Yesterday evening Orange County education leaders voted to recommend reopening schools without the mandatory use of masks or increased social distancing – although they do suggest there should be daily temperature checks, frequent handwashing and the use of hand sanitizer, alongside the nightly disinfection of classrooms.
[…]“Don’t tell me my kid has to wear a mask,” Kim Sherman, a mother of three in the central California city of Clovis who describes herself as very conservative and very pro-Trump, told Gecker. “I don’t need to be dictated to to tell me how best to raise my kids.”
Some parents have threatened to pull their children and the funding they provide if masks are required. Hillary Salway, a mother of three in Orange County, California, is part of a vocal minority calling for schools to fully open with “normal social interaction.”
Never mind that educational standards are literally the state dictating to parents how best to raise kids, and that schools have had dress codes since forever. Here’s my question – is this vote just big talk for the cheap seats or is it real? My guess is “big talk”. Here’s part of the re-opening presentation given to the NYS Board of Regents yesterday. Note my sophisticated highight:
That’s the Department of Education logo. They’re the ones laying down the law. My local school board can vote however they like, but they aren’t re-opening if they don’t follow NYS ED standards. That said, from the same article:
Craig Guensler, superintendent of a small district in California’s mostly rural Yuba County, says officials will try to follow state mandates. They have spent $25,000 on what he calls “spit guards, for lack of a better term” – clear Plexiglas dividers to separate desks at Wheatland Unified School District’s four schools.
Eighty-five percent of parents said in a survey they want their kids in school full time. Officials will space out desks as much as possible but still expect up to 28 in each classroom, Guensler said. Many parents are adamant their children not wear masks, and he suspects they will find loopholes if California requires them.
“Our expectation is we’re going to get pummelled with pediatricians writing notes, saying, ‘My child can’t wear a mask,’” he said.
Sometimes I think this country is too dumb to live.
different-church-lady
Kim Sherman should pray with all her might that none of her children wind up as material for a Biden ad.
Alison Rose
I remember being kind of amazed that OC went blue in 2016. Apparently, that was the flukiest of flukes. Never imagined “proudly forcing our kids into a low-budget remake of The Hunger Games” would become the defining trait of the GOP, but here we are.
Frankensteinbeck
Isn’t Mary Trump’s book releasing today?
Gin & Tonic
Unless Orange County has some innovative way of funding public schools that I’m not aware of, the only way to “pull their … funding” is to sell their house and move.
khead
I know it’s terrible of me, but I’ve reached the point where I’d be fine with it if only Kim Sherman and her family (and ilk) were affected.
Sab
I was just reading TPM about Stephen Moore. It must really suck to be born energetic and ambitious and then realize that you aren’t actually very bright.
Crashman06
Another version of the Cletus Safari. I’m so tired of hearing about these people.
Uncle Jeffy
Well, certain individuals in this country are too dumb to live -and they probably won’t.
Fraud Guy
My expectation would be a lot of doctors having their licenses reviewed and/or revoked in that case.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Sab:
I vacillate between wanting to see guys like Moore:
1. Choke to death alone in a crowded hospital corridor on their own lung fluid or
2. Wanting to see them beaten to death with a baseball bat, slowly, starting with the feet and working upward.
Ken
@Fraud Guy: Could the school reclassify the child as “special needs” due to the medical condition, and put them in a different classroom?
Spanky
@Sab: I went over to TPM expecting to see that Moore was down with the ‘Rona. Sadly, I was very wrong.
Fraud Guy
@Ken: They should reclassify the parents as special needs and assign them to take personal responsibility classes.
scav
Look! They’ve discovered their Moloch these Evangelicals! Watch them haul out the shovels. Poor dears haven’t quite noticed that their calf has more of a matte orange tint this go round, but. . .
Kropacetic
Would anyone be taking this parent seriously if this were the demand?
kindness
I’m confused. Clovis is a small suburb of Fresno in the middle of the Central Valley. It isn’t Orange County. Clovis/Fresno is who keeps sending god damned Devin Nunes to Congress.
SiubhanDuinne
@Frankensteinbeck:
My Kindle copy downloaded at midnight. I’m halfway through. It’s a compelling read.
