North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and President Pro Tem of the state Senate Sen. Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) announced Wednesday, March 10, that they had reached an agreement on school reopening.
In February, the state legislature passed a bill requiring all public schools to offer in-classroom learning to all students, with the flexibility for students to also continue virtual classes if so desired.
Cooper vetoed the bill and the Senate failed to override the veto by one vote. One Democratic senator who voted for the bill voted against the override and Sen. Ben Clark (D-Cumberland), who was one of the bill’s co-sponsors, was absent. The Senate voted to reconsider the bill, but the second vote to override the veto was delayed because of the ongoing negotiations with Cooper to reach an agreement.
Under the agreement, which will become law after it is passed by the Senate and House and signed by Cooper, elementary schools will be required to open with full-time in-person classes.
Middle schools and high schools will either have to operate under Cooper’s plan A, which is full-time in-person classes, or Cooper’s plan B, which requires more social distancing.
Special needs students would be able to choose between plan A and plan B.
All students would also be offered a virtual learning option, so no students would be forced back into the classroom against the wishes of their parents.
Middle schools and high schools currently don’t have the option of opening under plan A, and plan B requires so much social distancing that some schools have found it not a feasible option.
Cooper closed the schools to in-person learning in March 2020, and most middle school and high school students in the state have not been in a classroom for almost a year.
Since the agreement has been reached, it is predicted that the Senate will pass the new school reopening bill later in the day on Wednesday, March 10. House Speaker Tim Moore said that the bill does not have to go through committee and the House could vote on it on Wednesday also.
Once Cooper signs the bill it becomes law and goes into effect immediately. However, the bill does give schools 21 days to comply.
Cooper does not want high schools opened at all. He is trying to end up with useful idiots for his voting base. We have already wasted 1 year that can never be replaced.
So you are acknowledging then that schools are not, in fact, “liberal indoctrination camps”? It seems if they were, he’d want them super duper open.
Also, take a moment and check demographics on voting bases. People with more education tend to be liberal; less education tend to be conservative. Again, it seems opening schools would actually help increase the democrat voter base.
There’s so much wrong with your hot hot hot! take on this.
Here’s my take on this action.
Cooper’s agreement to cooperate was purely political and unrelated to health and safety, since the bill being approved is virtually the same as the original one passed in the Senate. He knows the senate revote would pass and thus override his veto. That would be a black mark on his record, reflecting how he kept kids out of school against the wishes of the large majority of constituents, and especially parents.
Cooper throughout the pandemic has proven himself to be a complete sham. He has not once that I can recall, been able to show us the data and the science to support his lockdown decisions and mandates. Had it not been for the control and fiscal responsibility of the Republican-led Senate and House in NC for the last eight+ years, this state would now be in dire economic straits.
And as an aside, we are now seeing the same scenario play out with the Guilford County Commissioners under the now pseudo-leadership of Skip Alston and the fiscally irresponsible Democrats on the Board who can’t seem to think for themselves, despite their promises to their constituents while running for election.
Fiscally irresponsible? No one takes budgeting seriously. Left or right. Every administration our decifit widens faster and faster.
You must not remember the budget cluster funk that this state endured under the co-leadership of Governor Bev Perdue and her rolling buddy in the General Assembly Marc Basnight. They just about drove this state into bankruptcy.