Back-To-School Amid COVID-19

Speaker 1: 00:00 Back to school season, unlike any other, but could the days of distance learning be coming to an end, the pivotal week ahead for our schools and COVID-19 San Diego is children at risk. How one local station dedicated a year and a half to telling the story of child sex trafficking and the asylum system grinds to a halt I'll president Trump transformed America's immigration system with an assist from COVID-19 I'm Mark Sauer and the KPBS round table starts now welcome to our discussion of the week's top stories. I'm Mark Sauer joining me at the KPBS remote round table today. Kate Morrissey, who covers immigration for the San Diego union Tribune, Tom Jones and Monica Dean of NBC seven news, San Diego and KPBS education reporter Joe Hong months ago, schools let out for summer hoping they would be back to normal by fall with students on campus and COVID-19 under control, but the pandemic has lingered. Speaker 1: 01:05 And once again, teachers, students and their families are back to staring at their computers and trying to make the best of a very difficult situation. And yet some schools got special permission to reopen raising the issue of inequity. Joining us is KPBS education reporter Joe Hong. Who's following all of this. Hi Joe. Hey Mark. Thanks for having me. Well, let's start at the beginning of the week at the college level, SDSU began its fall semester, mostly online, correct? That's right. Uh, San Diego state is offering more than 90% of its classes. Uh, exclusively online. I was on campus for the first day of school on Monday and, uh, I gotta say it was, it was pretty sad. It was almost completely deserted. And uh, I talked to a few students there who are living in the dorms, uh, which are at about half capacity right now. Speaker 1: 01:50 So it's kind of a ghost town out there. I mean, not what you see you in the normal first week of school. It's so exciting normally. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think ghost town definitely would not be an exaggeration. I think students are, you know, I saw a few sitting in the courtyard studying, but they're spaced out, not really talking to each other. They're all sort of plugged into their respective zoom class sessions. Uh, it's really not the same bustling campus that we're used to. And of course a big part of college is the social environment. What are you hearing from students? They feel they're getting the true college experience or some shadow of that, I guess. Oh yeah. Def definitely. They're definitely not getting the true college experience. I was hunting a few students who said in the dorms, you know, you can't be with more than two people at once. You know, again, large gatherings like parties. Those are forbidden at this point. One student told me that she's planning on joining a sorority, but the sort of rushing process will be completely online. So no large gatherings, no, none that typical socialization Speaker 2: 03:00 You get. Um, I think students are mostly just trying to talk to make as many friends as possible in this, in this current environment, Speaker 1: 03:08 Taking all the fraternity out of fraternity. Well, San Diego County is more than halfway through the two week window that could lead to schools reopening if COVID case levels remain low. Would that change anything for universities? Could SDSU, for example, choose to open up the campus more at that point? Speaker 2: 03:25 No, I I'm sure. You know, universities are, they're big ships to turn around, you know, and you can't really do that in the middle of the school year. So San Diego state has committed to doing the full, uh, fall semester online. And they'll just have to, we'll just have to see where we are in the winter and the spring Speaker 1: 03:45 Parents and students get a big discount on the tuition, right? Speaker 2: 03:48 No, not even that. I know. Yeah. A big surprise. No, they're still paying that full tuition for, um, for the online experience. And, you know, there were a few petitions that went up when COVID for shut down campuses, uh, even back in the spring, but, but no universities are going ahead and, and charging full tuition. Speaker 1: 04:11 And you're also reporting on the situation at K through 12 schools and San Diego unified starts at school year on Monday. That's what the calendar says. What's the district's COVID plan in the early going. Speaker 2: 04:23 So San Diego unified is for the most part, it'll be, it'll be online. It'll be a six hour school day. It'll be a, what's called both synchronous and asynchronous learning, meaning both live instruction and sort of independent work, watching videos, prerecorded videos and things like that. And San Diego unified as actually coming out with a pretty strict plan for reopening its campuses Speaker 1: 04:47 Had this waiver process where some schools could go and get a waiver and they could open, well, most other schools stayed shut. Um, that created kind of a, a possible inequity situation. Cause it was mostly private schools. Wasn't it? Who were getting granted the waivers and kids were going back Speaker 2: 05:03 That's right. Yeah. I mean it did raise some concerns about these growing inequities in education right now, but a lot of these, you know, independent private schools, they were able to sort of move