IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 218 
Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives that primary and 
secondary schools in the United States should be opened for in-person 
instruction. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 11, 2021 
Mr. BANKS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on Education and Labor 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the Sense of the House of Representatives that 
primary and secondary schools in the United States 
should be opened for in-person instruction. 
Whereas education is an essential service that provides bene-
fits to students, families, and the Nation as a whole; 
Whereas closures of schools during the COVID–19 pandemic 
affected at least 55 million students across K–12 schools; 
Whereas research shows that extended absences from school 
due to closures inflict long-term damage on students; 
Whereas an estimated 1.1 million additional students may 
drop out of high school due to school closures caused by 
the pandemic; 
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•HRES 218 IH 
Whereas researchers estimate that school closures could re-
sult in lower future earnings for students and a lower 
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the United States as 
a whole; 
Whereas a study from Jama Network Open estimated that 
the closures of primary schools in the country will result 
in 13.8 million years of lost life among our Nation’s 
youth; 
Whereas in-person education provides superior learning to 
virtual instruction as well as social and emotional bene-
fits; 
Whereas in-person schooling has not been shown to con-
tribute substantially to transmission or fuel COVID–19 
outbreaks; 
Whereas a survey of more than 57,000 child care providers 
in the United States found that child care workers were 
not at higher risk of COVID–19 infection than the gen-
eral adult population; 
Whereas multiple studies across several countries have found 
that children are less likely to spread the virus and more 
likely to have mild cases of COVID–19 in the case of an 
infection; 
Whereas, according to a May 2020 study from Jama Pediat-
rics, ‘‘children continue to face a far greater risk of crit-
ical illness from influenza than from COVID–19’’; 
Whereas children aged 5–14 years old are seven times more 
likely to die of influenza than of COVID–19; 
Whereas the United States is rapidly deploying COVID–19 
vaccines across the country and has already administered 
more than 23 million doses of the vaccine; 
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•HRES 218 IH 
Whereas State and local governments have many tools at 
their disposal to offer parents education options that 
work best for their families during the pandemic through 
school choice and education savings account programs; 
Whereas Congress provided $13 billion to K–12 schools in 
the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security 
(CARES) Act in March of 2020 and another $54 billion 
in Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 in December of 
2020, as well as several billions in funding to State gov-
ernors to use for education in their States; 
Whereas a study by Corey DeAngelis, Ph.D., of the Reason 
Foundation and Christos Makridis, Ph.D., of the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology found that school clo-
sures were linked to union influence rather than COVID– 
19 transmission rates and risk; 
Whereas New York City closed schools in November based on 
an arbitrary positive testing threshold supported by the 
United Federation of Teachers, even though the school 
district of 1.1 million students had a low positivity test 
rate; 
Whereas the United Teachers Los Angeles issued a paper 
that requested several radical left-wing policies in a plan 
to reopen, including Medicare For All, defunding the po-
lice, expanded welfare access for illegal immigrants, and 
a moratorium on charter schools; 
Whereas the Fairfax Education Association, the teachers’ 
union in Fairfax, Virginia, are demanding that all stu-
dents be vaccinated and there be zero community spread 
before fully reopening schools, even though the teachers 
have been given priority access to the vaccine; 
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•HRES 218 IH 
Whereas half of all Chicago teachers skipped school during 
the city’s attempt to reopen on January 4, 2021, and 
voted to defy an order to return to school on February 
1, 2021; and 
Whereas many school districts, as well private and parochial 
schools, across the country have successfully reopened 
safely: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) affirms that United States school systems 
have adequate resources and public health evidence 
to safely reopen for in-person education; 
(2) affirms that extended school closures pose a 
risk to the well-being of American children, espe-
cially the most vulnerable, and to the future of the 
Nation; and 
(3) urges every school in the United States to 
open for in-person instruction as soon as possible. 
Æ 
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