welcome back to communidad del valle. i'm damian trujillo and we are back in the virtual sense. the issues are too important for us not to have a show like this to inform the public. thank you to our general manager, stacey owen, for coming up with the idea of bringing back communidad del valle on the virtual basis. things are going to look a little different but the issues are the same, the questions are the same, the show is still about you. from my home to yours, this is your communidad del valle. >> nbc bay area presents "communidad del valle" with damian trujillo.

>> our first guest on our virtual communidad del valle this week is dr. elayer yeah bauer, superintendent of the alum rock school district. thank you for being our guest. how have you been handling covid? 19? >> glad to see you back. i can't believe that we're already in may. for all practical purposes this has gone so fast. this is week seven of shelter in place. we started this in march 13, that's when the district went into lockdown. then right after that happened, the county went and officially said, we're going to move into shelter, that was unprecedented times.

you know, for all of us, in all of our different areas. i'm pretty sure none of us were expecting to live something like this. but i believe that given the circumstances, we have been able to survive all of this. so i'm happy about that. >> you shouldn't have gone to do what you did at talon rock, one of the poorest districts in the state. yet on day one the kids were ready to learn from home. how did you -- i mean, there are school districts on the west side of the valley who are en envio envious. >> i think we did it. i think that -- i am so honored and blessed, having the best team in the state. the almost 2,000 workers that are completely committed to

serve our students. i have to give a huge shout-out to our director of child nutrition services. because there was absolutely no gap in serving meals to our students. the first day, march 16,e 1,000s that very first day. i mean, we left school march 13, you know, regular, with kids and all of that are and they came that saturday and sunday. the team came. and her leadership and the staff, all 70 ladies that work in our child nutrition services, talking about essential workers and first responders, they were ready to go that monday, distributing meals to students and families. so a huge shout-out to that team. >> that's on the nutrition side.

full disclosure, my kids are your kids, they attend your school. day one they were on their laptops issued by elam rock and learning online. other districts were amazed and envious, it took others a month to get it together. >> yeah, and the second thing has been that ability to be able to implement our one-on-one vision of having every student in elam rock with their own device. that was a concept that we began way before covid-19. the idea was, every child in elam rock would have a device to be able to learn in the 20th century mode, right? being very deliberate about using a device, because we are a multi-device district.

we don't belong to any specific device. we believe that children need to learn to use all of them, right? whether it's an ipad, a chromebook, a laptop. many of them, their own phones. you know, that's the real world. so we don't have a loyalty to any one single -- we don't believe that any one single device is the silver bullet. having that vision, you know, of time to implement that vision for our students way before covid-19 allowed us to be ready. partnerships with verizon learning gave us the prototype, the model to follow. because it's not about, here's your device, go home and hook it up. right? it's a lot more complex than that. and through those partnerships with verizon, with t-mobile as of late, we already knew that

not only making a device accessible students is the how do we train families to be able to understand, how do you set up the device at home so that your child is able to access the learning? right? it's not only about making the technology available. it's a complete shift of how do we use technology in a way to learn, right? especially young children at home, technology is used for entertainment. technology is used to connect with family. right? so even though they might have access to it, the use of the device is not necessarily academic. right? as much as we want to believe, you know, when they're playing video games, they're learning a

lot. stop, right? it is impatience for a lot of adults to say, they're learning all the time. they are learning all the time, not necessarily academic learning. this has allowed us the learning we had before covid-19, trying to implement academic learning using technology, allowed us to be ready day one for our students to be able -- they had come i believe maybe two weeks before, a week before. we were rolling out the devices, not thinking at all about a pandemic, right? we were rolling out, everybody gets a device, thinking this is going to be -- the vision for this at some point was, and

still is, that that is what students take home in lieu of paper books, right? we're in that transition moving into the real 21st century. when i go home with a device versus four or five books, right? >> let me get into what's next for our kids. i don't know when the school year's going to start. folks, there are some glitches because we're doing this virtually online, so excuse the hiccups. we want to get all this important information to you. we'll be back with dr. hilaria bauer.

dr. hilaria bauer, superintendent of elam rock school district, is my guest here on communidad del valle. the governor says maybe we start the school year in july. i don't know what your administration is planning. i'm sure you're still trying to work things out. what can parents expect?

