"Kids need to get back to school, they need to get back in the classroom," DeVos said on CNN, while acknowledging that local conditions should be taken into account. Admiral Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary of health, said that with COVID-19 deaths continuing to rise, "everything should be on the table." Pressure from TrumpThe pressure to reopen schools has come from the top, with Trump threatening to withhold federal funding from schools that refuse to reopen -- a stance that DeVos reconfirmed. Trump has criticized guidelines from the federal Centres for Disease Control for the safe reopening of schools, saying they were too rigid and too expensive. "In fact, we want to see schools open and have been committed to ensuring the resources are there to do that."

Source: Dhaka Tribune July 12, 2020 16:41 UTC