>> announcer: building a better bay area, for a safe appear secure future. this is abc 7 news. isten e.lyere. t aners action-packed taerg wa. we have zoe lovrgen to talk about the new immigration bill introduced and whats it it means. we'll look at the racial disparity in california when it comes to who has been getting the covid-19 vaccine. so the state's dash board is up and the numbers are eye opening. as you know we investigate the root causes of things we see. it's not always as simple as it might appear at first.

we'll get into that conversation. but certainly we'll be talking school students still not in the classroom, we want to discuss what is the plan. as you know the cd released guidelines in the past week or so with regard to how to do so safely. and it is the cdc's opinion that schools do not have to wait unti staff have been vaccinated to safely bring kids back. now it's interesting it's coming at a time when bay area school districts are for the most part, the public ones anyway still struggling to bring children back. even the youngest kids, talking about kindergarten through second grade, in a lot of counties in san francisco and oakland it hasn't happened yet. with that let's welcome back the superintendent of education, tony thurm ond good to see. >> you good to see you, kriste >> i h set f a minute

waiting for you to connect. you owe me a minnesota on the back end. i'm kidding. it's always a delight. >> always. >> i do want to start with this. what percentage ch public school kids are back in school for in-person learning in california. >> our best count is about 79% of our schools are in remote learning, just over 20% of schools we think have some version of a hybrid opening. some kind of small scale in-person instruction in schools at this time. >> okay. as you know, the worries over learning laws and the al iacids with this, i know the governor offered cash incentives for districts opening by february 1616th. that date has come and gone. has that led to openings? what's happened? >> you know, the legislature and the governor are still trying to talk through the details of the incentive plan that would give schools money for things like covid testing which is the key element until we get vaccines.

vaccines are everything. the sooner we can get them to the educators, the sooner all of our schools in the state can get open. we just don't have enough supply. we're still waiting on vaccines to come from the federal government. but the governor and the legislature are still working out trying to get an agreement. in the meantime, the legislature has put forward its own proposal just today outlining ways to help get schools open and new requirements part of the legislation. >> so the cdc guidelines though make it pretty clear that while vaccines we all want for our teachers for sure as soon as possible. but they're not a requirement. the cdc guidelines say if you've got the ppe, social distancing, right, the masking, the ventilation in schools, which i noy that can be an issue especially with urban th y can sothat i wt your take, right? because in the bay area we are seeing some schools like san francisco pegging the reopening to vaccines for example. >> it's true. the cdc has published what is

essentially new research that talks about what i call a pathway for how to get open. and it does tie it to things that wave been saying for months, that aiming social distancing and wearing masks is critical. the reason we still talk about vaccines a lot is because there are a lot of new variants. and some are still fatherful. what does it mean? and what is the impact of the new at variant? ultimately, the gold standard in safety is the advantagesen. but until we get enough doses we believe it's to be to create a pathway to opening schools using what i call robust covid testing. we have tests now that can give you results in 15 minutes. that's a game changer for schools to be able to identify if someone has come to school and they're positive for covid. and so we think that through a combination of covid tests and finding a way to move more vaccines for educators we think that it is possible for california schools to get opened. >> yeah, i mean, look, there are

a thousand school districts in california. i know you don't just push a buon a contrll. make the own mind. i hope they're listening. but i see a lot of families in san francisco. afford to switch to private. does that worry you. >> it does. we have seen hundreds of thousands of families have that have made the decision to seek education elsewhere or haven't checked in open owe and we have to strengthen our data systems in the state to understand where the families are. we know that families have made other choices. i do worry about what that means for public education going forward. obviously, our schools are funded based on attendance of students. and so the lack of students means less revenue. less revenue means less quality programming. it's a big concern. i think everyone is correct that what's best for our kids is when they can be in person. we're just working as hard as we can to get there and to address the concerns that many have about what -- how covid might