>> i think i interpreted that as a concept. not necessarily as a reality. i interpreted that as, what if? if we were to address -- remember, the whole concept of bringing -- to accomplish other goals, right? number one, hearing the governor talk about learning, how can we make up for the number of days? but there are so many moving parts that need to be considered. and that's why i just heard him as a recommendation, not necessarily like, this is what we're going to do. because number one, we need extra resources, right? it's like, you know, we have contracts with our staff for a certain number of days of service. so if we were to add days to that contract, obviously we need to pay for those days that we

added. and that would be resources from the state. especially for districts like mine where we depend 100% from the state in terms of our revenue. so he didn't go there, right? and that's why i'm kind of waiting to see the people in the state that know about finances, how are we going to be able to do it? that's number one. the other concept that was attached to this was, we really need to reopen schools because it's part of economic development. and he -- i applaud the governor saying child care, school services, is closely tied in to making sure that we have a workforce back working. and he talked about businesses in retail, manufacturing, all of those sectors in our economy

that are in pause, for lack of a better word, that they need to reopen. an address that, obviously, those workers whigh- schools need to be also providing their services. so that is -- he used the words, they are interconnected. that was fantastic for me as superintendent to hear that clarity in our leadership. that they are not two different sectors. i think that that has been one of those polarizations in some ways, right? a lot of times when people talk about business, they go into just business sectors without considering, how do you sustain the business sector? that there are human needs that sustain the business sector.

and hearing the governor using both types together was a welcome news for me. you know, i said, that is very, very smart. >> we only have a minute and a half left, believe it or not. are we looking at maybe -- say fifth grade, morning shifts and afternoon shifts? how are we going to separate and stagger the kids? >> so the other concept, right, in addition to bringing them early, is social distancing. and how do we implement social distancing? with fifth graders, right? you have -- we have to consider that there's not enough tests, the vaccine is not going to be available within the next 18 to 24 months, that's just a reality. so having enough supplies for us, just in think in terms of children need to wear ma gloves thater group. all of those are huge challenges

that we need to be -- they need to be resolved before we can start implementing staggered schedules. so we really need to have a lot more information right now before we move forward. >> now the question, dr. bauer, what about grades? some schools are saying credit/no credit, some are giving the option -- this is mostly high school, college. but what about elam rock and grades? >> we need to bring it to the board, and that's why the parents have not heard the proposal. i want to bring it for board approval. we are wanting to make sure that children have no harm, which means that just because you did not have the appropriate environment. we are very proud that we were able to deploy devices to about 90% of our students. that's amazing. and so -- but that's 10% still

wondering, you know, what happened? we have currently, the next eight days i have some staff back on campus trying to locate those students and figuring out what is the reality. so the grading needs to be appropriate to address that lack of connectivity or lack of engagement in our system. >> dr. bauer, thank you so much. you are the envy of silicon valley education. thank you for plowing forward.

we are joined by the department of public health in santa clara county. doctor, thank you so much for joining us here on communidad del valle. welcome to the show. >> thank you very much for having me. >> thank you. so this week a new order was issued. anything stand out to you? i know we're still sheltering at home. what stands out to you?

>> yes, there are some interesting and welcome openings into the shelter-in-place orde including the child care centers that can keep safe distances in groups under 12, allowed to be open. and there are other inclusions in the order that allow for open-air businesses can function. and it's very clear that the orders are beginning to open up into society where the more essential services are needed.ps stay atome for most of the people in our community. >> what does this -- does this mean anything? it sounds like some things are changing, but not a lot.

