 You are tuned in to the COVID-19 community report on KDRT 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm your host, Autumn Labé Renaud, and today is Friday, March 20, 2020. This show airs live at noon on Tuesdays and Fridays and repeats at 5 p.m. both days. I'll continue it over the coming weeks as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold. And you can also listen online at kdrt.org. My intention with this show is to provide a mix of community updates, local information, and call-ins from elected officials, community activists, and other leaders. Our guests today are Superintendent John Bose of the Davis Joint Unified School District and Kate Mellon-Anibaba, founder of the COVID-19 YOLO Community Response Group on Facebook. Throughout the show, I'll share a compendium of local resources, which I'll also post to the show's page at kdrt.org along with the show archive. And you can contact me there as well. Since I did the show on Tuesday, a shelter-in-place order was given, first city-by-city, then county-wide, and as of last night statewide. We're all dealing with uncertainty and fear, and many are trying to figure out how to carry out our work lives from home with loved ones and pets underfoot. Others are alone and maybe truly isolated, and this is where our neighbor-to-neighbor networks and our other social networks will save the day. I'll be honest, our first DMA staff meeting via Google Hangout this week was not seamless, but I'm happy to report that channels 15 and 17, as well as KDRT, are on the air and being managed remotely. Much gratitude to DMA staff who makes that happen. Unfortunately, our friends at KDVS 90.3 FM, the campus station at UC Davis, are not faring as well. Station management announced March 18th it was shuttering the station for the foreseeable future, and they are off the air. They don't have automation, and with the campus shut down, they can't come in to manage their operations. We're reaching out to them, however, we're not sure how FCC rules may limit how we can help them, but I'll update this item when I can. I have time for a few announcements before our first interview, and I particularly want to highlight the Davis Farmers Market. There was some confusion when the market announced earlier this week that its picnic in the park social on Wednesday evenings was canceled until May 13th. While the bands, bouncy houses, and food vendors won't be there, the farmers are. Winter hours will continue until further notice, and those are Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Market manager Randy McNear said the booths have been spaced further apart, and they continue to follow standards from the state and county health department, which are updated almost daily. Many farmers are now offering prepacked grab and go options. Certified farmers markets are an essential part of our community's food security, and even under statewide shelter in place measures, markets are exempt. You can find out more at davisfarmersmarket.org. Yolo Food Bank has stepped up in a big way, and they're out there delivering food to many who are now shut in. This is placed a tremendous burden on their available resources, and they're in urgent need of people to help deliver food, and they have many other needs as well. Call them at 530-668-0690 or visit yolofoodbank.org. And here's something I learned about just this morning. The California Department of Education has developed the California Meals for Kids mobile app to help families find nearby California afterschool and summer meal program sites. It's accessible on iOS, Android, or Microsoft devices and available wherever you download mobile apps. The emergency meal site section may be used during unanticipated school closures, such as we're all dealing with right now. I'm not yet sure about its availability in languages other than English, but I plan to contact them and ask that question. In the meantime, questions can be directed to CDEMobile. M-O-B-I-L-E at c-d-e dot c-a dot gov. Okay, please enjoy a little music while I get set up for our call with DJUSD Superintendent John Bows in just a minute. Thank you so much for joining us. Hello, Superintendent Bows. Thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to be here and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you and the community. Thank you. I can't even imagine how much the school district is dealing with right now. Last week, you had to announce to the community that schools would be closed through April 7th. This week, Governor Newsom said we very likely need to prepare to not return until after summer break. I know there was a school-born meeting last night, so what can you tell the community about this evolving situation? Sure. The rapid rise in confirmed coronavirus cases across the state and nation I think reinforces the need for the shelter-in-place order from Yolo County that was issued on Wednesday and also punctuates the need for changes in our individual and our collective efforts at home, at work to slow the spread of COVID-19 by doing two things, avoiding large gatherings and increasing social distance. And I want to say this to the community and our families. We will get through this together by working together. I want to recognize our Board