Providing for Consideration of H.R. Guard and Reserve Gi Bill Parity Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Ensuring Veterans' Smooth Transition Act; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mrs. HINSON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding.

Madam Speaker, our amendment would ensure that students are no longer kept out of the classroom and forced to learn from behind a screen. It would ensure that parents are able to return to the workplace. It would help combat the ongoing youth mental health crisis spurred by school closures.

Madam Speaker, my bill, the Reopen Schools Act, would condition Federal COVID grants to schools on those schools actually being open and operating in the first place, which is what that money was intended to do.

I am proud that my home State of Iowa--and I am thankful to our Governor, Kim Reynolds--for ensuring that Iowa students could go back to school. In Iowa, kids have been back in the classroom, where they belong, for over a year. They get to socialize with their peers and they get hands-on learning help from their teachers. They get to run and jump at recess. They get to raise their hands to ask and answer questions instead of clicking a button from behind a screen. They get to write on white boards during their lessons.

Unfortunately, this is not the case in the rest of the country. So many students are still trapped behind screens. And what about the students who don't have regular computer and broadband internet access? What about students in households without computers or even households with only one computer where mom and dad are maybe trying to use it for work.

Virtual learning means we are leaving behind our most vulnerable students, our rural students, our students with additional learning challenges, and even kids who have every virtual advantage are struggling. Families are struggling. Working parents are challenged like never before, and American kids are suffering and paying the price for it.

As a mom, I have personally felt this pressure, and I know many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle know what it is like to have kids trying to learn at home while you are trying to work at the same time. So this is not a partisan issue. This is about our kids. This is about supporting working families. Kids need to be in school.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in defeating the previous question so we can reopen schools and prevent taxpayer dollars from keeping kids at home.

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