Ok, I am not a scientist, but I am an educator with forty years of experience. I have seen thousands of children from all walks of life succeed and some struggle. That being said, I want to go on record proclaiming that keeping schools closed at this point in the COVID crisis is doing harm to all children, but more so to the children that are already behind and have spent their lives trying to catch up. Those children come from all backgrounds, especially from poor communities .

I watch the government right now making decisions that benefit no one, at least no one I know, and ignoring our children and teachers. Why should a union decide when a school is opened? What happened to making decisions based on science? Let’s look at the schools that have opened and their success. Yes, occasionally, there have been times schools have had to close again for a little while or have had pockets of students and teachers quarantine, but on the whole, success has prevailed.

The Bible says “people perish for lack of knowledge.” Almost an entire year has passed. Many children have committed suicide. Some children are living in horrific home environments. Some children are hungry. This does not make sense based on what “science” is really saying. What is the real reason that many of our children, our future, are still at home? Most of these children are trying, along with the educators and parents, to make the best of this awful situation, but I think it is a travesty that we are using children as pawns in a game that I, frankly, am sick of playing.

Open the schools. All the schools.