we're slowly beginning to open things up. >> correct. it means that there is -- that things are going well, but that it's still too early to tell whether or not we can open society back to the degree that we will no longer be in a shelter in place. it good, the number of cases that are diagnosed daily, the number, unfortunately, of deaths associated with covid-19 is stable and not increasing every day. we're getting more testing capacity so that cases that still keep occurring will be able to be diagnosed promptly and we will be able to institute isolation orders for people to stay at home if they're

infected, to end chains of transmission. but it also means that all of those things are still in their early stages and that we don't want to do things so quickly that we will reverse our gains, that we need to keep sheltering in place. >> doctor, i know that kids are excited. what should kids know about what it means for them? gatherings, people want to see their friends. what does it mean for them? >> yes. unfortunately, in terms of going out and hanging out with friends, it still means that is not allowed. it's been a big sacrifice, not only for the children, but the adults that do want to begin to socialize more, or maybe the children that haven't visited their grandparents for a while. families want to be together, and children want to be with their friends. but shelter-in-place orders will

be officially restarted on may the 4th, and it's in place until may the 31st. so they will have to stay at home home. hopefully they will have developed a routine and can do their schoolwork and other things their parents can help out with. but it won't be going back to school, it won't be going back to play contact sports, for example. those are still not allowed. so not very good news for the kids wanting to go out and play. >> so to clarify, they can't go see grandma and grandpa still? >> they cannot. they cannot. shelter in place -- even though a lot of people want to think that the whole family unit could shelter in place, if they didn't

live together before the beginning of shelter in place, if they are distant family units that have their own households, then it is not r dinner or other things. now with technology a lot of people use zoom and skype and other technologies where they could be eating in two different homes. but not visiting each other. >> we're doing okay, right? we've bent the curve and things are getting better, there's some optimism there? >> there is some optimism. it's early optimism. but it is true optimism. in santa clara county in particular, our health officer, dr. cody, has said multiple times how grateful we all are about the community sacrifice that has taken place, that we have all collaborated with the

orders, have stayed at home, and therefore we are seeing early evidence that transmission has slowed down. now we know with this virus and the way it's transmitted, and -- until we have a vaccine or another way to make people not be susceptible to be infected with this disease, then we cannot say that there's no more cases going to be happening. that is not in the near future. the absolute absence of cases or the transmission down to levels that are so low that are not impacting our health and our society. that will happen hopefully when there is a vaccine in place.

but our evidence that we know from the way other diseases behave, we do know that the virus is going to stay in place and that the susceptibility of all of our communities to have -- to acquire the virus will remain until there's immunity. so there is optimism. we still don't want to say that all the sacrifice that has already taken place did not show some impact in reducing the transmission. the curve has flattened. we want to see now the curve go down. we're going to begin more active that is called contact tracing, meaning public health department is

pursuing finding where everybody that could be infected is, offering testing, offering testing to their households and other persons that could have been exposed so that we learn about everybody and we can keep them isolated or quarantined until it's safe for them to be around others and they don't pass on the infection. >> okay, doctor. excuse my eyes wandering, i'm trying to work the computer system, new technology we're using here. stay with us, we'll be back after these messages.

. we're back with the public health department of santa clara county. why are latinos more disproportionately being affected with coronavirus? it seems the numbers show that. >> yes. all the risk factors of why that would be have not been completely -- are not completely examined. but there are some that we know,

we can already message. and that is that often our community is living in maybe more crowded housing. that with any infectious disease makes it more prone that if somebody has it, they can give it to other people. maybe also because of the type of activities that we do. it could be that there are more latinos that are also essential workers. as you know, an essential worker hasn't been told to sta home because we are doing jobs that we need to be in place, we need to drive a truck or deliver groceries or whatever other essential work. it doesn't mean that all latinx

community is an essential worker, but it might than in santa clara county there are more latinx community members that are essential workers. >> thank you once again for watching "communidad del valle" in the virtual sense. see you back in my home studio next week. stay healthy. ♪ i love the way you make me love you ♪ ♪ i love the way you make me smile ♪ ♪ i love the way you make me want you ♪ ♪ so sit right down stay awhile ♪

. . right now at 4 cl:30, tonight, bay area company that is i do nating the supply to fight against coronavirus. plus, the answers, new details on claims by the trump administration that covid-19 started in a lab. but first, little by little, restrictions loosened for restrictions across the bay area. what will remain closed starting tomorrow. the news starts right now. i'm terry m