fast and apply for this waiver. It's reopened their elementary schools because a big part of it is because they're smaller, but also their teachers aren't part of unions, right? So there's less sort of negotiation that needs to be done before they can sort of make a decision like that. Speaker 1: 05:32 And we mentioned that the, uh, some of the special education kids and K through fifth grade, uh, are now going to go back the San Diego unified. That is what, what are the teachers saying? What are the unions saying regarding getting back into the classroom and testing and how risky that might Speaker 2: 05:47 Yeah. To be clear, say new unified said they would bring back certain, uh, students in the elementary grades who are either not meeting standards, qualify for special education services. So if they have some sort of disability, and this was part of, sort of the reopening plan, it was sort of a tiered plan where they would gradually bring back some high needs students and the teachers union, they were on board for this plan because I think it really comes down to, you know, balancing student safety and student learning and this sort of gradual transition. I think it makes a lot of sense for teachers Speaker 1: 06:25 And this is such a fluid situation. And of course, uh, you know, we certainly all hope it doesn't get worse, but you could have spikes. You could have the numbers go South again, which could impact some of these decisions to, to open up and get back on campus. Um, it's going to be really a monitoring system going forward, right? Speaker 2: 06:43 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think in the first few months, you know, as you know, you know, you and I could have this conversation and then the next day, the conversation we had was, would be completely moot, right? Because things were changing so fast. But I do think in terms of schools, things are starting to calcify a little bit. I was talking to the County, um, health and human services agency, uh, about, you know, like, let's say we stay off this 14 day monitoring list and schools reopened, but then let's say day five in person instruction, we're back on the monitoring list. What's going to happen. And you know, the, this spoke someone at the County told me that there's a chance that schools could stay open at that point, if schools have the proper, you know, safety and hygiene protocols in place. So in some ways I think these school districts and agencies are sort of getting better at, at adapting to situations and preparing for, you know, changes in the future Speaker 1: 07:42 And a lot of the shields. And of course, they're, they've got the masking and the social distancing, and we're going to see how that all works. I'm sure you're going to be covering some of that. What are some of the stories you're looking at going forward as these schools try to struggle through this difficult time? Speaker 2: 07:55 Something that I'll be tracking is that, you know, schools with the most vulnerable populations, meaning, um, students with disabilities students, English learners, students come from low income backgrounds. Those student groups in San Diego County are concentrated largely in the same areas that have been hit hardest by COVID. So you have this situation where, uh, communities that are most vulnerable to COVID also contain the S the students who are most vulnerable to learning loss. And so what I'm curious about is, you know, what's going to happen, you know, Poway might be doing just fine, but Chula Vista is it's a completely different sort of landscape, both in terms of education and public health. So that's one thing I'll be looking into about just what are the plans at the hyperlocal level, not just the County wide level and, you know, just keeping track of the, those same vulnerable student populations, how are special education students fairing, how our English learner is fairing and Speaker 1: 08:56 How are students experiencing homelessness fairing in this sort of distance learning environment? Yeah. The COVID-19 pandemic brings everything into sharp relief problems that were already there and they're just exacerbated. Now. It seems that's exactly right. And that's something that's been the through line of the past six or seven months. Now I've been speaking with Joe Hong education reporter for KPBS news. Thanks, Joe. Thank you, Mark. In a ceremony recorded for the Republican national convention this week, president Trump presided over a naturalization ceremony. Five immigrants were sworn in as American citizens, but critics of Trump decried this as a stunt, the Trump administration's policies, they say belie any notion that we are today, a nation that welcomes immigrants and for asylum seekers, desperate to escape violence at home, the U S was hardly welcoming even before Trump was in office joining me to discuss this is Kate Morrissey who covers immigration for the San Diego union Tribune. Kate, welcome back to the round table. Thank you for having me. Well, first congratulations to you and colleague Lauren Schroeder, who, uh, you did a, such an impressive examination of the U S asylum system over the past 10 years. Great job. Speaker 3: 10:07 Thank you so much. It was, uh, it was a long process, but we're, we're very proud to, to have released it. And I'm so grateful