(upbeat music) - [Lorraine] School's prepare to welcome more students back in person.

- We're gonna be able to open up in the safest and most responsible manner.

- [Lorraine] And restaurants get the green light to seat more customers.

- I think that it's more of a psychological relief.

- [Lorraine] After a year under the pandemic, what the new normal looks like for some Tucsonians.

- Completely changed careers, I actually had COVID last November.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to "Arizona360", I'm Lorraine Rivera, thanks so much for joining us.

After the pandemic was declared last March, schools across Arizona sent students home to wrap up the year, some still haven't returned.

For those attending schools that stayed remote, they'll soon have the choice to come back.

Governor Ducey's executive order, requiring schools to reopen takes effect on the 15th, unless they're on spring break that week, then the deadline's slide to the 22nd.

How much schools reopen depends on the level of transmission in their counties.

At some schools already in hybrid mode, the order requires them to increase in-person learning days.

Tony Panaigua spoke to leaders from two districts, about how they're making it work.

- I want you to scroll down to the second page, not the last page, the second page - [Tony] The Sunnyside Unified School District is getting ready to ramp up its in-person teaching efforts, to comply with the governor's executive order.

Currently, elementary students here, can attend schools two days per week in-person.

But beginning April 15th, after spring break, the districts elementary schools, will have to hold in-person classes Monday to Friday.

- I have great appreciation for the educators in our district, our support staff and our teachers, who have been really just working super hard.

- [Tony] Superintendent Steve Holmes says, middle and high school students will stay on the two day per week in-person option.

- The green leaves spread across the yellow pot.

- [Tony] The district has about 15,000 students and 1800 employees, many have been put to the test all year.

- It's been really difficult, not only on the families, but it's been difficult on staff.

- [Tony] It's been one year since Sunnyside, and all other schools in the state had to shut down due to the virus.

In August Sunnyside opened with online or remote learning, in October, the district tried a hybrid model, in-person and remote, but when Coronavirus cases surged in Pima County, it went back online in December.

This month, the district returned to its hybrid model, as Sunnyside prepares to increase its in-person capacity.

The decision to return to brick and mortar classrooms, ultimately lies with parents, they can still choose online learning for their student no matter their grade.

- As it sits, roughly about half of our student body, or the parents of our students have chosen to keep their students in a remote setting.

- [Tony] The district's location is part of the reason, Holmes says virus transmission levels in the area are categorized as 'substantial', and officials want to get it down to moderate.

- Our zip codes that specifically encompassed the Sunnyside community have had the highest rates of transmission in the county.

I have been sitting there for quite some time, and so I do believe a lot is just personal concerns around virus transmission, a lot of our families had been personally impacted by virus transmission, whether in the family, or an unfortunate deaths, and we also have a lot of multi-generational homes.

- [Tony] On Tucson's East side, with about 2100 students, the Tanque Verde Unified School District is much smaller than Sunnyside, and has different demographics, however, the two districts share similarities.

It closed last March due to the shutdown, in August the district went 100% remote, switched to a hybrid model in October, only to go all remote again in December.

Last month, the district resumed a hybrid model, and on March 22nd, after its own spring break, Tanque Verde will hold in-person classes, five days a week for it's two elementary schools.

- We've had to live in short term world for too long at this point.

- [Tony] Scott Hagerman has been the superintendent here since 2017, the past year he says has been unprecedented.

- The one other thing is when you're a superintendent, you're really trying to like think way down the road.

You're kind of dealing with what you're dealing with today, today, but I normally, right now, I'm really thinking a lot about next year.

And over the last year, what I've constantly had to think about is tomorrow, next week, and then when I get the next week, I have to readjust next week's plan, because of something has changed.

So I really look forward to being able to starting to look further out in the horizon.

- [Tony] Moving forward, Hagerman and Holmes are happy to report that more than 90% of their respective teachers, and other employees have been vaccinated, but many people in the community have not.

Superintendents are used to dealing with issues such as budget, staffing, and infrastructure.

now there's also this pandemic.

