Joe Biden’s original campaign pledge to open schools within a hundred days left was always a little dopey. Unlike other “100-day promises” presidents make, which in Biden’s case included the misguided plan to halt deportations, America’s children can’t afford to wait. Most are hurting. School is more than a place were they go to learn. It is also a place where they go to play socialize with their peers. When that interaction is stripped away, the Mayo Clinic (science!) notes, children feel isolated, even lonely, which can lead to long-term effects:
Research shows that loneliness in kids, especially over extended periods, is linked with mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety in the following years. Due to heightened stress and reduced access to health care, the COVID-19 pandemic also might worsen children’s existing mental health conditions.
Now it turns out that the 100-day milestone for school reopening, bad as it was, is much less than what the administration promised. Yahoo! News reports:
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that Biden’s goal is for more than 50% of schools to have “some teaching” in person “at least one day a week” – not necessarily fully reopened – by Day 100 of his presidency. [Emphasis added]
“Hopefully, it’s more,” Psaki said. “And obviously, it is as much as is safe in each school and local district.”
In truth, our nation’s schools could — and should — open tomorrow. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, has declared that schools are a low-risk environment for our children and their teachers. “There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely,” she told reporters at a briefing last week. But Biden claims to be holding back until the “official guidance” becomes available. Which is actually code for “I intend to wait till the teachers unions, which are major contributors to the Democrats, tell me they’re willing to go back to work.”
