Fact check: Are Gavin Newsom’s kids ‘living through Zoom school’?

Claim: California Gov. Gavin Newsom implied his children currently are attending school remotely in a March 16 interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper when he said, “I’ve been living through Zoom school and all of the challenge related to it.”

Rating: Mostly false

Details: Newsom and his four children were affected by distance learning during the coronavirus pandemic, but their children were able to go back to in-person learning in the fall.

His kids attend a private school in Sacramento County that has been open since October. That means their pandemic learning experiences have largely differed from the millions of California children who attend public school and only now are beginning to go back to campus.

Newsom in October said his children were beginning a phased-in return to in-person classes after learning online. On Friday, he told press, “they’ve been in and out -- they’ve had months where they’ve only done zoom school.”

A spokesperson for First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said in a statement Friday that the children are currently receiving in-person instruction through their school, though that was not the case until fall of last year.

“Distance learning was especially difficult on two of their children, who have learning differences, as well as on their youngest child, Dutch, who was four years old at the time,” said Daisy Vieyra, communications director for the First Partner.

Newsom’s adversaries have seized on his Zoom comment. Some Republicans, like former Trump cabinet member Richard Grenell and former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, claimed the statement was false.

“(Newsom) lies about being impacted by zoom school. #Fraud,” tweeted Grenell.

School reopening has been a particularly difficult challenge for the embattled governor as he faces a campaign to recall him from office. After weeks of hard-fought negotiations with legislative leaders, Newsom earlier this month signed a bill opening up $2 billion to incentivize schools to reopen, plus another $4.6 billion to mitigate learning losses.

It’s not a silver bullet, however. Districts still need to take advantage of the funding and negotiate with teachers unions before they can reopen. Most schools in densely populated, urban areas still remain in distance learning, according to the state’s school tracker. Newsom has been criticized for not taking more direct action to force schools to reopen, like Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who last week signed an emergency order requiring schools to offer in-person instruction by mid-April.

Over the weekend, Sacramento City Unified came to an agreement with its teachers union to return to campus on April 8. The district will follow a phased-in reopening, with the youngest cohort of children, pre-kindergarten through third grade, returning first. In the following weeks, the district will welcome back fourth through sixth grade students, then seventh through 12th grade students by April 22.

This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 2:01 PM.