EmmaAnne
I feel like you are conflating Orange County, California and Orange County, New York in this post …
Barbara
Most of these people are paper tigers. Before California tightened its vaccine exemptions for school attendance, it told schools that any child without proof of measles vaccination would have to stay out of school for 21 days after any report of measles within the school. When that happened, offending kids were vaccinated at a rate of more than 90%. And oh by the way, unless she plans to home school those kids, I am pretty sure no private school is going to reopen without meeting minimal state standards for infection control. We are not telling you how to protect your kids, we are telling you how to protect OUR kids and teachers from predatory lunatics like you.
scav
The middle part is from NY, so Orange County is just the headliner for generalized freeeedumb sacrifices. The quoted bit actually mentions Yuba county.
hedgehog mobile
Teacher friend of mine put it bluntly: “We are being asked to be martyrs.”
laura
Kim “Karen” Sherman demands the right to have her three children potentially sicken and kill the bus driver, the crossing guard, the office ladies, the groundskeepers, the custodians, the lunch ladies, the para educators, the librarian, the counselor and all the teaching staff. All because Karen Sherman and her ilk give shit not one about anybody but Karen and her ilk.
If teachers along with the rest of the education community are now making out a will as they prepare for the unknown, why shouldn’t parents and young scholars do the same?
Danielx
@Sab:
Would not surprise me if the Lincoln Project gnomes put together a piece illuminating Stephen Moore’s history of being wrong. About just about everything.
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
You don’t understand California school funding, then. Property taxes are only a small part of school funding, thanks to Prop 13. Most school funding comes from the state government using a formula that depends critically on attendance. So pulling kids from school absolutely hurts school funding.
joel hanes
Sometimes I think this country is too dumb to live.
But if this ever changin’ world
In which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck: yes! Bastille Day!
laura
@hedgehog mobile: since Columbine and especially Sandy Hook, teachers and students have been repeated taught that they need to be martyr’s to the gun industry- and Covid is just as random and unexpected, they’ve got that going for them already.
Betsy DeVos gets a single digit tumbrel number.
Constance Reader
“Sometimes I think this country is too dumb to live.”
Sometimes? This year nails that conclusion to the wall and surrounds it with neon and bells. I want the America I believe in to thrive again, but Americans are too fucking shallow and stupid for it to happen.
catclub
trump wanted to put him on the federal Reserve board. The senate actually opposed that back in the days of yore – maybe 2019? 2018?
Roger Moore
@laura:
The worst part is you know for damn sure that if Karen’s kid gets COVID, she’s going to be the first one blaming the school for not doing enough.
matt
Killing kids for Christ.
Ruckus
Some in this country are too dumb.
They want to live in a world that doesn’t exist. They have been told by faux news and republican politicians that the world should be one way, that it isn’t. Their ideal world would kill off the people they don’t like, and of course them as well, because they think they are special. They are special, but not in the way they think they are. These are special needs individuals, they need to feel special, over and on top of “others.” Their lack of pigmentation has led to a lack of humanity and a lack of being a part of the whole.
senyordave
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Here’s something I would vote for (just substitute Stephen Moore for Ishido):
Three days later Ishido was captured alive and Toranaga genially reminded him of the prophecy and sent him in chains to Osaka for public viewing, ordering the eta to plant the General Lord Ishido’s feet firm in the earth, with only his head outside the earth, and to invite passersby to saw at the most famous neck in the realm with a bamboo saw. Ishido lingered three days and died very old
I’d be on board with this. BTW, this is literally the last passage in James Clavell’s “Shogun”.
Alison Rose
@kindness: The Guardian article he’s quoting covers California a little more broadly, not just OC. With also a random mention of Houston, for some reason.
tarragon
@EmmaAnne:
Mix lives in NY and often compares our (Excelsior!) response to the shit show happening elsewhere.
Another thing that the NY ED did was allow schools to open full or partial virtual. Schools have to present their plans the end of this month so no one knows for sure who is doing what.
For various reasons my little ones aren’t returning to the building. To make sure of that we’ve started the process to home school in case our district insists.
Jinchi
@Gin & Tonic: I think most schools receive funding based on the number of students in the classroom as of a specific date. (I learned this when a local charter school went bankrupt and dumped their kids on the district after that date). It might be different this year. The threat presumably would be ’empty classroom, no funds’, although personally I’d prefer she keep her maskless kids far away from mine.