of Education who last Friday provided me the authorization so I could evaluate and make the decision to close schools and also to the leaders from Davis Teachers Association and the California School Employees Association. They represent our teachers and all the support staff that keep our schools and district running. And they have been great partners in the hard work we've been at the last couple of weeks as this paradigm shift and how we provide instruction occurs. So I'm aware that the school district is under, has been discussing releasing some resources for families and for teachers and trying to figure out ways for them to work together remotely. Can you tell us about the status of that, please? Sure. So I think it's important to realize that we will very likely be in a school closure situation beyond the spring break. In fact, right now over 98% of students are in California and not in school. The Governor, as you said, mentioned this on Tuesday. Some good news for schools but also I think confirming we may be and for a much longer closure than initially anticipated was the recent passage of Senate Bill 117 which really cleared the way for districts across the state to develop the sort of long-term solutions we're working on and having some confidence that the needed funding and resources are in place to do that. You will see later today the launch of the first of two phases of instruction that will be providing our staff, our families, and our students. And consistent with State Superintendent Tony Thurman's comments to the Superintendents across the state on Wednesday, we are focused on a solution that revolves around equity, access, and innovation. For sure distance learning will look different everywhere. And we want to make sure that with a digital solution, every student in Davis Joint Unified has access to a device. And we have a plan in place to address what we call the digital divide faced by many of our students and families who are the furthest from opportunity. If a student or a family needs a Chromebook or Internet access, we have one for them and we'll get that to them. But it is critical that every student have a device so they can access instruction during the closure. And Davis, we all belong, and this has also been the guiding principle as we develop a short-term phase one digital content solution, which will be released in just the next few hours. And then a longer term, what we call phase two distance learning program that will serve our instruction purposes for the long haul. So as I said, a website called our home learning website with supplementary materials and resources for students and families to voluntarily access at home will come out in just the next few hours. And that will take us through spring break. Now at the same time during this week and the next couple of weeks, we're utilizing this time in the spring break to plan for our long-term distance learning program. And we have learned that careful and thoughtful investments of time and energy that involve our teachers and administrators, the experts, and instruction in the creation of instructional programming has produced superior teaching and learning experiences and outcomes. So our teachers and administrators on the team designing this are literally creating materials from scratch, building up the infrastructure that has not existed before but is needed to sustain us through an extended school closure. Yeah, this is a mammoth problem. We have never encountered this before in our modern times anyway. It is a paradigm shift and immediately challenging districts across the county, state, and nation to in the moment reimagine and retool instruction in a new 21st century paradigm. And events are changing more rapidly, I think, than anyone could have anticipated. The community can expect a regular series of messages from me, both on our constant contact email system through social media and web page updates. We are updating our web page daily. And you can just go to the front page of the DJUSB website for any immediate update. And we have a coronavirus or COVID-19 dedicated page with more detail. Great. And how will the Board of Trustees continue to meet during this time? Will there be a move to remote meetings? So that was a question we explored at last night's board meeting, which was held in community chambers for five trustees, more in attendance physically, and one trustee calling in. Governor Newsom has waived many of the Brown Act requirements, such as needing to have three physical people in the meeting room to attain a quorum or a majority of trustees. So we're exploring with the city the viability of using Zoom or WebEx or Skype or some other digital solution. The purpose of a board meeting is to conduct the board's business in public. And to the extent possible, we want to be able to continue to stream and capture the meetings so that they are available for view by the citizens and or families here in Davis. At the same time, we want to do our best to support the County Health Office's initiative to reduce opportunities for large gatherings and to increase social distance. And as an example, in my constant contact earlier this week, I urge people to please view online and to send any public comment to the Board of Education email address. We had seven comments that we read into the record last night. So there are ways to participate remotely in a meeting without actually having to be there. Great. I want to thank you for coming on and sharing these important updates. We're going to get ready for our next call. But also I assure you, I'll continue sharing the information I get from you out via the show and the website. So thank you again. And this has been Superintendent John Bose with the Davis Joint Unified School District. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you in the community. Thanks. Bye. Okay, we will be getting ready for our next call. And I think we have just a little bit of music before that happens. Okay, we're hoping to get another call soon. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead and read an announcement. Here's a bit more on getting people fed. Davis Night Market is open with new rules to conform to social distancing. The nonprofit provides free food for people suffering from food insecurity and hunger. Market organizers said that many people have benefited from the food they distribute and they believe they're covering basic needs for an important number of them. They have decided to continue holding the Night Market on Tuesdays and Thursdays with some modifications. And they asked people to observe the following. If you need food, come. If you don't need to, please do not come. Social distancing will be observed and participants are asked to leave the park. This is Central Park in downtown Davis where the farmer's market is held. Leave the park immediately after receiving food. You can find Davis Night Market on Facebook and Instagram. Okay, we are expecting a call from one of the community organizers here in town. But until that moment, I am going to go ahead and keep sharing what I am calling resource listings. And I make these available on the KDRT website at kdrt.org along with the show record, which is a digital stream and recording. It's downloadable of this show and many others on catered. I want to take a moment to give a shout out to all the volunteers who make KDRT run 24-7 all year long. And we've been doing this since 2004 as a low-power community, truly hyper-local grassroots radio station. These outlets are important in these times when we need all the local news and information we can get. And that's why I'm sitting here in a facility that is essentially closed to everyone else. All right, another listing for today. Yolo County Supervisor Jim Provenza shared this morning that at this time the county is enforcing Yolo County shelter-in-place order. County Council is researching whether or not there are any conflicts with the governor's order and if so, how to handle it. For now, he said everyone is safe so long as they follow Yolo County's order. And I encourage everyone to visit the county's website at yolocounty.org. All the information pertaining to COVID-19 and the shelter-in-place order is spotlighted there. And it's really, it's right on the front page and it's a whole lot of information for you. All right, continuing on. International House Davis is conducting a community survey to gather information. I'm going to come back to that item because our caller is coming through. All right, last week community organizer Kate Mellon-Anibaba started a Facebook group called COVID-19 Yolo Community Response. It quickly grew from dozens to a few thousand members. It's been a place where people can ask for or offer help and it's truly been inspiring. In fact, it's what sparked me to do this particular radio show. She's with us today to talk about the experience. Welcome, Kate. Hi, Autumn. Thank you so much for having me. So glad you're here. So what prompted you to start this group? So I, you know, I think everyone was talking about what they were doing for their families. And I was seeing a lot of people, you know, hoarding things. I was definitely earlier and trying to think about, oh, if I have to stay home and I'm sick, like I had my dad go get a bunch of water and soup. But nothing like the crazy hoarding that we were seeing progressively through this, you know, pandemic. And so there was one night after work and I just kind of heard a lot of people saying what they were doing for themselves and their family. And this is so scary. And what am I doing? What am I holding on to? And it just was really very focused on themselves. So I was trying to think of, you know, where's the community thinking? When a community is sick, we all live in a community. When a community is sick, you're only as healthy as when it's vulnerable. