Trump Plan Would Cure School Re-Opening Chaos

President Trump released his second-term agenda this week. In it, he included the plan to “Provide School Choice to Every Child in America.” I have long been an advocate of school choice because it gives our most disadvantaged students an immediate escape valve and the chance to join a school and culture that changes the trajectory of their lives. And that escape valve is now needed by more families, more urgently, than ever before.

To that point, this past Friday night, after 5 pm – when many Wisconsin families were outside enjoying one of the last summer weekends before their kids return to school – the liberal bastion of Dane County issued “Emergency Order #9.” That order mandated that all schools in the county begin instruction for grades three to 12 virtually, effective only 60 hours after it was issued, on Monday, Aug. 24 -- what was to be the first day of in-person school for many private school students in the county.

Despite working tirelessly for months to create a safe environment for kids to go back to in-person learning, private school personnel, students, and their families were thrown into tumult upon the last-second announcement – which seems to have been the goal of county policymakers.

Bishop Donald Hying of the Madison, Wisc., diocese (Madison being the largest city in Dane County), wrote in a blunt letter released on Sunday, Aug. 23: “On numerous occasions since early July, county officials were asked to provide the metrics that would be used regarding closing and opening schools, with regard to COVID-19. These were not provided until Friday, leaving many of you, who have already gone back to work, with the added hardship of finding childcare. Many of you have few, if any options, given this order.”

I witnessed this discord firsthand on Aug. 10. A non-profit that I lead, No Better Friend Corp., was onsite at the Lighthouse Christian School in Madison, along with volunteers from Hispanics for School Choice, School Choice Wisconsin, and the Wisconsin Federation for Children, to distribute free school and health supplies to Madison area school children and their families. I was inside the school that day and saw the thoughtful social- distancing precautions that Lighthouse had taken for their kids. Unfortunately, the leaders of that school also struggled to get timely information from Dane County officials in advance of opening their school. Nonetheless, they forged ahead and were ready to offer their students a safe learning environment at a critical time.