- I know everyone's having struggles right now, there's not a teacher, a superintendent, a parent, a kid, that has gone through the last year without challenges, and I just I'm thankful for (mumbles), I'm thankful that things are hopefully getting better, and that you know, as much as the difficulties exist right now, I wouldn't wanna be anywhere else.

- At Tucson Unified School District, Southern Arizona's largest, the vast majority of its roughly 40,000 students, have continued to learn from home, that was already set to change even before the governor's order.

TUSD announced in February, that it would bring students back starting March 24th, Ducey's order bumped that timeline up by a few days.

We spoke to superintendent Gabriel Trujillo about how his staff are preparing, and steps taken to keep everyone safe.

- The biggest victory for our staff, and in what everybody's been asking for, is last night our governing board took action, to approve the purchase of 4,000, high efficiency particulate air purifiers, better known by the name HEPA.

That's a name that's been thrown around throughout this pandemic.

These HEPA air purifiers are proven effective, in reducing, not eliminating, but significantly reducing the amount of harmful particles floating around in the air and indoor spaces, which includes COVID-19.

And we are now going to have enough air purifier units, to be able to place in every single classroom in the entire district.

- [Lorraine] Trujillo says the district also ordered 50,095 mask, and 15,000 face shields.

It replaced water fountains with hands-free bottle filling stations.

TUSD partnered with the Pima County Health Department, to test students and employees for COVID-19 on all campuses at no cost.

- I have every confidence that we're gonna be able to open up in the safest and most responsible manner, that any school district in the state of Arizona is gonna be able to do.

- The testing and the vaccines I imagine are voluntary, so how will you manage those conversations?

- Well, right now, testing and vaccines are voluntary in TUSD, right now I'm working with, I'm not gonna say too much publicly, because it's not yet a done deal, but we were contacted by a prominent pharmacy that wants to come host a vaccine clinic here at TUSD.

They're amongst the first pharmacies in Southern Arizona to receive the new Johnson and Johnson vaccine.

We have about 3000 employees that still need access to the vaccine, and I'm looking to kick this off, if all the pieces fall into the right places, immediately following the spring break on the week of March 22nd.

- No question, learning will be different from here on out, can you describe to me what you think is likely to happen here at the end of March, as we head into April to round out the school year?

- Honestly, I don't think that there's going to be any drastic academic gains in the next nine weeks, nor do I think that we're going to recover any academic gaps that have resulted from being a year outside of teacher led in-person learning.

But what I do think that we can accomplish, in the next nine weeks is a baseline foundation, for a return to normalcy for the kids.

- Across the state of Arizona, there are an estimated 50,000 students, who simply put dropped off the academic radar.

The families didn't return school's requests for phone calls or to help with homework, what happened in TUSD and how do you get those kids back?

- Well, in Tucson Unified, we were not immune to that enrollment loss, all said and done TUSD took a 7.4% hit, to our overall student body, just shy of 3,400 students.

The bulk of our losses occurred at the kindergarten level, where we simply saw parents either choosing a private or charter school, that was offering full-time in-person instruction, regardless of the status of the pandemic.

And we've also sadly and probably one of the most disturbing phenomenon we've seen, is just simply the decision families have made to let their kids go without any school, not just TUSD, but just simply not enrolling them anywhere, and just sitting the year out, and having to take care of younger siblings or help out around the house.

So the extent of the learning challenges, and the academic gaps that we're gonna be facing, I think are going to be very very minimal.

- What gives you hope that things can turn around, with gradual changes like this, getting students back into the classroom?

- When we announced that we were gonna be re-reopening for in-person instruction, and that we were gonna give families what they've been asking for, which is a full five days, full school days at the elementary level, we started to see families reaching out to their local schools, wanting to come back.

We will be offering two options in 2021 and 22, you're back traditional style, five days a week, five full school days, whether it's a high school, middle school or elementary school, or you're choosing 100% remote instruction.

And that's it, we're getting out of the hybrid business effectively heading into the August month, and the 2021/22 school year.

- Dr. Gabriel Trujillo, superintendent of Tucson Unified School District, thank you.

- Thank you, Lorraine.

- At the state Capitol, supporters of the governor's push to reopen schools, include Republican Senator Paul Boyer, Boyer serves as chairman of the Senate education committee.

