Cathy Moore, an Ohio mother of three school-aged children, has a message for public officials who want to delay the reopening of schools: "Do your job and stay out of the kids' school. You don't belong there."
Moore's comments in an interview with the Buckeye Reporter are representative of the divide on how best to reopen schools nationwide amid COVID-19.
She believes that with COVID-19 and schools, people have developed a “sheep mentality” during the coronavirus pandemic.
“They're afraid of everything,” she said. “You can’t be afraid. I remember going to school and there was one kid in the class besides me because everyone was sick. They didn’t close us down. We just pushed through it.”
Moore is not a fan of distance learning, an alternative many schools districts have employed or are considering as a compromise between remote and in-full classroom instruction. She has two kids who have made the honor roll and a third who has special needs.
“With my honors kids, it’s been a train wreck,” she said of distance learning. “Nobody was on the same page. Nobody knew what they were doing. My 9-year-old was literally crying himself to sleep at night because we’re sitting there for hours doing his assignments, turning them in, but the teachers had so many different apps and platforms that they weren't on the same page. So they're marking [the assignments] as missing.”
Distance learning has been easier for her child with special needs.
“I will say his special needs instructors did come through,” Moore said. “They did everything in their power to make it work.”
Moore is blunt when asked about teachers' unions who want to delay in-person learning.
“Bring in the scabs and get someone in there to teach my kids,” she said. “The unions need to just mind their business. Go back to the steel-mill work and stay out of the schools because obviously these unions are a joke. Teachers' unions protect bad teachers and bad staff. “
But Moore does not think property taxpayers should receive refunds if schools don’t reopen.
“I'm a homeowner,” she said. “I pay a lot of taxes for my school. We have a million-dollar school. It is beautiful. But this is for the kids and this is for the future. Those taxes go into those schools so that our kids when they do go back, have everything they need.”
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