Hello friend,
There’s a lot going on these days, and it’s easy to miss things. That’s why I wanted to put together a quick recap for you of the highlights from this past week:
SCHOOLS
We have set the goal of returning to full in-person schooling on August 31st. While Rhode Island has led the way in distance learning over the past few months, there is no substitute for the experience of in-person school. But school won’t look exactly like it did before. We may have to plan for fewer kids on our buses, desks spread further apart, and staggered start times for different grades. To help districts with some of these additional expenses, we will be distributing $42 million in CARES Act funding to schools to support the safe return of students and teachers.
We’re going to take the lessons we’ve learned from this virus and apply them to in-person learning. From now on, when school buildings are closed, learning will still go on. And because we had such great success putting all our schools on one calendar during distance learning, we are going to keep that approach for the next school year.
TESTING
For months, Rhode Island has been a national – and global – leader in testing, and that continues to be true today. We still have the highest rate of testing per capita of any state—and a higher rate than most countries. As of today, we’ve tested about 17% of our population. For comparison, the national average is below 7%.
As of this week, restaurant workers, child care workers, bus drivers, gym employees and personal service workers are able to schedule a free test at our National Guard testing sites. If you fall into one of these categories, you can get tested by going to portal.ri.gov or calling the Department of Health at 222-8022. To be clear, this is for people without symptoms. If you have symptoms, you should call your primary care physician or community health center and get tested as soon as possible.
HOUSING
Earlier this week, we launched the Housing Now! campaign in partnership with the United Way and the Rhode Island Realtor’s Association. We are challenging landlords to pledge to rent at least 100 units to housing-insecure Rhode Islanders by July 1. To support this initiative, we’re going to give landlords a signing bonus for each unit that they make available to serve a household experiencing homelessness.
United Way is facilitating this program and will help match renters and landlords, so all landlords need to do is call 211 today.
We’re all in this together.
-Gina Raimondo
Governor