impact them. >> all right. hey, randy and kristine are facebook viewers who have questions with regard to the oakley unified school district. i'm sure you heard, oakley you know be, the board members got upon a zoom. they were caught making disparaging comments about parents and teachers saying parents just want schools only to have baby sitters back. were you stunned that school board members, those in charge of ensuring the education of children, hold such views? >> it's that first of all i appreciate what parents are doing right now. they are partnering with their educators to help their kids, scholars. and this is hard on them. i commend parents for resilience. that's what our parents deserve. they deserve our support, not anything that would suggest anything negative about them. this is not the time for that. there is never a time for that. it's really uncalled for. i hope the school board members take responsibility for the

statements and actions and get focused on how do we support families? they need our support right now, not criticism, not minimizing the situation that's in front of us. our kids are experiencing high rates of depression and lack of social connection. we know that learning losses and gaps have been exacerbated that were already tough before the pandemic and now they're worse. so it's an unfortunate situation. but i want parents to know that we care deeply about their concerns. you know, the other thing, kristen, is that a lot of parents even if schools reopen in person some are going to say hey i prefer distance learning. because of their own safety concerns. i say that to that we owe it to parents to offer them support, no criticism, nothing that would minimize their experiences. >> right, right. you mentioned the learning loss. look, you know, my own kid's school newspaper did outstanding reporting. reporting 15% of the kids in the district are reported as being disengaged in their zoom classes

and they're seeing record numbers of kids getting ds and fs. what do you want to see done to reverse that? this is going to end. what does it mean? summer school, more classtime, different kind of support? what do you think, tony. >> i think all of the above. i want to give a shout out to a great group of scholars in englewood unified who organized a townhall with mo me earlier this week. and they shared feedback that you heard from your kidsed' school. and that feedback from young people helps us work with educators thinking about making learning more engaging. to speak to the other part of the question, the way we get through this is what with he call accelerating learning. when our students are back in person, we are going to have a lot of small group and extra tutoring work dur during the after school sometime and the summer presents an opportunity to do more work. we can offset the gaps and work closely with teachers, provide

training and support to the students to offset the learning gaps the students experienced. >> yeah. look, tony, i know you've been following this closely. i know social justice has always been important to you. there have been attacks on asian-americans recently. some of it is general crime. a lot of it though is racism and stereotypes about who is strong and vocal and who is silent and weak. truth be told, in our schools there isn't a whole lot to study the whole of the asian-american experience in america from different perspectives. what do you think? >> it's just deplorable np anyone attacks or tries to victimize any group or hate or bullying, there is no place for that. we have to stand up for that. we have a responsibility to stand up and speak out for others. late last year we spent some time with beyond differences and some great community groups in san francisco, talking about specifically bullying against asian-american students because of, you know, statements that president trump had made that

were just false and conflating asian-american students with the pandemic and the coronavirus. there is no place for that. we put on webinars no help address what we call education to end hate. we'll do more of that. we're putting out the ethnic studies kick lump to get more information about ethnic studies. and it will highlight the incredible accomplishments of leaders in the asian-american and pacific islander community, the african-american community. latino community and native american community. there is no place for bullying. we want to work with gripes like beyond differences here in bay area that focused on countering bullying for all folks. and we will stand with our asian-american communities and every community to say there is no place for bullying here. >> and tony, i'm sure you share the view, truth be told, so many social ig goes ck to education, know each other, getting to know the history. so in some ways your job may be the most important in california. so no pressure.

but always great to have the chat and talk about solutions with you. i really appreciate it. >> no problem. i accept. and you're right. you look at those who have been engage in the hate movement, including those involved in the storm on the capitol, these hate groups, they tend to go after folks and get them at a young age. and sometimes they spin a lot of misinformation. and so we have an opportunity using education to counter that. always glad to come on your show, kristen. thank you for spreading the word and keeping people informed. thanks so much. >> thanks, tony. tadrend llhat is that

grimgts reform was one of the issues president biden promised to handle if he were elected. now we have an official bill from congress, the citizenship act of 2021. and joining us to talk about what it covers is the bill's cosponsor south bay congresswoman zoe lofgren. representative, thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> this is a sweeping piece of immigration legislation that offers a path to citizenship for 11 million people. give us the details. >> well, that's something that everybody is focused on. but the bill does much more than that. everything from letting the dreamers -- young people brought here as children, get right with the law and be able to come out and fully contribute to their country, to legalizing the farm workers, if it weren't for them we would not be getting fruits and vegetables in our stores, to dealing with problems in the

legal immigration system. for example, we have huge backlogs because we allocate visas based on where you are born, not your skills. it eliminates the per country caps. it provides for the capacity of legal immigrants to have spouses and minor children immigrate promptly instead waiting years and years. it does a lot of important useful things. something else it does that i think is important is to focused on what's going on in central america that's causing thousands of people to flee for their lives. thought asylum at our border, obviously we have the law of asylum. but if we ignore what's causing people to flee for their lives we are not really dealing with this effectively. and the bill not only focuses on the disorder -- in basically three countries -- but calls on other countries in the western

hemisphere to be part of the solution. it shouldn't just be the united states. >> um-hum. there are some who wonder if this is the time to tackle this, though, with the pandemic, the relief still work in progress. >> well, we can do more than one thing at a time. i'm involved in a number of lichgto legislative. the the immigration measures, the covid relief measures. so they're all important. but when you think about where we are -- we've got covid rampant in certain parts of our country, really all over the united states. but if you are a farm worker, your chances of getting covid are much higher than my chances as a member of congress. and yet a majority of those farm workers don't have their papers. a majority of them have been

here more than ten years. so why should they be hiding out while picking our food? >> i do want tackle the border security issue. because i know the bill has aspects to targetd part of it u to patrol the borders. talk about that. >> well, we have spent more on border security than all other federal law enforcement efforts combined. i mean we have thrown money at it. and it hasn't really worked that well. what we haven't done is utilized technology successfully to prevent incursions between the ports of entry. you know, we want to have an orderly movement of people, a legal, orderly movement of people across our borders, north and south. and that's what this bill is all about, and making sure we have a law that works for the united states and then that we enforce

the law. >> what about bringing family to the u.s.? that's been criticized a lot in the past of course by past administration, for example? what does the bill stipulate about that? >> well, it does a lot of good things. what i do is look at, how does the law serve the united states's interests? right now, you have a legal permanent resident of the united states who is married and because of allocation of visas we're going to separate that husband and wife for one, two or three or sometimes four years. what's the value in that? so this allows spouses and minor children of legal residents to be immediately reunified. it does something else. depending on if you came from latin america or came from europe, the so-called three in ten-year bar is different for you. so we've got american citizens who are married to somebody.

and their spouses can't come in some cases for ten years. so that doesn't serve america well at all. so it does some smart things to make sure that american interests are served. >> and i wonder if this is going to remain as one big comprehensive package? chance itnpa suppo on?is a you have to have the center to push this forward. >> i think there is an effort to do this bigger bill. but it -- the bigger bill is really made up of component parts. for example, the dream and promise act was introduced in the house in the last congress and passed the house of representatives. it's in this bill. i had a bill that modernized the law for farm workers. and although all the details aren't in it, it does deal with the situation of farm workers.

