Lt. Gov. Dan Forest said the Cooper administration is failing teachers and students with its ‘no plan’ for schools reopening. | Photo Courtesy of Dan Forest
Lt. Gov. Dan Forest said the Cooper administration is failing teachers and students with its ‘no plan’ for schools reopening. | Photo Courtesy of Dan Forest
North Carolina's lieutenant governor, who is a gubernatorial candidate, is critical of the state's top executive's plan to reopen schools in the COVID-19 era.
Lt. Gov. Dan Forest said in a July 20 statement that Gov. Roy Cooper's reopening strategy fails parents, teachers and students in school districts statewide.
"Gov. Cooper’s long-delayed 'no-plan' plan for reopening schools fails our students and has left working-class parents across North Carolina scrambling to figure out how to juggle their jobs and child’s education," Forest said in the statement.
Forest, a Republican, is running for governor against Cooper, a Democrat.
"As a state, we can protect our most vulnerable children, teachers, and school administrators," Forest said in the statement, "while getting the rest of our students back to school in a safe and responsible manner."
In mid-July, Cooper and state education and health leaders said that schools would reopen under a hybrid plan. Students would receive some instruction in classrooms in socially-distance settings and following other health and safety protocols to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among the pupils, faculty and staff. When not on-site, students will receive instruction remotely. Students would rotate between on-site and remote instruction during the year.
Cooper also said districts can offer full remote learning, which according to reports most districts will start the academic year with full virtual instruction.
Forest claims Cooper's plan ignores what the administration has said about how COVID-19 affects children.
"In doing so, he exposes our children to greater risks – not just falling further behind in their education, but for the mental and physical damage that isolation, hunger and neglect will have on their well-being, specifically for our low-income and special needs students," Forest said in the statement. "As many other states have already given families the option to either do virtual learning or get back into the classroom, it makes you wonder what is really going on here."
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