to the, just the, the giant team of people at the union Tribune who made it possible. It was definitely a team effort. Speaker 1: 10:22 And I want to get into that in a minute on a, on how this project came about, but I'm immediately reminded of the vowel made by so many nations after the Holocaust horrors were discovered in 1945, never again was the quote and our nation long ago, signed on to accept the world's most vulnerable as you described them in the story, start by telling us who seeks asylum here and why. Speaker 3: 10:43 So people from all over the world who are facing persecution, facing threats to their life facing, you know, serious human rights violations would be another way to characterize them, come here and ask our country to protect them from what they're, what they're facing. The asylum system is a screening process to try and determine who those folks are and whom among those folks, this agreement that you talked about is meant to apply to the system, determines who will be granted that, that refugee status, that recognition internationally, that this person is someone who deserves that protection and who will not. Speaker 1: 11:23 Now, what is the current situation for asylum seekers at our border today? Has the Trump administration effectively ended the program for now Speaker 3: 11:30 With the pandemic. We have seen even more of a shutdown of the asylum system than what we were seeing previously, since the beginning of 2019, the administration has been successful in either closing off access to the system or adding additional sort of hurdles for asylum seekers to go through or narrowing definitions that it harder to show how someone's individual story lines up with the law that we've seen that happening in a progression over time with the most successful of those policies in terms of the ones that weren't struck down in court beginning really at the beginning of 2019, and with the pandemic, we've seen CNN even a stronger closure with the expulsion program that's gone into place. Our understanding is that most people are not even reviewed for the potential to, to be put into this screening process. That is the asylum system that they are either expelled directly back to Mexico, or might be expelled directly back to their home countries, depending on where they're from. Speaker 1: 12:34 And your series goes into great detail about the capricious nature of the system, the grants asylum, what are the key factors on whether individuals or families are granted asylum or turned away lot depends on the judge, even where the case is being heard, right? Speaker 3: 12:47 There are a lot of factors and they layer into each other in intricate ways that makes it really complicated to try to pull them apart. But the, one of the sort of main concepts of, of what we tried to explain in the story is this idea of the, where, where somebody was when their case was heard, because that affects a lot of the other things. So whether the person was held into detention center or released, and which part of the country they're in those two sort of things combined together create that, that idea of the, where they are. Um, so do people who are in detention centers are more likely to be ordered deported, and then people in different regions are more or less likely to be ordered deported. And some of that has to do with these sort of case law precedent from appeals that have gone up to the different U S circuit Speaker 1: 13:34 And many asylum seekers do not have the benefit of an attorney. Um, what difference can the fact of an attorney make in the case Speaker 3: 13:42 Attorneys also make a big difference. We saw about a 20 percentage point difference between being ordered deported or not. If you, if you had legal representation. And one of the interesting ways that attorneys play into this, going back to this idea of the ware is that attorneys might or might not be available wherever you happen to be located. Especially if you're looking for a low cost or pro bono attorney, many asylum seekers don't have the money to hire an expensive immigration attorney. And so they're reliant on these usually very short lists of pro bono lawyers who are available in the area that they're in. And, you know, for people who are here in San Diego, if they're held at the Otay Mesa detention center, those timings, the detention center is right next to the city of San Diego. And there are pro bono immigration attorneys here, but for people who go to detention centers in rural areas, um, it can be extremely difficult to find an attorney willing to take the case because the attorney is going to have to make that commute back and forth to meet with the person. And sometimes that's just not possible. And a lot of detention centers are in more rural areas than the one we happen to have here in San Diego. And give us a sense Speaker 1: 14:52 Of what percentage of asylum cases are granted and how many people have been allowed to stay in the U S over the 10 years that you looked at Speaker 3: 14:59 About 19%, roughly of the cases that we looked at were granted asylum. And so we saw, you know, a number of, of different outcomes, sort of in that vein, even, you know, somebody finding an alternative way towards getting a green card, like maybe while they were waiting for their case, they, they married