducing the PPE for Safe Schools Act,\u201d said Rep. Jes\u00fas \u201cChuy\u201d Garc\u00eda.<\/strong> \u201cIt is simply irresponsible to have our kids return to school without proper safety measures in place. Our teachers, staff, and students need safe schools now.\u201d<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered learning in the short term and for years to come. Whether in-person, remote, or a combination of both, students and teachers are returning to vastly different classrooms. Despite the uncertainty, one thing is clear: students, educators, and support staff returning to in-person classes should not have to worry about risking their own health.<\/p>\n The PPE for Safe Schools Act<\/em> would provide schools with the funds they need to protect students, teachers and support staff, based on estimated needs including:<\/p>\n In August, the White House declared<\/a> teachers essential workers without committing the resources necessary to keep them safe in the classroom. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recently announced<\/a> that it will no longer pay for PPE it had previously covered for schools. Any serious effort to reopen schools safely must commit the resources necessary to do so.<\/p>\n Haaland\u00a0held a roundtable<\/a>\u00a0in August with teachers, councilors, students and administrators to understand what they were facing and inform her advocacy\u00a0for\u00a0funding\u00a0for\u00a0schools in relief packages. In September, the U.S. House passed a\u00a0renewed Heroes Act<\/a>\u00a0that included\u00a0funding to bolster education and child care<\/strong>,<\/strong>\u00a0with $225 billion\u00a0for\u00a0education \u2013 including $182 billion\u00a0for\u00a0K-12 schools and nearly $39 billion\u00a0for\u00a0postsecondary education \u2013 and $57 billion to support child care\u00a0for\u00a0families.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rep. Deb Haaland (D-New Mexico) has signed onto the Personal Protective Equipment for Safe Schools Act, a bill that would help keep schools safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[18,182,119,740,77,10],"class_list":["post-9199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-institutions","tag-116th","tag-deb-haaland","tag-democrats","tag-h-r-8664","tag-house","tag-new-mexico"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9199"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9204,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9199\/revisions\/9204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n