During the pandemic, schools will undoubtedly be required to offer some form of online instruction for children who cannot attend in person – either temporarily in the event of a precautionary quarantine, or all year in the case of a high risk student. Anyone showing up with a note from their pediatrician (‘masks will kill this child’, I presume?) should be told how to sign up for virtual attendance.
Danielx
@catclub:
But not, amazingly enough, for his crackpot economic ideas (gold standard, anyone?), but for his comments about women, getting rid of child labor laws and messy personal financial situation, including being about $300k in arrears on alimony and child support. Then that embarrassing bit about owing tens of thousands to the IRS…
Just overall dickishness.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Don’t worry about being unemployed. Don and Ivanka think you should just be positive and find something new!
In my case, it’s either a guillotine or a baseball bat. A new bat is probably cheaper, and produces the pleasing “thunk” sound. No aluminum for me….
Juice Box
@Gin & Tonic: California does have unique school funding. The money goes through Sacramento and schools get funded per student. That means that the schools in poorer areas get the same amount per student as the schools in wealthier areas. A school loses that funding when a student is pulled from school to attend a private school or drops out. I think that legal home-schoolers are still assigned to a local school. It’s an idea that should be spread elsewhere.
It’s not perfect though. My swanky little city passed a bond act to “renovate” its schools, starting with completely scraping each property. However, the well-paid teachers are making an amount similar to teachers throughout the state, give or take a little variation since salaries are set by the school districts. We’re working on making schooling more equitable, even if we’re not all the way there yet.
I voted for Jerry Brown whenever he ran in presidential primaries. America blew it when they passed him over for Carter and Clinton. He got shit done.
dmsilev
And it’s not like Orange County is some island of low prevalence for the virus. Per the LA Time’s tracker, the per-capita case rate in OC is actually higher than in Los Angeles County. And is growing faster.
scav
ooooo. With all this claiming of medical exemptions for not wearing masks, how bout the districts explicitly cater to the disability with instruction in specialized classrooms, with a teacher sharing the disability instructing (I’m sure there are some). Short buses could be provided so that the parents could be reassured that their special tykes aren’t accidentally exposed to people taking precautions.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@senyordave: Me like.
Ruckus
Also if I understand it correctly, according to Martin who lives in Orange county, the OC school board doesn’t actually set policy for the schools, the individual school boards do I believe so this vote is symbolic. But of course it riles up the idiots and imbeciles who are too stupid to realize that a virus has zero respect or care for your skin color or fullness of your bank account, said virus knows that you are just another sack of meat to thrive on. The special they think they are exists only and specifically in their heads.
FlyingToaster
@Barbara: This:
It does depend upon the school, but up heah in the People’s Republic, private schools are under the same health mandates as public schools. I don’t imagine that California is any different.
WarriorGirl’s private school is stricter on vaccinations than the public schools. The only reason for non-vaccination is medical contraindication.
Princess Leia
That Board does not have authority over the decisions individual districts will make. Kind of for show, but could provide cover to districts that want to bend the rules. CA itself has guidelines. My suggestion is to have masked and unmasked schools and classrooms. You want to open w/o precautions= OK all your kids can be together. The parents who want super strict precautions – over here please. Then see what teachers are willing to go where. Or maybe the parents want to come in and help out? Nah. The “OC” is filled with folks who think they are special.
Ken
@Danielx: But gold is a great thing to buy now! Or to sell!! I know this because I watch cable tv, and they have ads both ways!!! Sometimes one right after the other!!!
cope
@Ken: One move in education over the last decade or so has been inclusion. This has resulted in ESE kids (as they are designated in the state where I taught for 28 years) being put in classrooms with the general kids.
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
But aluminum has that nice ping sound when properly applied and they break less often.
dmsilev
@Fraud Guy:
Oversight of doctors who are …overly loose with exemption letters is already a thing in California, thanks to the anti-vax numbers.
Sloane Ranger
@laura:
No, the coronavirus is FakeNews, just as the Great Orange
SatanSaviour says. All of this palaver is just an attempt to get decent folks cowering at home and giving up their FREEDUMBS. She’s not going to fall for it!Alternatively, if slightly less nutty. MY family are decent, clean living Real (TM) Americans, not dirty, plague ridden blacks or browns. MY children will not get the virus – ever!