somebody who is from here and they were able to, to apply that way to get a green card. So there's, there's all kinds of things that can happen to somebody while they're waiting sometimes years for these cases. Speaker 1: 15:30 And why are the numbers so incredibly unreliable when it comes to asylum cases? Speaker 3: 15:34 What we found is that the database is very complex and it is not always terribly well filled out when it comes to certain fields. If you're trying to get information about asylum seekers. So for example, if we wanted to know whether men or women are more likely to be granted asylum, we couldn't run that because while there is a column in one of the data tables for gender, it's not filled out very well. So, um, most people are of unknown gender in, in the system, Speaker 1: 16:07 A basic thing like that. It's amazing. Speaker 3: 16:10 And there's, there's so many examples of things like that. And it's, you know, it's, it's tough because there's not, uh, there's not much transparency from, from the government in terms of how to work with us. So, you know, we were, we were asking the agency, how do we, you know, how do we read this column? What does this mean? What does this mean? And, and they told us that they couldn't tell us anything about the data that they had done, their due diligence by releasing it. And that was all that they needed to do. Speaker 1: 16:35 This is critical public information. They're just not being cooperative. And what sort of response have you gotten to your story? Speaker 3: 16:41 Because their response has been really overwhelming in the best kind of way. Uh, I, I knew working on this project, that it was important to me, and it was important to, to help our readers understand better all of these things, but I had no idea just the extent of, of what people would be, would be reaching out to me about, you know, law professors saying that they're going to assign it to their classes this fall, especially the, um, the simulation that we made, where you can actually sort of take yourself through and make some of the decisions and asylum seeker would make and see, you know, what the, what the statistics come out like for you. Speaker 1: 17:17 And this is part of a major project you're doing at the union Tribune, uh, briefly describe the scope of this overall project. Speaker 3: 17:24 It's the second part in a four part series that is investigating many layers of the asylum system to understand why we have it, whether it's working as intended, whether it meets the needs of today's world, what it could look like. There's a lot of different components to it. So, um, the next component we'll look a little more specifically at, at central America Speaker 4: 17:50 In Honduras. So, you know, hopefully I can come back and tell you guys more about that when it comes out. Speaker 1: 17:55 Well, we look forward to that and I urge listeners to read your stories on the union Tribune website, or find the links we've posted on kpbs.org. It's well worth it. Believe me. I've been speaking with Kate Morrissey, an immigration reporter for the San Diego union Tribune. Thanks for joining us today, Kate, thank you so much. Sexual exploitation, especially of children is nothing new, but the threats to vulnerable teenagers have evolved with technology and society. And San Diego has struggled to keep up from local streets to our schools and the virtual world and BC seven news spent months working on a docu series called stolen. It introduces the people caught up in this trauma and why San Diego has become a trouble spot. Our guests are Monica Dean, a reporter and anchor for NBC seven and investigative producer, Tom Jones, thanks to you both for joining us. Speaker 4: 18:45 So having us Mark, thank you. Speaker 1: 18:47 Well, Tom and Monica, let's get both of you to respond to this first question. Why did you feel like this was a topic that really needed to be explored beyond the usual television format? Tom, why once you start? Speaker 4: 18:58 Sure. So Monica approached me, um, March of last year, and I'll be honest at the time. I didn't really know that much about child sex trafficking. And when she approached me and said that this problem is growing and that we need to take a closer look and a different look at this topic, I agreed, but I thought I was a little skeptical at first. And I figured, you know, if this really is such a big problem in our community, there should be evidence of it. And as soon as we started working on it and digging into records and talking with survivors and law enforcement, I quickly was shown that I, you know, it wasn't exaggeration. This really is a growing problem. The internet, uh, the access to online activity in our pockets is only increased the problem, especially with our youth. And that there's just a lot of misconceptions and misinformation surrounding it. Speaker 1: 20:02 And Monica, why was it so important for you Speaker 4: 20:04 Mark? I've been reporting on this topic for many years, but I will tell you, I am a parent of three school aged children. And I was constantly coming in contact with their friends, parents and talking about this issue and realizing they just weren't understanding what we're talking about. People thought this was a somewhere else. Problem. People thought this was a not in my neighborhood