Outside of the legislature, he's also a high school teacher.

We spoke to Boyer about what he sees, as the challenges facing educators and students.

- As a teacher, I've been in-person since last fall, and I've been doing a hybrid teaching model since then, and see the pluses and minuses.

I had to actually meet my students at first all online, because I transferred to a new school, and just seeing the benefit of in-class instruction, I think that's the most important thing, just what what's the benefit for students, and I think in-person is.

- As you know, the unions, state Superintendent Kathy Hoffman, they're expressing some concern at this point, because they feel that it could be pushing it for some communities, what do you say to them?

- I say that students don't have lobbyists down here at the Capitol, and you know, there's teachers unions, there's other groups that, you know, lobby on behalf of the teachers, but we don't really have anybody that lobbies on behalf of the students.

And I think what the governor did, is put that square in the lap of what's the best benefit for the students, and that's in-person instruction, getting back with their peers, socializing, the P.E, and just the everyday interaction that you and I experienced at school.

- There were some school districts who had acknowledged that they would be able to target late March or April for in-person, and they feel that this pushed the envelope, just a bit on their end, some will have to work during spring break to meet the March 15 deadline, how will that work if teachers are working out of their contract hours?

- Well, I mean, as teachers, you know, it's true story, my wife, when we first got married, she said, "Oh, you're on spring break, what are you gonna do with all your free time?"

She doesn't ask that anymore, because she knows that I'm spending, you know, three or four days on grades, and administrators are working on spring break as well.

It's not really a break anyways, but again, I think we need to put our eye on the ball here, and that's what's the best option for students, and if that means working over spring break, I'll do it, I know my administrators are gonna do it, and I think that that's what's best for students.

- That could challenge morale for teachers who don't want to have to work for free during break?

- Again, I mean, as teachers, we know that getting two months in the summer, and a fall break and spring break, you're not really getting those.

I mean, really that's what we sign up for, that's what I've been teaching for seven years, and I don't know that I've ever had a full spring break, but here's the deal, I mean, these are unusual times, we have to get through this, and we have to figure out, "Okay, what's best for our students?"

Let me give you an example.

I had one student before COVID hit, he was the life of the classroom.

COVID hits, his mom reaches out to me and she says, he is just thoroughly struggling.

And I know if my brightest students is struggling, then all my other students are struggling.

And so we have to get through this, we have to do it for our students.

- One of the concerns that we hear is that school districts don't have an adequate pool of substitute teachers, should teachers become sick themselves.

What's going to be the plan if the teachers are ill, extra staff is, and they can't meet those basic supervision requirements in a school.

- Well, I think that's why you see things like the Arizona Teachers Academy, that we have been pushing down here for a few years, and also different areas of certification, we're trying to get more teachers in the classroom.

And so of course COVID has just exacerbated this, but I think again, we have to keep our eye on the ball, especially with minority students, experts tell me that they're going to be anywhere from 12 to 18 months behind their counterparts, we cannot leave them behind.

And if that means that as teachers, that I have to sub a little bit more, I'm more than happy to do that.

- Nearly 10 years of experience working with students, I mean, in your experience as a teacher, and then of course now as a state law maker, what happens to a child if they're out of school for too long?

- We talk about summer slide, at least, when that was just a problem?

That was actually looking back a great problem to have.

Because now, I guess we can call it the COVID slide, where I've never given out, as a teacher, I've never given out as many F's as I have this year, with students just not turning work in.

Where I will reach out to the students, I'll reach out to their parents, and say, "I just have to have something, anything."

And so they're struggling right now.

- Okay, all right.

Senator Paul Boyer, thank you.

- Cool, thank you.

(upbeat music) - Another recent executive order from Governor Ducey lifted the occupancy limits on a number of businesses, including restaurants, social distancing, masks, and other CDC guidelines still apply, but the move increased the number of customers they can serve indoors.

Throughout the pandemic, the Tucson Metro Chambers Restaurant advisory council, has worked to keep the city's local dining scene afloat.

We discussed the impact of easing restrictions with chamber President Amber Smith.