ChrisS
This anarcho-capitalist bullcrap needs to be snuffed out.
It’s not 1680 and people aren’t carving out a self-sufficient kingdom in the swamps.
Liberals used to be labeled as deluded for fantastical thinking, but these people are hateful and deluded.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
The virus doesn’t care if you are smart or stupid, it just is looking for meat sacks to dine on. So if you are stupid enough to encourage the boarding of the virus, it’s going to take advantage.
dmsilev
@Ruckus: Yes, it’s an advisory opinion. From the local rag,
Doesn’t make it any less stupid though.
Gin & Tonic
@Roger Moore: Thanks for that. Clearly I am ignorant here.
Jinchi
@laura: Sherman is demanding a lot more than a ‘no-mask’ policy.
She may be in for a rude awakening. Even pre-corona kindergarten was all about teaching kids to respect person space.
Danielx
@Ken:
Stipulated!
But Moore is still a world class putz.
Feathers
One solution might be to put all the unmasked kids in the same classroom, so that they only infect each other.
Corporate America must despair at this. They see the rest of the world reopening, while we have a Fox addled minority refusing to take basic precautions and spreading disease. All those people are going to have to go back to work. Will workplaces want them?
I must admit my fantasy is a large contingent of advertisers pulling out of all Murdoch enterprises until Fox News stops spewing dangerous misinformation. And that they announce that they will be staying out until after the election, to make sure is no backsliding.
Sloane Ranger
Somewhat tangentially, these people are over here spewing their crap.
I was listening to a phone in programme at lunchtime and a woman called to say she had been accosted by two Americans when coming off the escalator of a London Underground Station who shouted at her for wearing a mask (as she’s required to do). Apparently they ended up telling her she would die of carbon monoxide poisoning if she continued to wear it!
The host dryly pointed out that this was unlikely as humans actually breathe out carbon dioxide and it wouldn’t be true even then since, if it were, there would be lots of dead surgeons and operating theatre staff.
Good news from Blighty, BoJo has announced that masks must be worn in shops from next Friday (delay to allow for non mask owners to acquire them).
Bad news – Police Federation (British police trades union (sort of)) has said they don’t have resources to enforce it.
Sab
@Barbara: Waldorf Steiner schools are full of anti-vaxxers. I bet they are anti-mask also.
Jinchi
I call BS on this point. Unlike adults, schoolkids are completely used to told what they have to wear before heading to class. Shoes? Pants? Madness! Not to mention the obligatory uniforms at parochial schools. Left to their own devices things would look very different.
artem1s
this is what you get when you let the Know-Nothings and 1%ers make the rules and make exceptions for them crossing the line on matters of health and science for decades. If their state folds, I’d be making plans to segregate the anti-maskers from the rest of the population. Put them all in the gym, have the poor unfortunate teachers do shifts in a bubble (or hand them over the anti-mask teachers) and hold an all day study hall – silent reading only. My bet is those who really have health care issues will be more than willing to mask up and socially distance in a room with their sane classmates whose parents really need the free day care so they can return to their workplaces and deal with their Know-Nothing colleagues. I’m betting these idiots yank their kids anyway as soon as their precious starts whinging about their classmates not wanting to hang, hug or wrestle with them in the hallways. They won’t get it until one of their own is lying on the slab, dammit.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
Which might be in some way related to them violently resisting mask orders and generally being idiots about the whole business.
Just One More Canuck
@senyordave: firm, but fair
Gravenstone
To the woman angry at being told how to “raise her children ‘, I hope she’s prepared to be told how to bury them. Or leaves instruction as to how she and the hubs want to be buried.
Honus
@Jinchi: “nobody’s going to dictate to me”. Okay, them take your kids out of school and nobody will. Better yet, if you don’t like rules and requirements we have for the common good in this country, leave. You don’t get yo dictate to everyone here either. This isn’t just your country.
marklar
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Don’t worry about being unemployed. Don and Ivanka think you should just be positive and find something new!”
In other words, their new initiative was Hillary’s plan in 2016, although she actually had well-laid out policies and funding formulas to make it work.
That was her mistake.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Ruckus:
I’m a purist when it comes to bats. If it breaks from overenthusiastic use, use the longest chunk to continue the job until you can replace it with a new bat.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@marklar:
She was overprepared.
