IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 241 
Expressing the sense of Congress that reopening schools for in-person instruc-
tion should be a critical priority for local, State, and Federal policy-
makers, and that funding for K–12 schools under the American Rescue 
Plan and State vaccination guidelines should be used to help get children 
back in the classroom. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 16, 2021 
Ms. SHERRILL (for herself, Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, and Mr. PAYNE) sub-
mitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on 
Education and Labor 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of Congress that reopening schools 
for in-person instruction should be a critical priority 
for local, State, and Federal policymakers, and that 
funding for K–12 schools under the American Rescue 
Plan and State vaccination guidelines should be used 
to help get children back in the classroom. 
Whereas many K–12 students have spent almost a full year 
outside of the classroom due to the COVID–19 pandemic 
and subsequent school closures, with their learning en-
tirely remote; 
Whereas there is a growing body of evidence that remote 
learning can have significantly negative impacts on stu-
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•HRES 241 IH 
dent learning and educational achievement, potentially 
harming long-term educational and career success; 
Whereas recent studies have shown that students’ learning in 
math over the past year was at least 30 percent lower 
than expected and their learning in reading was at least 
10 percent lower than expected; 
Whereas other research has found that school closures in the 
spring and summer of 2020 may have reduced student 
learning gains by up to one-third in reading and up to 
one-half in math relative to a typical school year; 
Whereas new studies have found that school closures have 
caused a decline in children’s skill attainment, with those 
impacts being particularly severe for students whose par-
ents have low educational attainment; 
Whereas the shift to remote learning has also significantly 
amplified educational disparities along socioeconomic 
lines throughout the country; 
Whereas research has found that majority non-White school 
districts saw much larger learning losses than the aver-
age school district, with students’ learning in those dis-
tricts falling almost 10 percent more in both math and 
reading relative to expectations than in the average 
school district; 
Whereas access to in-person instruction itself has been highly 
unequal during the COVID–19 pandemic, again stratified 
along socioeconomic lines; 
Whereas recent reports have found that almost 70 percent of 
Black, Hispanic, and Asian students were in remote-only 
school districts in the fall, compared to slightly over 50 
percent of White students; 
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•HRES 241 IH 
Whereas school closures have also left behind students with 
disabilities, who have had to get by with limited access 
to the special education programs that are supposed to 
be guaranteed to them; 
Whereas recent surveys of families with children in special 
education programs have found that only 1 in 5 families 
said they were receiving all of their children’s support 
services and that 4 in 10 families said they were receiv-
ing none of those support services; 
Whereas the Government Accountability Office found that 
school closures have created significant educational chal-
lenges for English learners and students with disabilities, 
who already had large achievement gaps compared to 
other students prepandemic; 
Whereas school closures have also been linked to declines in 
students’ mental health, as children are deprived of social 
interaction at school as well as critical mental health 
services that schools provide; 
Whereas this mental health crisis has been highlighted by 
large increases in mental health emergencies among chil-
dren at hospitals during the pandemic, and an increase 
in worrying mental health behavior as reported by school 
districts; 
Whereas new studies have found that the proportion of emer-
gency department visits that were mental health-related 
has increased by over 20 percent for children aged 5–11 
and over 30 percent for children aged 12–17 from 2019 
to 2020; 
Whereas the employment crisis facing our country has also 
been exacerbated by school closures, as parents (predomi-
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•HRES 241 IH 
nantly women) have had to leave their jobs to stay home 
and take care of their children; 
Whereas new research suggests that over 1,000,000 mothers 
have left the workforce since the pandemic started be-
cause of school closures; 
Whereas among the 140,000 job losses reported by the De-
cember 2020 employment report, the entirety of the jobs 
lost were held by women; 
Whereas President Biden recently said that he hopes ‘‘a sig-
nificant percentage’’ of schools will reopen 5 days a week 
within his first 100 days; 
Whereas President Biden also recently urged that teachers be 
vaccinated to support this school reopening process, say-
ing that ‘‘we should move [teachers] up in the hier-
archy’’; 
Whereas the recently passed American Rescue Plan provides 
an unprecedented $130,000,000,000 in funding specifi-
cally to help K–12 schools reopen safely, with funds to 
reduce class sizes to comply with social distancing, mod-
ernize HVAC systems, and hire more school custodians 
and nurses; 
Whereas the most recent CDC research finds that it is safe 
to reopen schools as long as safety precautions such as 
universal masking, social distancing, and sanitation and 
cleaning rules are in place; and 
Whereas other CDC research has found little evidence that 
schools have been a major contributor to increased com-
munity spread of COVID–19: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of Congress that— 
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•HRES 241 IH 
(1) schools reopening for in-person instruction 
as quickly as is safely possible should be a key pri-
ority for all levels of our government; 
(2) school districts across the country should 
use funding for K–12 schools under the American 
Rescue Plan to safely get children back into the 
classroom; and 
(3) States should consider how best to reopen 
schools when developing their vaccination rules. 
Æ 
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