00:00So good afternoon and welcome to what usually is my kitchen table but now we're in my patio
00:05because today my special guest is my husband Dr. Andre Perry. So I'm Dr. Joya Crea Perry and
00:11welcome to the Health Equity Cipher where we talk about health issues during COVID-19 for black
00:16families and normally my husband and I spend a lot of time talking to policy makers and media
00:22about the policies that they are creating and what's happening but really for us this is really
00:26personal the ideas as a public health professional as a person who works on majority black cities we
00:31actually have our nine-year-old ourselves and we're trying to figure out who do we trust who do black
00:35people trust when it comes to taking our kids and putting them back into school next month and what
00:41are we supposed to do who are we supposed to listen to so I wanted to have this conversation with my
00:45husband in front of you so you can all see that the challenges that we're all having and figuring out
00:49what should we do with our children so what do you think honey what should we do what who do we listen
00:54to at this moment during COVID-19? Well first of all I'm going to listen to my wife and child
01:00at this table but but we of all people know we want Roby to go back to school because you know how
01:07difficult it is just to upload a file exactly on whatever application and then the whole like trying
01:13to get online and sharing broadband and making room for children he needs space to be with other
01:18children and with learning and we don't have even with all of our resource we don't have access to all
01:23the things that he needs so we do need schools schools are really important but he needs to go
01:26back to a safe environment he does exactly that's our obligation as parents it is it is we have an
01:32obligation to make sure our children get to school safely and that means making sure everyone in the
01:37school environment is safe and so when we talk about going back to school we often talk about is it
01:44are the conditions ready for children and teachers but remember there are bus drivers cafeteria workers
01:51special aids oftentimes those people are not under the collective bargaining agreement of the union
01:58and they often lack protections and so we need protection for every one of those constituencies
02:05if we are to expect children to return to school safely. Yeah you know it's important for us to think
02:11about what does safety really mean right like what does it mean for our families and for our son
02:16and how do we ensure that he still gets an education right so if we're out of school because we are
02:21having a lack of governmental oversight and we don't have interventions when it comes to public health
02:25as a public health official I worry that we don't have contract tracing that we haven't looked at what
02:30supplies people are needed and so what can we do to think about our son's education as we're thinking
02:36about this collective bargaining for teachers and for employees and others. Well we're fortunate because our
02:42our child has the tools he needs to succeed in a distance learning environment but a lot of
02:50folks don't have the tools but in general all school personnel and students must have the equipment
02:58needed to get to go back to school safely and for learning to take place so that means PPEs remember that
03:06teachers will need some form of protective equipment there has to be social distancing and that's even
03:14on the school buses for instance we can't think of things just going back to normal and that requires
03:21states to to pony up the cash in order for schools to operate remember schools put out a lot of money
03:30to to move into social distance draining their resources in many cases and so the federal government
03:37has to restore that that that money that was lost on transitioning and during the spring and so that
03:45they can open up not only safely but for so kids can catch up under normal circumstances or abnormal
03:52circumstances so i mean this is a a tough time because um we we do want kids to go back to school
04:01it's developmentally sound for them to go back to school but it makes no sense if they're going back
04:06to school putting themselves and others in harm's right way a lot of people talk about the the low
04:13incident of death among children but reality uh you know a low percentage still equates to thousands of
04:20people dying and when it's your child you don't want to be saying hey there was just a 0.2 chance of
04:29contracting my son got it um and so we have an obligation to make sure schools open up um safely
04:36remember that many schools particularly schools predominated by people of color have less resources
04:43than their white counterparts and that's going to show up in who gets to reopen so even in our attempts to
04:50reopen as a result of this acute um um pandemic we still have to deal with the structural racism
04:57that limits schools ability to open up safely and so not only have have to have schools have to make
05:03up for that uh that difference in and what they get in terms of between um one school and white
05:10district and a black district brown district um but then they need additional amounts to accelerate
05:15learning and so it's a heavy order um that that but we have to um take this on if we want students
05:23to go back safely yeah yeah and i'll just you know end with saying that because i appreciate the gravity of
05:29this moment and because i appreciate that i have such an amazing husband that can help us think through
05:34policy agendas and i also can trust in my current leadership here where we live so i value and can believe
05:41in that our mayor is going to make a good decision that our school uh superintendents going to make
05:46a good decision but i do think the lack of trust that black americans have had with public officials
05:51with public health with public policy puts us at a disadvantage right now especially when we have
05:55a lack of leadership at the federal level so it's really important for us to find places and people
06:00and information that we trust and really work for change so that we can be all valued and we can all
06:05find space that we can be invested in and i'm hopeful that this conversation that we're having
06:09together my husband and i for all of you you can see that it's not easy and we have to weigh all these
06:14big policy decisions but ultimately we have to make decisions based upon the needs of our children and
06:19ensure that they have safety and ensure that our country makes room for safety for all of us to be
06:23be able to grow and thrive so thank you
