BACK TO SCHOOL: Under Building Pressure, Governor Cooper Expected to Announce Reopening of Schools at 2COVID Briefing

RALEIGH – Parents are fed up, teachers are anxious to get back in the classroom, and students are suffering; all of it is putting pressure on Governor Roy Cooper to end the travesty of COVID-19 school closures and finally listen to the ‘science and data.’

After months of public school families enduring through the ordeal of ‘virtual learning’ and remote instruction, a reactionary policy failure of the highest order, Governor Roy Cooper is reportedly going to announce a statewide return to in-person instruction at Tuesday’s COVID briefing.

From North State Journal:

“Gov. Roy Cooper is expected to announce the state’s schools will return to in-person instruction at today’s COVID-19 press conference.

During a Council of State meeting earlier in the day, Truitt said that she and Davis would join today’s COVID-19 briefing in “an effort to urge our districts across the state to re-open our schools to in-person learning.”

The governor’s actions struck some legislators as belated, as state lawmakers had signaled near the end of January they would take action and the senate has already drafted a bill to reopen the state’s school for in-person instruction. […]”

That would be an understatement.

For MONTHS the science on school + COVID has been clear. One after another, studies conclude the risk to children is virtually non-existent, the risk to teachers minuscule. A study on 11 school districts in North Carolina over six weeks of in-person instruction, covering over 90,000 students, and NOT ONE case of a child transmitting the virus to a staff member. ZERO.

That reality was bearing down hard on state lawmakers as they returned to Raleigh for the 2021 session. High on their list is legislation requiring districts offer an in-person option, and the bill’s anticipated introduction (and passage) lit a fire under Governor Cooper that should have been there ages ago.

Or perhaps the narrative shift to reopening schools under the Biden presidency was enough to clear the way for Cooper to relent. That and his polling being upside down on the issue.

According to NSJ, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Catherine Truitt (R) announced during a Council of State meeting that she would will join the governor at today’s briefing.

Watch the briefing, and perhaps the most overdue and consequential announcement so far this year, live below: