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School boards across the country debate over reopening

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A funding threat from the Oval Office collides with school boards’ own safety math on reopening.

President Trump spent mid-July trying to force the reopening question, threatening to cut federal funding to districts that don’t bring students back full-time this fall. School boards, superintendents, and local health officials pushed back just as hard, arguing the decision belongs to them — not to a tweet from the White House. ABC’s World News Tonight captured the standoff as districts nationwide weighed hybrid schedules, mask rules, and desk spacing against surging case counts.

• Trump threatened on July 8 to cut off federal funding for schools that don’t fully reopen for in-person instruction, calling the CDC’s guidance “very tough & expensive” and “very impractical.”
• Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said full reopening is “not a matter of ‘if’ … it’s simply a matter of ‘how,'” while CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield insisted the agency’s guidelines were advisory, not a reason to keep schools closed.
• A survey found only 35.2% of school principals were confident their buildings could safely protect students’ and staff’s health.

The White House Squeeze

Trump’s threat put real money on the table for thousands of districts already stretched thin by the pandemic. He framed the fight as political, accusing Democrats of delaying reopening for partisan reasons rather than public health ones. DeVos backed him publicly, casting reopening as a settled question of logistics rather than debate — a position that clashed directly with what superintendents were hearing from their own nurses, principals, and parents, as covered in Schools Face Tough Choices About Reopening As Parents, Teachers Weigh Risks.

The CDC Caught in the Middle

Redfield tried to thread the needle between the White House and his own agency’s science. CDC guidance called for desk distancing, staggered schedules, and mask protocols — recommendations Trump wanted loosened. Redfield said upcoming guidance would supplement, not replace, existing advice, telling reporters plainly what the agency’s intent actually was.

“It is not the intent of CDC’s guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed.” — Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC Director

Teachers and Governors Push Back

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, accused the administration of politicizing the reopening fight without providing the funding or safety planning districts actually needed. “Reopening schools doesn’t happen with an all-caps tweet,” she said, pointing to the gap between Trump’s demands and the checks districts would need to cover PPE, extra staffing, and building upgrades. Democratic governors joined the resistance — New York’s Andrew Cuomo rejected the funding threat outright, arguing reopening decisions are a state and local matter, not something a president can dictate by decree.

The Numbers Districts Were Weighing

Behind the political fight sat a genuinely difficult logistical problem. Districts were modeling hybrid schedules, classroom transmission risk, and the cost of retrofitting buildings for distancing — all while case counts climbed nationally, a surge tracked in Americans stay home for July 4 weekend as coronavirus cases skyrocket. That 35.2% confidence number from principals wasn’t an outlier opinion; it reflected boards trying to balance in-person learning against meal access, mental health, and the very real chance of an outbreak inside a single classroom.

None of this got resolved by mid-July. Districts were still drafting fall plans, Trump was still threatening funding cuts, and Redfield’s CDC was still trying to clarify guidance it hadn’t even finished writing — with the first bell for many schools only weeks away.