District leaders have sent an urgent plea to federal lawmakers to approve the proposed $3 trillion dollar HEROES Act. The Act allocates $350 billion dollars for public school districts to navigate challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
To operate safely and within public health guidelines, the district must improve its ventilation system and provide personal protection equipment for students and staff. They also need to hire more nurses and counselors. Vice president of the district's school board, Richard Barrera explained that these changes require significant funding through the HEROES Act, "It was passed by the House of Representatives and sent to the Senate three months ago and since then we’ve had nothing but delay,”
To get their message across, the district arranged parked school buses to form "SOS" from an aerial view at their facility in Kearny Mesa. Barrera says the "SOS" is a message to the federal government to hear the district's plea for a prompt approval of the Act, he says that schools across the national are in a "crisis."