problem or something that couldn't happen to their very own children. So I felt like we need to do something more, something different and something bigger to put a human face on the various layers of this very complex problem to show people that not only could this be someone, you know, this could be a child or a friend or a neighbor, and it could be happening your own home. Yeah. Speaker 1: 20:48 Tom COVID-19 has changed so many aspects of our lives. That includes kids spending more time on line and at home, of course, how big of a new potential target is the online world for these predators? Speaker 4: 21:00 It has only grown, you know, we were originally going to release this project back in March, and then when the pandemic hit, we had to kind of hit pause on everything. And in that time though, in between March and August, the reports of exploitation have grown dramatically. I mean, in the month of April alone, the national center for missing and exploited children saw 4 million reports of exploitation of children online. And then here locally, the internet crimes against children reports tripled. So, and it, and it makes sense, you know, if you're online more than theirs, you know, that's where predators are, they're going to take advantage. It only kind of made all of this more important to talk about. Speaker 1: 21:48 And Tom, regarding the effects of COVID-19 does the shift to distance learning, closing school campuses now, how are they reaching possible victims? Speaker 4: 21:57 Yeah, I think, I think it definitely in some aspects makes it more challenging. If your only interaction with the student is through a zoom call or some sort of virtual learning, it can be harder to spot those warning signs. One aspect of that could be a positive is that, you know, teachers are having a glimpse into the child's home life, which, which could possibly, you know, expose some, some issues there. But it's definitely going to be more challenging to help students who aren't in the classroom Speaker 1: 22:33 And Tom projects like this take a lot of time and resources. Give us an idea of the process, the support you had from NBC seven, putting it together Speaker 4: 22:41 Very fortunate. And, um, luckily our, our news director spotted, you know, saw that this topic was so important from the beginning. It is a lot of resources, you know, cause that's photographers or editors who are out of the daily mix and you have to kind of make a balance there of what's more important. And, and, and in deciding that we felt, you know, this issue is impacting our children, our kids, and all the evidence that we were gathering was showing that the problem was on the rise. And as, as we started to learn more and get more pieces of information, our, our bosses saw that this was something different and that we had an opportunity here to, to tell the story differently. Speaker 1: 23:27 And finally, I wanted to ask both of you this, uh, the series has been out for about a week or so. Uh, Monica, what sort of response have you received? Speaker 4: 23:35 We have received an overwhelmingly positive response. I think in some cases, people are stunned. They are surprised. I think our, our, for this project Speaker 5: 23:46 Was that people would be able to see that this is not a somewhere else problem. This is something that could be happening even inside your own home. And I think that there are enough voices throughout the seven episodes that really helped tell so many different aspects of what's happening in our own community are, I'll tell you, this has been the most challenging project of my career, emotionally, professionally, spiritually. This is a dark subject and it's a difficult conversation to have, but it's one that we're having. And it's one we need to have if we can hope to be making a difference for our future generation Speaker 1: 24:22 And Tom, a reaction that sticks with you, Speaker 4: 24:24 You know, Mark, one of the survivors that we featured in our series reached out to us after watching it and said that they learned new things about their trauma and that watching this series was helping them heal. And I think that was probably the greatest reward. You know, you spend so much time on a topic you want to, you want to do it justice, you want to do it right. And, you know, hearing from the survivors that we featured saying that we portrayed their, their stories accurately and respectfully, that was the biggest reward to take away. Speaker 1: 25:02 Well, that's gratifying indeed. As a, as a journalist, I can, I can certainly assure a listeners of that. I've been speaking with Monica Dean anchor and reporter and investigative producer, Tom Jones, both with NBC seven news of San Diego. Thanks both of you for joining us. Thank you, Mark. Thank you for having us. There's much more included in their docu-series stolen. You can find it on the NBC seven website or on kpbs.org. Well, that wraps up another week at the KPBS round table. I'd like to thank my guest, Kate Morrissey of the San Diego union Tribune, Tom Jones and Monica Dean of NBC seven news, San Diego and KPBS reporter Joe Hong. If you ever miss a show, you can catch it on the round table podcast available on your favorite podcast app. I'm Mark Sauer. Thanks for being with us today and join us again next week on the round table.