Annie
This is why I think the scorn and anger at Governor Newsom yesterday was misplaced. Even when he ordered the first shutdown there were large areas of California where people were not obeying the order. IIRC one county sheriff refused to enforce it — though he has gotten Covid 19 and is now admitting he made a mistake.
Newsom can issue all the orders he wants. Then people are arrested or cited and taken to court while still disobeying the shutdown order.
Jinchi
@Honus: Right and just to be clear, the parent in Orange County is an exception, not the rule.
Even in Orange Country, I’ll bet most parents are less concerned about mandatory masks and more concerned that an outbreak will shut the schools down again.
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers:
Serves them right for spending decades pushing Republican/libertarian ideology so they don’t have to follow regulations or pay taxes. This is the endpoint.
Booger
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Doesn’t a broken bat leave you with at least two good stabby ends?
Jinchi
I like Newsom but I disagree on this point. Scorn and anger are primary motivators for politicians. When the only ones shouting are rightwingers, politicians will move right. Showing them that there is also anger on the left gives them permission to resist the easy way out.
Jinchi
Nope, they’re part of the problem. Here’s a very short list of recent headlines:
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Alison Rose: I don’t know, this does not surprise me one bit. OC has some of the worst vaccination rates in the state as far as I remember, with the more affluent parts of Orange County having even worse rates than the county as a whole…
“In Orange County, only 90 percent of kindergartners started the past school year up-to-date on their vaccinations. Children in more affluent areas of Orange County had even lower vaccination rates, with some that dipped into the low 70s.”
O.C. children now better protected
Fair Economist
@Alison Rose: OC is genuinely purple now. But the officials were mostly elected while wingnuts were in the majority, so they still control the county government and the majority of the cities (though not the biggest ones). Incumbency is a big advantage given how little attention most people pay to local government, so it may take a while to get them out.
Fair Economist
@dmsilev:
I hadn’t looked at per-county rates for a while, and wow, it’s changed. LA used to drive the state. Now it’s 13th, and behind a number of counties with substantial populations: Orange, Riverside, Fresno, and Marin (!).
oatler.
I suspect the Bluth Family is behind all this. Lucille has a lot to answer for.
Kay
@Ruckus:
There’s a ton of this going on. DeWine also “announced” schools were opening FTC, but schools, knowing how this works, are setting their own policies. My son’s school, an Ohio public school so theoretically subject to DeWine’s proclamation, is doing a hybrid option. DeSantis also backed down yesterday and admitted his proclamation was bullshit.
I went to a meeting about reopening the public school here last night and sadly I must report 90% of the discussion was about sports. Our school isn’t even good at sports, like, not even among 4 counties. We’re bad at sports. Next time I’m going to raise my hand and say “look, we’re bad at sports. Maybe focus somewhere else”
trollhattan
I’m confused, what is Clovis lady doing in Orange County? She’s in Devin Nunes country and probably couldn’t afford a storage unit in OC.
Eric
I live in OC and it’s even worse than you think.
I stupidly thought when we “went blue” in 2018 we had turned a corner but it seems it was a u-turn and now we’re headed back into “B-1 Bob” Dornan territory. I’ve never been so embarrassed to live here.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Booger:
Why yes, yes it does. You can release a lot of pent up aggression by clever application of those sharper parts to some of the tenderized bits….
Llelldorin
@Fair Economist: Marin actually doesn’t surprise me all that much. There was an impossibly stupid line of thinking I saw in the Bay Area recently that went something like this:
(1) The disease is mostly spreading amongst poor and minority communities because they tend to have jobs that don’t allow them to self-isolate.
(2) I’m white and well-off.
(3) Therefore I’m unlikely to get the disease.
(4) Therefore I don’t need to self-isolate! Party time!
trollhattan
@Juice Box:
IIUC Prop 13 messed up the CA school funding mechanisms bigly and we’ve never recovered from the disruption. Our city district has been teetering on the bankruptcy brink for two or three years and if it goes into state receivership, they’ll take over management plus “lend” the shortfall money as a non-forgivable loan that will drag district finances for decades.
It’s all a ginormous mess.
