H. Res. 218, 117th Congress — Primary and Secondary Schools
Summary
House resolution H. Res. 218 of the 117th Congress, 1st Session, was submitted March 11, 2021, expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that primary and secondary schools in the United States should be opened for in-person instruction. Banks submitted it, and it was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor. The preamble states that closures during the COVID-19 pandemic affected at least 55 million students across K–12 schools. The resolved clause affirms that United States school systems have adequate resources and public health evidence to safely reopen for in-person education, affirms that extended closures pose a risk to the well-being of American children, and urges every school to open for in-person instruction as soon as possible.
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“H. Res. 218, 117th Congress — Primary and Secondary Schools.”
Original at www.govinfo.gov. Archived at Pandemic Darlings, https://pandemicdarlings.com/source-documents/bills-bills-117hres218ih-bills-117hres218ih/
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IV
117TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. RES. 218
Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives that primary and
secondary schools in the United States should be opened for in-person
instruction.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 11, 2021
Mr. BANKS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the
Committee on Education and Labor
RESOLUTION
Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives that
primary and secondary schools in the United States
should be opened for in-person instruction.
Whereas education is an essential service that provides bene-
fits to students, families, and the Nation as a whole;
Whereas closures of schools during the COVID–19 pandemic
affected at least 55 million students across K–12 schools;
Whereas research shows that extended absences from school
due to closures inflict long-term damage on students;
Whereas an estimated 1.1 million additional students may
drop out of high school due to school closures caused by
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the pandemic;
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Whereas researchers estimate that school closures could re-
sult in lower future earnings for students and a lower
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the United States as
a whole;
Whereas a study from Jama Network Open estimated that
the closures of primary schools in the country will result
in 13.8 million years of lost life among our Nation’s
youth;
Whereas in-person education provides superior learning to
virtual instruction as well as social and emotional bene-
fits;
Whereas in-person schooling has not been shown to con-
tribute substantially to transmission or fuel COVID–19
outbreaks;
Whereas a survey of more than 57,000 child care providers
in the United States found that child care workers were
not at higher risk of COVID–19 infection than the gen-
eral adult population;
Whereas multiple studies across several countries have found
that children are less likely to spread the virus and more
likely to have mild cases of COVID–19 in the case of an
infection;
Whereas, according to a May 2020 study from Jama Pediat-
rics, ‘‘children continue to face a far greater risk of crit-
ical illness from influenza than from COVID–19’’;
Whereas children aged 5–14 years old are seven times more
likely to die of influenza than of COVID–19;
Whereas the United States is rapidly deploying COVID–19
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vaccines across the country and has already administered
more than 23 million doses of the vaccine;
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Whereas State and local governments have many tools at
their disposal to offer parents education options that
work best for their families during the pandemic through
school choice and education savings account programs;
Whereas Congress provided $13 billion to K–12 schools in
the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security
(CARES) Act in March of 2020 and another $54 billion
in Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 in December of
2020, as well as several billions in funding to State gov-
ernors to use for education in their States;
Whereas a study by Corey DeAngelis, Ph.D., of the Reason
Foundation and Christos Makridis, Ph.D., of the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology found that school clo-
sures were linked to union influence rather than COVID–
19 transmission rates and risk;
Whereas New York City closed schools in November based on
an arbitrary positive testing threshold supported by the
United Federation of Teachers, even though the school
district of 1.1 million students had a low positivity test
rate;
Whereas the United Teachers Los Angeles issued a paper
that requested several radical left-wing policies in a plan
to reopen, including Medicare For All, defunding the po-
lice, expanded welfare access for illegal immigrants, and
a moratorium on charter schools;
Whereas the Fairfax Education Association, the teachers’
union in Fairfax, Virginia, are demanding that all stu-
dents be vaccinated and there be zero community spread
before fully reopening schools, even though the teachers
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have been given priority access to the vaccine;
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Whereas half of all Chicago teachers skipped school during
the city’s attempt to reopen on January 4, 2021, and
voted to defy an order to return to school on February
1, 2021; and
Whereas many school districts, as well private and parochial
schools, across the country have successfully reopened
safely: Now, therefore, be it
1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
2 (1) affirms that United States school systems
3 have adequate resources and public health evidence
4 to safely reopen for in-person education;
5 (2) affirms that extended school closures pose a
6 risk to the well-being of American children, espe-
7 cially the most vulnerable, and to the future of the
8 Nation; and
9 (3) urges every school in the United States to
10 open for in-person instruction as soon as possible.
Æ
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