 Hi everybody, welcome back to Facebook. We're glad to have you with us this evening. Today I'm joined by Council Member Carlos Flores who is District 2. Thank you Carlos for being here. Sure. And via Zoom we have. Thank you Mayor. Thank you. We have Councilwoman Kelly Ellen Gray who's District A. Kelly thanks for being with us virtually. Good to see you. We're excited today to hear a little bit about Carlos and Kelly co-chair of the Education and Child Care Advisory Committee. And you know this week that's what we've been doing is focusing on the committees that we set up that Council members are working on and they're working hard on your behalf. You guys are doing a yeoman's job. They're focusing on what changes do we see? What are the immediate needs of people for childcare and particularly on education too? Is that access to Wi-Fi? Is it additional access to childcare? Online learning? They've got questions with their committee and they're going to come up with great answers so thank you all for doing that. But before I get into questioning with them I always give you an update on the COVID numbers for that day. So we're going to start there. Today Tarrant County has 990 positive cases, 30 deaths and 157 recovered cases. Fort Worth has reported 14 new positive cases from last night. One more fatality. That brings us to 373 positive cases, 17 fatalities and 64 who recover. You know we've seen an increase the last two weeks. Tonight last night's was a little less but the county is approaching a thousand cases. That's a significant number folks. You got to remain vigilant. You got to stay at home, follow the rules and stay safe. Later this week we'll share some information with you hopefully on Friday about what we're looking at for reopening. What's the data that's going to help us know when we can safely reopen and trust me we're meeting with public health advisors, team of doctors and businessmen and women to try to assess that for you. So look forward to that coming up. So as we begin here I know you want to hear about the challenges that face education and child care. So Carlos we'll start with you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about what your committee is up to and what's going on with that committee. Well I'm happy to say that we've been very hard at work. Our committee is comprised of 14 diverse members including myself and Kelly Allen Gray as co-chairs. We also have with us four educators, five on the healthcare provider side and three at-large civic leaders. We're all supported by some hard-working 13-member City of Fort Worth staff. Now the purpose of our advisory committee is simply this. We're to advise the City Council and the City Manager on matters pertaining to education, child care and see how our reaction and response to COVID-19 can be best addressed. I know you guys are tackling these hard questions and they're not easy questions and there aren't questions we've ever dealt with before and that makes it even more important that you and Kelly and our community partners stand up. So Kelly can you tell us a little bit about the coordination with the different agencies that we're working with during this pandemic? Sure absolutely. As you know education and child care are not core functions of City Government but these functions are critical to our economic vitality and well-being particularly during this emergency. So we have several City departments, neighborhood services, parking recreation and library who each operate facilities that provide child development and learning. These departments have been working with our other community departments and agencies represented throughout our community such as Fort Worth ISD, the Center for Transforming Lives, Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA, United Community Centers and Child Care Associates and then those agencies have been operating with other agencies to address many of our community's urgent needs here in the City. I'm truly impressed by the work y'all are doing and the fact that all these committees have come together and are working hard on our behalf and I know you're getting questions you weren't expecting. I can't hear you. Okay I've said I'm impressed with what y'all are doing and I'm impressed with the people who've come together and I know you're getting some questions that you weren't expecting. So Carlos, Fort Worth ISD is one of our biggest partners and as Kelly said it's not normally our venue to be in education and child care but it is critical for our families that we are right now. So what are you working with them on and is they enter this learning at home phase? Totally different way of kids learning. Yes and that's brings to mind a very good question here. How do we best approach this? So Fort Worth ISD has the largest percentage of ED families of all the school districts, independent school districts within the city of Fort Worth. So in consulting with them we found out what we need to approach and how we need to approach that. Fort Worth ISD recently launched its learning at home initiative and with that it's comprised of earlier this month for example it's a phased deployment of 7,000 Chromebooks and hotspots for secondary school level children. We have to make sure that we provide a means to have the classroom at home so we can have some continuation of learning in that respect. We have to continue bridging the digital divide and what that means is this we have to look at specific areas of concern at the elementary school level we have gaps that we need to address. The same thing applies how do we get usable technology in the hands of family who may not even have a laptop much less internet access. So we rely on our partner agencies Kelly Seth Boys Girls Club very key agency that we rely on and also the AB Christian Learning Center help us in that regard. We can't allow elementary school children to fall behind in their learning so this is something that our advisory committee takes very seriously and we continue to work to find workable solutions and Fort Worth ISD announced yesterday that they are bringing to bear 3200 additional Chromebooks as well