To watch her remarks, click here or the image above.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) today led
a group of her colleagues in urging schools to reopen for in-person learning. Senator
Capito made the following remarks at a Senate GOP press conference highlighting
the need to get students back in the classroom.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF CLOSED SCHOOLS: “This has been a very difficult year for families,
for many of our workers, and particularly women who have not returned to the
workforce because they’ve had to stay home and be with children. We have many
children who have fallen through the cracks. It’s estimated through some
studies that children are going to be losing about nine month of instruction…For
most families, those that have working parents, that don’t have connectivity,
that have students that might have special needs, or those families that don’t
really have a parent or adult in their home that can really help them – this is
going to do irreparable harm to those children and those families.”
ON MONEY STILL AVAILABLE TO REOPEN SCHOOLS: “We’ve put a lot of money into this, but only 5
percent of the money that we’ve put in up to this point has gone to the
schools. We in West Virginia just opened every single K-8 school five days a
week – safely. So, we need to get our schools reopened.”
ON THE $1.9 TRILLION SPENDING BILL: “We know that the bill that’s in front of us...has a
lot of money in it for schools but if you really look at it…it says that the
school money is going to go out until the year 2028. This is supposed to be an
emergency bill. It is an emergency to get our schools reopened and our students
back to school. We need to get the schools open and we still have money in the
pipeline to do that.”
ON THE ADMINISTRATION’S LACK OF ACTION: “The president said he’s going to open schools by
May. Well guess what happens in June, and even May? The Schools close for the
summer. That’s a useless exercise. They can open now.”
Last week, Senator Capito spoke
on the Senate floor about the need to
safely reopen schools, and earlier this week she discussed how urgent it is
that children return to the classroom on Fox Business Network.
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