Llelldorin
@trollhattan: The biggest problem with prop 13 is that it stipulated that real property can only be reassessed when it’s sold or rebuilt in its entirety. Because commercial properties very rarely sell relative to residential properties, the result has been huge number of commercial properties happily charging their tenants market rate while surfing on decades-old assessments with a fixed 2% tax increase per year.
The result has been a wholesale shift of the property tax burden from commercial property onto residential property, and a corresponding decrease in the overall state school budget.
Alex
Here’s what I don’t hear talked about in the context of schools: Flu is coming. Kids both transmit and die of flu disproportionately, schools are amplifiers. Our communities cannot handle a normal flu season on top of Covid. If we don’t get a handle on Covid right now many communities will have to close schools when flu hits to avoid collapse of the medical system and mass death in the streets.
Also, why don’t I hear anyone planning mass flu vaccination mobilization to prevent flu and practice for a covid vaccine rollout?
spc123
@Alison Rose: it did in 2012 as wellI thought. It’s now a swing county but leaning more blue (but county government is probably lagging).
Barbara
@Sab: There have been articles about Waldorf schools as the last refuge of anti-vaxxer nuts. New York began cracking down last year and although there was a lot of whining, most of their parents capitulated. Anyone whose working premise in life is “my kids are more important than yours” can GFT.
Ruckus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I do have to admit that I’ve never used an aluminum bat, or any bat since HS. I have carried a nightstick, never had to apply it, did have to prepare to, twice. Once physically, once verbally. And that was 47 years ago.
TEL
@kindness: Yep – exactly what I was wondering!
Felanius Kootea
@Fair Economist: Marin County’s pandemic spread is mainly occurring in and because of San Quentin prison.
JaneE
My solution: just put all the kids without masks in classes together and the ones with masks in different classes. If you don’t believe in social distancing, cram your kids in like sardines and use the extra space for those who do care. Everyone gets what they want.
Just make sure the parents sign liability waivers.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@Llelldorin: AH, so a larger group of the subset of anti-vaxxer parents who believe that since their kids are only allowed to have breast-milk as babies and only eat “clean” organic, all natural, non-GMO food then their kids will have SUPER immune systems and don’t need vaccinations (and apparently won’t get COVID-19), because vaccinations have toxins and poisons and heavy metals.
/massive eye-roll
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@JaneE: What about the teachers, classroom aides, cleaning staff, administrators, and what about the speech therapists and others who normally have more than one school to cover?
Lisa
@Eric: We only went blue at the national level (I’m in Porter’s district). Still a long way to go at the state and local level – hard to get enough engagement there. But I recently got a text from the local Dems looking for potential school board candidates, which was encouraging.
The Lodger
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Putting in a good word for a local Kentucky company, are we, slugger?
RSA
@Feathers:
Require parents of those kids to spend one day a week as teachers’ aides in that classroom, and I think you’ve got something.
Searcher
@Jinchi:
I assume by “some meatpackers” they mean “some executives at a meatpacking company who themselves are somewhat unclear on where ‘meat’ comes from”, and not “the people actually packing meat”.
Fairchild
@Ruckus: Yes, the OC Board of Education doesn’t set policy. The OC Department of Education gives recommendations to districts, and their recommendations are perfectly legitimate. Despite working in OC, I don’t fully understand the distinction.
Ruckus
@Fairchild:
The board of education is the political arm of the educational system in the county. Made up in this case with assholes who probably haven’t had a kid in K-12 in oh, decades. They have the power to suggest policy. The Dept of Education is made up of professional people who actually run the schools and actually set policy.
dww44
@Alison Rose: No wonder that Katie Porter is having such an uphill battle with constituents like these. And, while there are any number of stellar freshmen Dem representatives, I am most impressed by her. It’s obvious that she cares about her constituents and she will fight for them. But, since I am currently surrounded by some amazingly, willfully blind Trump supporters among family and friends, I’m not surprised that her Orange county constituents don’t appreciate the sheer gift that they have in being represented by her.
Procopius
I was in kindergarten and grade school in the ’40s. I guess the culture was a little different then. I can’t imagine a teacher letting a kid hug her (they were all women). I certainly can’t imagine one of my fellow students hugging me. It was not something that was done. I know hugging became a thing in the ’70s, but I was never able to get into it and was glad when it finally died out in the ’80s. Apparently Kim “Karen” Sherman lives in an alternate universe from me.