as 5000 additional hotspots and Mayor I think that's really good news because we need that kind of technology to help us. It's really good news and that digital divide really does exist and we have to help the school district bridge that but Dr. Scribner told me yesterday too that they are looking at pen and paper or pencil and paper at work as he said for kindergarteners and first graders who might not be able to do all their own line. So Kelly there are a lot of challenges. What's your committee doing to help tackle those? So we're focused on the many challenges facing our low income and immigrant families where many of the parents lack educational technical and language skills necessary to actually do online learning and we know that these problems tend to disproportionately affect African American and Hispanic families at a larger rate and it was already happening prior to the coronavirus with these educational disparities. Fort Worth ISD as you said about Dr. Scribner they also share our concerns and we've been working together to address and I think that's critical and you know you always want something good to come out of something like this and maybe the new level of learning and building equity here is going to be one of the things that comes out. So another challenge has been child care. I know y'all are working hard on child care. Can you tell us about your committee's progress on child care issues? Yes ma'am what we've been doing in child care issues is relying again on those partner agencies which can give us firsthand input on what challenges we face. For example getting the word out that there is available help to essential employees remarkably is still a challenge. We have to do better in that regard. We've discussed strategies on how to get those essential workers to know that there is that there are subsidies that can help them to find quality child care that they can rely on while they help our community get through this COVID-19 crisis. And thank you Carlos. And Kelly you were working mother who had a child in child care like so many of us. Talk a little bit about what you see on the child care front. So one of the great things that's happening with child care associates is that there are so many that they have moved online they have moved to an online search tool and it's the website is called find.bestplace and it's the number four kids dot com. We know that essential workers not only include hospital employees and first responders but our critical infrastructure workers as well as restaurant workers grocery store employees everybody that we need who are supplying essential services to us at this time. More importantly and even more exciting is that we have the ability to offer 100 percent child care subsidies for our essential workers. And so what does that mean? It means that workers who with incomes at or below 150 percent of the state median income so in layman's terms that's one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars or less for a family of four qualify for three months one hundred percent paid child care assistance. So go online to C.C. Tarrant County get it right Tarrant County C.C.M.S. dot org. It is literally a two page online application and within 48 hours a social worker will reach out to you and provide you with that assistance and get you moving so that you can have subsidized child care. We have six hundred of those slots available for our essential workers. That's really a big deal. Child care is so expensive. Carlos you have little kids you know that. So does Kelly I can remember when my kids were little and I know my grandchildren it my kids nearly go broke playing for child care. So many people do. So Carlos real quickly what other challenges do you see that we're facing? Yes well one in particular is this what we found another vulnerable community is our homeless population. We've learned on our committee that our transitional and permanent housing folks that live there have a very large and pronounced gap and how they can connect in for their children's sake to educational opportunities as well as child care opportunities. So right now we've begun to explore how we address that. Fortunately our homeless liaison is already busy at work trying to gather some useful strategies for us to consider as a committee and we're going to be embarking on that very soon. Another thing that came up in fact at our meeting today impacts our summer reading and summer programs. Right now we're going to be putting that on our agenda of things to do to look at specifically and have our partners on our committee give us feedback on what we can expect because there will be changes to those programs. That's good. Kelly anything else from you? No I think Carlos has covered it. I will say and we said this today to everyone who was sitting on that on on that committee we have not just talked about education and we haven't just talked about child care. We have worked to make sure that our kids across the city are also being fed so that we are not leaving any child behind that is hungry. We have lots of gaps that we have filled in and so literally this has been a community wide county wide effort to make sure that our kids are not being left behind. Thank you for that. Thank you for your hard work Kelly and Carlos. Thank you for yours. You guys need to know you've got great council members working on your behalf. Kelly and Carlos are just two. There are six more who are out there working hard too and I'm always impressed with what our council members are doing. It truly is a community wide effort to try to get through this pandemic. Lastly I want to invite all of you to join us tomorrow night that's Thursday night for a citywide ovation. It's seven o'clock come out in your yard get out on your balcony and clap and honk as we celebrate our first responders and our hospital workers. It's a joint effort with my friend Mayor Johnson from Dallas and the Metroplex. It's called DFW celebrates our heroes. So don't forget tomorrow night at seven o'clock I'll be reminding you again tomorrow till then stay home y'all stay home y'all stay safe and y'all stay in.