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I knew that it was really frustrating me. And I like to organize and I like to bring people in when I'm frustrated kind of my thing. And so I saw a post from, you know, Rob Davis and I saw a post from John Saylor and they were talking about, you know, thinking collectively, thinking as a community, what are we going to need to do? And I just took that and I ran with it. I started a little chat group on Facebook and it was really fast. So then I turned it into a page and here we are. And you probably never respected such a response. The last time I looked, there were well over 3,000 members. Every couple of days we get about 1,000 new people added. That's how new this group is. You know, it is big, but we're probably in the next couple of days going to hit about 4,000. You know, Anush and Tejorian and Emily Hill stepped in quickly to help me with the organizing because it got so big so fast. Right. Which is amazing. Let's talk about that for a minute because you have a number of people identified as moderators. And I really appreciate, because I'm going through this book and looking for resource listings that I can then share with others. And I really appreciate how everything is tagged. So how many moderators and what does it take to keep this going? Yes, this is a huge part of why this group is so successful. And it almost chokes me up to see the little behind the scenes of how this works. I wish everyone could kind of get in there, but you know, that's not the purpose of it. We have myself as an admin and a new Tejorian who have been a huge part in, you know, kind of keeping everybody organized within our own moderator group. Our moderators include Emily Hill, Devin Adams, Leah Dara, Calissa Hickerman, Adrienne Richie, Joanna Breisner, Ruby Cosgrove, Natalie Mu, Sophia Osa Campo, and then Natalie Tessarina. And then of course my mom, Dori Mellon. We have a huge group. We have so many skills that we bring to the table collectively. We have a scientist, a person that works in healthcare, a librarian, community organizers, analysts, small business owners. We're on top of it and we've been praised for our information, being accurate. We do a lot of vettings, making sure people are in Yolo County. We want this group to be useful and to be useful we have to work super, super hard to keep it that way. We have folks putting in so many hours. It's almost like a business, the way we're structured. Everyone has their talents. We bring issues back to our own mod group to discuss and figure out what we're doing. People are having to deal with fighting on this group at 3 a.m. and folks are stepping up. It's incredible. I want to point out one thing. We are a group of all women, except for one, and I'm not surprised at how amazing this is because of that. We are a well-oiled machine and again we're taking on this task, but we also a lot of us have full-time jobs. We have children that we're figuring out how to take care of right now and doing this. We're amazing. I know you yourself have two very young children. I just want to thank you and thank all the moderators and all the participants. I have seen such kindness and generosity coming forth in this group. That's a beacon of hope for us all right now. There's also a lot of information and so much of it is daunting as we're getting reports from the county supervisors sharing information and county health is sharing information, but again the kindness, the generosity and the people looking out for each other is phenomenal. I had one last thing that I wanted to say. We see that a vast majority of us are all having similar worries at this time. We're worried about our finances, getting factual information, our families, resource accessibility, folks that are having food scarcity, but also folks that have plenty of money, but they're just looking for toilet paper. It's a huge topic. We must remain calm and vigilant and not wait to ask for help, but also not wait to offer help. And that doesn't mean just offering money, that means offering, you know, figuring out projects, that means stepping into volunteer roles. A lot of this stuff is going to be done, you know, behind a phone, behind a computer, you know, not face-to-face organizing, but we're going to have to find ways to funnel all this fantastic community energy into productive projects. So, you know, we created this network to benefit all our communities. No one is alone. We want everyone to know that you may be isolated, but there's many people that are feeling exactly like you. Please reach out. Please join the group. You know, you can always, you know, sign up the group and check in with it if it's overwhelming. You can always search topics. You do a great job of labeling things that you might be interested in. You know, we have a huge, strong, amazing community, amazing mutual times, and we need to, you know, harness that, and this is the space. Yeah. Thank you again so much for your work and for calling in. And take care, and I'll see you online. Okay, great. Thank you so much, Autumn. This is a fantastic work. All right. All right. Bye-bye. Again, that was Kate Mellon, Anibaba, the initial organizer of the COVID-19 Yellow Community Response Group on Facebook, and you can search that there. So I have a lot of other resource listings to share and very, very little time, so I am going to say again that they will be at the show record at kdrt.org. And I'll be back next Tuesday when my guests will be Davis Poet Laureate James Lee Job, Elizabeth Gray from the Yolo County Library, and business blogger Heidi Kellison of Downtown NorCal. Next Friday, we'll check in with Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor and also hear from someone at Yolo Public Health. Stay home, wash your hands, be kind. From the KDRT studio, I'm Autumn Laberino, and this has been the COVID-19 Community Report.