. >> joining me now frederick ingram. president of the florida education association.nk you for being with me, welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> we just heard from betsy devos a little bit ago delivering this message to the governors, and i quote, it is not a matter of if schools open, it is a matter of how schools must fully open and must be fully operational. when you hear that, what do you think? >> so, right now it is irresponsible to talk about how -- if schools will reopen in the fall for florida. right now we need to be talking about how we get this virus under control. how do we keep schools and our communities safe. how do we ensure that our teachers and our educational support professionals who love the kids and in fact miss the kids more than anybody else in this state, they want to be in school. but we need to be ensured that we have a plan that is robust, that is comprehensive and led by the science and that is led by health and safety of everyone concerned. >> and i heard you say led by science. do you think science is guiding your state's governor

frederick ingram, good luck to you. thank you for representing the union. tracy, thank you very much in being the heart and soul of teachers who mean everything to our kids all over this country. god bless you both. we'll stay on the story. >> chris, thank you. >> thank you. >> we are not disposable. thank you. >>> all right. hires a description you don't want offered of you. a sociopath with no concept of working for anything. a complete fraud who would mock their own ailing father and screw their own family. that is how trump is described by a psychologist who has observed him for decades. what does a psychologists know? oh, yeah, she's also his niece. mary trump said she had to write everything she knows down because she is scared about what her uncle is doing and may do. what's in the book? cnn has it next. you can't predict the future. but a resilient business can be ready for it. a digital foundation from vmware helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours... to the university moving hun

for more, we welcome to the broadcast frederick ingram. he's president of the florida education association, which is comprised of 100 different teachers unions. thank you for joining us. schools are locally funded and governed. when the president talks about funding, he could hurt ppe funding, some funding for poor kids supplied by the feds, but schools have traditionally ben a local deal. what do you and your folks need? what are you demanding between now and your determination that it's safe to bring kids back into the classroom? >> so, brian, listen, thank you for having me tonight. it's so important we talk about florida tonight simply because we are the epicenter of what's going on in our country. we are ground zero as it relates to the coronavirus, frankly, in the world. we have 9,000 cases reported today. almost 10,000 cases reported total. almost 10,000 cases reported we have 48 deaths reported from this virus today. and we have 3,089 deaths reported. we are a state that is regressing. in a state where you have beaches where you c

joining me now is frederick ingram, the president of the florida education association. and i want to just jump in and ask you, is there a safe way to get students k-12 and teachers back in the classroom without jeopardizing or compromising their health and the health of their families who they'll go home to after school? >> well, thank you very much for having me this afternoon. and let me first say this. to answer your question, i don't think that our schools are ready to open right now given our circumstances. we have 23,000 kids under the age of 18 who have tested positive for covid-19, like you said, we had over 12,000 cases today. we had 10,000 cases yesterday and we are still on an incline trend here in the state of florida. we find ourselves in the epicenter of what's going on as relates to this virus. and so until we get control of the community spread, until we understand this, our schools will not be super spreader events. we have got to get rid of the hell or high water approach to opening up our brick and mortar schools. arthel: the governor said we'll leave

you know who agrees, frederick ingram, president of florida's largest teachers union, and tracy merlinan elementary schoolteacher. these were the people that were setting up to go in there with the kids, right? the parents were not going to be in there with all these kids we don't know every day. we've got to make it safe for them so let's discuss the issues. frederick, tracy, thank you very much for being with me. in terms of the state of play in your state where is the union's head in terms of your concerns about going back to school? >> so, chris, thank you for having me and i appreciate being on your show. but let me tell you what we have here in the state of florida. we have 7,347 new cases today. we have 63 covid related deaths and also have 50,000 plus over the last seven days. we're not going forward. we're going backwards, and we have a governor who has tethered himself to the president of the united states. who is uniquely defined by his secretary of education, betsey devoes. we've been given mow guidance, no regulations that makes sense to reopen our schools, and in the midd

we're joined by frederick ingram, president of the florida education association. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> you have a lot of parents that want kids back in school, you want your kid and teachers safely back in school. what are your concerns as you filed this lawsuit with school just a few weeks away for your adults in the building, teachers, custodian workers, bus drivers? what are you worried about? >> this is a nonsense call ar e argument that we're having. we have a 13.4% positivity rate. we have to get the positivity rate down and we don't know what the fallout is going to be when you start to cram hundreds of thousands of childrens in our schools. so that's going to create a problem for us. we don't want to be the petri dish for america. we need a survival kit. we need our state government to step up and lead in these issues. we have over 360,000 total people who have tested positive in the state of florida, 5,000 deaths statewide and we seem to be going backward as it relates to the cdc regulation. we have seen a 14-day decl

joining us now is frederick inning gram, president of the florida education association and a teacher in miami-dade county. mr. ingramry much for being here. you're suing the governor over his mandate to open schools. you say it's dangerous. but i'm sure that you've heard his logic, or at least the commissioner of education's logic, which is that it's also harmful to students in terms of psychologically, socially, you know, emotionally, and to their parents financially for them to be out of school. here's what the commissioner has put out in a statement -- "there is a need to reopen schools fully to ensure the quality and continuity of the educational process, the comprehensive well-being of students and families and return to florida hitting its full economic stride." so, that's their logic. what's your response? >> sure. and thank you very much for having me this morning. listen, i'm a high school band director, and nobody wants to be in front of kids in classrooms and back in our public schools more than our teachers. there are over 200,000 teachers that get giddy with zeal, start preparing lessons and start doing