- The occupancy limitations at the beginning were a significant blow to restaurants, already they had been mandated, that they had an extensive list of requirements.

Most notably, the physically distance one.

Already once you rationate down on your numbers to create that physically distancing space from everything, from your hostess stands, to your tables, to your lines of people, they were already at or below that 50% occupancy.

- Now that some of that has been lifted, would you say it's a relief, or it doesn't necessarily indicate that?

- I think that it's more of a psychological relief, because they still will remain at that six feet physical distancing standard, then that level of occupancy can only improve so much, they can't get back up to full occupancy quite yet.

But that change in mindset, that growing change or a feeling of safety, and acknowledging that by eliminating that restriction, is really positive for those diners and patrons, as well as those restaurant employees.

- Within the advisory council, how did you make recommendations for businesses?

Because there were different messages coming from the county and now from the state.

And if you're a business owner with a restaurant, I can imagine you're wondering, "Whom do I follow?"

- You know, that has been the largest issue, probably that we have contended with for the past 12 months.

And how we've handled that is advocating to those different jurisdictions to be consistent in those standards.

And ultimately, the determining factor's who has the authority?

The governor for example, never put in place a mass ordinance, but our Pima County health department did, and the city of Tucson.

The city, it has been argued doesn't have the legal right to be able to do that ordinance, and that you could see in the governor's order, is that his authority still supersedes local governments.

In the case of the county, they have the health department, which has a different set of regulations.

And so when all three of those different jurisdictions, had different guidelines from mask ordinances, the social distancing requirements and even the curfew, it's extremely confusing for businesses, and that is what we consistently argued in front of those elected officials.

And we actually had a small win with being having the city and the county, be consistent at least with the voluntary curfew time.

- There are dozens of restaurants within this region that had to shut their doors.

If you could look into the future, is it fair to say that for those that are still open, they're out of the woods?

- No, no, I don't think so, because here we are in March, this is the peak season, February, March, when typically we would have had the gem show, we would have had golf tournaments.

We would have had a huge influx of people for those things plus the rodeo.

All of that revenue that they should have earned, is what would have helped float them through the slowest season, which is upon us for summer.

- And how do you move forward as the Tucson Metro chamber, and the restaurant advisory council, in offering them guidance on best practices?

- We have our Keep Tucson Cooking web page, so that does a few things.

One, it directs diner's to see what restaurants are participating in the council, what are their operating times?

Are they doing delivery, are they doing takeout?

Is it a hub of information, including interviews conducted of our local chefs.

And for us that's our role, is to communicate out all of that information.

And we will bring those resources of best practices from the Arizona commerce authority, from business professionals and executive coaches that we've brought in to work with these restaurants, and then even bringing in that county health department as well.

They are still offering ServSafe classes, which teaches those restaurants best practices, and their employees, because there is a high turnover right now with those employees as well, due to the extension of unemployment benefits, that are largely still being utilized by some of the lower income folks.

- Okay, Amber Smith, president and CEO of the Tucson Metro chamber, and the restaurant advisory council, thank you.

- Thanks Lorraine.

(upbeat music) - The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, puts billions toward rental and utility assistance, much needed help for the millions of Americans facing eviction, but accessing those funds can prove challenging for the people who need it the most.

We learned why from McKenzie (mumbles), program manager for the innovation for justice program at the U of A College of Law.

The program teaches students about power imbalances in institutions.

- A lot of people look at eviction, and they think of the consequences for renters, the consequences to families who are evicted, and we know that that has a huge important issue, because those consequences destabilized families for years and years to come.

Evictions also harm local communities, who've put the bill in the aftermath of eviction.

People who are evicted in his place during COVID-19, are more likely to need emergency shelter, and medical services, which require extensive federal and local resources.

They're also more likely to encounter the child welfare and juvenile systems, which all will also require financial resources.

The cost of keeping people house, not only is keeping people house the humane thing to do, it's also a lot less expensive.

A recent report by the innovation for justice program, and the national low income housing coalition, found that the partial annual cost of letting 250,000 Arizona's become evicted during the pandemic would cost the state $2.5 billion.

While rental shortfall is estimated at only 200 to 400 million.

