School Reopening Bill Clears NC Senate, Now to House, Cooper Opposes

RALEIGH – Senate Bill 37, The In-Learning Choice for Children Act, passed the North Carolina Senate with Republican support as most Democrat lawmakers and Governor Roy Cooper oppose the most necessary bill in recent memory. The bill now heads to the House, and will presumably land on Governor Roy Cooper’s desk thereafter.

The legislation requires all K-12 public schools to offer ‘Plan A’ in-person instruction to all special needs students, who have arguably suffered the most absent hands-on education and care. All districts will also be required to offer at least partial in-person instruction for the general student population, under ‘Plan A’ (full reopening) or ‘Plan B’ (partial, staggered reopening with capacity restrictions that still hinder opening).

Far from forcing everyone back in the classroom, the bill still allows for remote learning for the remainder of this school year for any parents/students that prefer that route.

While Governor Cooper paid lip service to reopening school in a hyped announcement last week that turned out to be a Nothing Burger, he opposes this bill. He professes to prefer local control over these decisions, but more likely can’t bring himself to endorse an actual reopening plan while forces on the Left remain opposed.

N.C. Sens. Deanna Ballard (R-Watauga) and Mike Lee (R-New Hanover), chairs of the Education Committee and primary sponsors of the legislation, called Cooper out for his empty words:

“For months we’ve heard from families and students who are clamoring to return to in-person learning. The science and data show that we can reopen schools safely. The Governor’s empty rhetoric about the importance of in-person instruction does nothing to help kids. The General Assembly is taking decisive action to actually get students back to school.”

As long as Democrats hold them hostage to Pandemic Panic politics, students and families will continue to pay the price in lost academic progress, frustration, and the obvious emotional and social health costs of these misguided policies.

Even Cooper himself has now noted the studies (upon studies, upon studies) that show reopening schools to be remarkably safe. Plenty of school districts around the state are acknowledging that and making moves to get kids back to school, but others have proven more inclined to lockdown in submission to the illogical fears and unreasonable demands of political teacher associations. Unfortunately, the latter are usually high population centers where most of the students are.

And that’s exactly why Senate Bill 37 is necessary. Democrats, until recently, talk an awful lot about the constitutional mandate on education in North Carolina, but those references are curiously absent now that the Democratic agenda has morphed into embracing the policy of keeping public schools closed to the public.

The mandate to provide “uniform system of free public schools, which shall be maintained at least nine months in every year, and wherein equal opportunities shall be provided for all students,” cannot possibly be met with widespread, protracted school closures. Either they are required to reopen for students under reasonable safety policies, or “the means of education shall forever be encouraged” via education vouchers for every single child in this state to pursue real life schooling that’s not at the whim of political forces.

Follow the bill’s progress here.