so i think we're going to move everything at once and see what we can get through the senate. >> all right. we have about 30 seconds. i'm going to end with this. this approach you are taking now, what does say to the world about america? >> well, you know, we know in america -- unlike some countries, every person here, except the native americans, their family came from someplace else. and it really made us a great country. if you think about it, all the things we like about the american character, courage, optimism, willingness to take risks, that's what immigrants are. and so we're valuing our past by making sure that our future is not cut off from those elements that made us such a great country. >> well, i am of an immigrant so i appreciate that description. thank you so much. before you go, komtz, enrico garcia on facebook wants you

there. >> my favorite book on this -- in back of me. well one of my favorite books is the immigration and nationality act which is right over my shoulder. and this summer i read every single page of it. so that when this moment came i would be prepared. >> all right. congresswoman zoe lofgren, thank you so much for your time today as we talk about this bill, this immigration reform bill. hope to continue the conversation as it moves forward. take good care. >> thank you so much. coming up next, we'll get into the race disparity when it comes to who has gotten

notable disparity when it comes to who is getting the covid-19 vaccine. of all vaccines given out in t white residents, 16% to latinos, even though latinos are the single largest racial group in the state. why are the vaccine numbers not reflective of the dechl graphic at large?

joining us to the ceos policy link, a member of we must count. michael m >> good afternoon, my knowledge. >> good good afternoon. >> before we dive into why let's look at the vaccine numbers, the state has a dash board breaking it down by race. walk us through it. what do you see. >> 7% of the state population on barak people, 7% of the population only 3.5% of vocationo folks vaccinated. latinos, things that you had you said are 8.3% of the population. 15% of the population have gotten 8% of the advantagesens. we're falling woefully behind when we think about communities of color. not only just about vaccines but why it's important they get vaccinated. the black and brown communities have been hit first and worst by the pandemic. they are front line workers, teachers, firefighters, police officers and we're not keeping pace with the demand to make

sure they are vaccinated. >> yeah, i wonder if we can just ca wryg to brain storm all the reasons that explain this disparity between, you know, the population at large and who has gotten vaccinated. you know, is it who is older? is it who is in which professions, for example in health care you get it first, . is it who has health care insurance, is it who has internet access at home to make an appointment? what do you think? i think you nailed it. it's a design challenge. you know, if you have the luxuries you'll get vaccinated. but if you don't you're going to be further behind, even if you are eligible. i mean, think about our grandparents at home. our mothers and fathers who are at home who may not be proficient in using the computer, don't have assistance, may not have transportation to get to a vaccination center. the reality is if you don't design for these challenges with folks who don't have the luxuries that some of us do, you're not going to be able to

expect that the numbers are going to increase. and that is really fundamentally the problem. our health care system doesn't take into account the unique needs of many folks, especially lor. people a o >> s wt canking at for example san francisco. it just opened up a vaccination site in the bay view to try to address that inequity. do you think that's the kind of solution? or are there others you can think of to boost the vaccination right in minority groups. >> yeah, expanded house hours. engaging communities of faith. i know the bay area is doing a good job of that and supporting those communities of faith. with more resources to be able to do more vaccinations would be invaluable. some of the things that are even done in terms of making transportation to some of the sites available for free. those are all the things that we should be doing. if we ask ourselves, who pays? who benefits?

who decides? who is being left behind, we would begin to catch some of the things before they show up in the numbers. and that's really the work for the bay and the work for our nation right now. can we think about folks being left behind, who sit on the margins when it comes to resources and begin to prioritize them and design strategies that serve them first? >> all right. michael mca fee, ceo of policy link sharing your thoughts with us. don't go away because

continue this conversation another day. take care. and thank you so much for joining us on this interactive show, getti"getting answers." today we talked about reopening schools with state superintendent tony thmo en the vaccine shot.ad a

we'll be every weekday at tonight, the emergency in texas, the major storm still hitting the east, the second part of this storm still to come overnight around tomorrow morning. 21 states from texas up through new york and massachusetts under alerts tonight for yet more snow, ice, brutal cold andtonig this evening, hundreds of thousands still without power or heat. millions under boil water advisories and tomorrow in texas, in the teens again. tonight, the alarming acknowledgement from the head of the texas utility, revealing the texas power grid was in his words just seconds and minutes from a full catastrophic blackout, that this could have been even worse. and serious questions about why