- You just quoted some staggering figures, and I can imagine people will hear this, and say, "But how do we afford that?"

Where does the money come from to fix that?

- So we have some of that rental assistance right now, right?

We have billions of dollars in rental assistance, but we have so many barriers to getting that money out.

People need a lot of documentation, that's really hard for people in crisis to pull together.

Sometimes even just having an ID, people with lower income, and people of color just fortunately represented among people who don't have a valid government ID.

Also people usually need internet access, and we know that 25% of our communities of color are accessing the internet solely with their smartphone, and people who are low income are more likely to be smartphone only users as well.

And that presents several problems for trying to find resources, trying to find information, about the moratoriums and what applies to you, because a lot of these sites are not mobile optimized, and people with lower incomes are not likely to have a lot of data.

- The eviction moratorium in Arizona, at least is coming to a close here at the end of the month, can you describe to me what you see happening, if conversations about how to move forward aren't held right now?

- This is the time to be having those conversations, these conversations actually have been happening since COVID started.

It seems that every few months, we have an eviction moratorium expiring, and all of our boots on the ground, community and government leaders who are working tirelessly to provide services, have to stop what they're doing, have to stop providing services to people, and shift their attention to partly advocating for an extension of moratorium, and partly bracing for impact what's gonna happen, if that moratorium actually lifts.

- What becomes of these people who are going to potentially be without shelter?

- Well, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of Arizona renters who are at risk of eviction right now.

Our current shelter systems are already beyond capacity, serving the existing population of people experiencing homelessness.

They do not have the capacity to assist all of the people who will be displaced after the CDC moratorium expires.

And while we will continue to advocate and push federal leaders to extend the CDC moratorium, Arizona can be doing something here too.

Governor Ducey can enact his own moratorium, like he has in the past, buy us some more time to get the funding out to landlords, to keep those people in their house, until, you know, we can get everyone back on track, we can get through the pandemic.

- Mackenzie (mumbles) from the innovation for justice program, at the University of Arizona Law School, thank you.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Before we go, the greater effects of the pandemic, have shaped deep changes in our lives, often referred to as the new normal, and that varies from person to person.

This week, we asked people in Tucson to share what that means to them?

- My new normal is my apartment, you know, never leaving, just staying there, and kind of learning how to habitate in a single area I guess.

- Completely changed careers, I actually had - COVID last November.

- I started a new church and my friends, since you couldn't go to church and everything, so we started like our own like backyard church kind of thing, and that blossomed a lot.

- Something that's become my new normal, staring at computer screens every day for like seven hours.

- Between school, I haven't really had the chance to go back to school full time.

- Hey, my business died, you know?

Business died, I didn't get any support, I didn't get any assistance, it's hard part of this kind of business to survive.

- We have five kids, and they're losing their jobs, so they can't make it, so that's sad.

(train bells) - What I've learned in the last year since COVID's happened, that life can change really fast.

- Wear your mask, honestly.

- Do not expect from the government anything, government doesn't do anything.

- It's A1 to make sure that you keep your life on track, because if you don't, you know, it's really easy to spiral out of control, more so than normal.

- Appreciate what we had before this past year.

- Talk to everyone that you love, and make sure that if anything were to happen, you didn't feel like you weren't there.

- I'm most looking forward to not wearing these masks anymore.

- It really ruins the makeup.

- I kind of liked not having half my face showing at all times.

- Counting the days when I get vaccinated, you know, when I can hire more people, when I can run my business in full capacity.

- I think I'm looking most forward to just like a normal life, in terms of like mindset.

- Crowd gatherings, concerts, I love movies.

- And to be able to visit all of my family more.

- Just more social gatherings, I miss human contact very much so, so yeah.

- Arizona Public media wants to know more about your new normal, visit acpm.org/thenewnormal submit a few photos that tell your story, and share how you have adjusted to life during the pandemic.

Your entry may end up in a special episode of Arizona Illustrated.

And that's all for now, thanks so much for joining us.

To get in touch, visit us on social media, or send an email to arizona360@acpm.org and let us know you think, we'll see you next week.

(upbeat music)