IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 293 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that elementary and 
secondary schools in the United States should be opened for in-person 
instruction, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 8, 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 
elementary and secondary schools in the United States 
should be opened for in-person instruction, and for other 
purposes. 
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 55,000,000 students across K–12 
schools; 
Whereas research shows that extended absences from school 
due to closures inflict long-term educational consequences 
for students; 
Whereas according to a McKinsey & Company report, a sam-
ple of students showed they learned only 67 percent of 
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•HRES 293 IH 
the math and 87 percent of the reading they would have 
typically learned during the closed months; 
Whereas on average, students have lost 5 to 9 months of 
learning, with minority students impacted at a greater 
rate, potentially losing up to a year of learning; 
Whereas achievement gaps among socioeconomic groups will 
persist and widen throughout a student’s schooling; 
Whereas Bellwether Education Partners estimates as many 
as 3,000,000 of the most at-risk students may not have 
received any formal education for the first 6 months of 
the pandemic; 
Whereas an estimated 1,100,000 additional students may 
drop out of high school due to school closures caused by 
the pandemic; 
Whereas researchers estimate that school closures could re-
sult in lower future earnings for students and a lower 
GDP for the Nation as a whole; 
Whereas parents reported that children’s mental health chal-
lenges have increased because of school closures, includ-
ing increased anxiety, depression, and suicide; 
Whereas reopening schools for in-person instruction has a 
positive effect on increasing labor force participation of 
parents, particularly mothers; 
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 fuel viral 
outbreaks or to contribute substantially to viral trans-
mission; 
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Whereas instead, the transmission of the COVID–19 virus is 
more likely to occur within households; 
Whereas data shows that schools have lower rates of COVID– 
19 than their surrounding communities, because young 
children are less likely to transmit the virus; 
Whereas a survey of more than 57,000 childcare providers in 
the United States found that childcare workers were not 
at higher risk of COVID–19 infection than the general 
adult population; 
Whereas students are not the primary source of exposure to 
COVID–19 for adults in schools; 
Whereas multiple studies across several countries have found 
that children are less likely to spread the virus and less 
likely to have moderate or severe symptoms of COVID– 
19 in the case of an infection; 
Whereas less than 10 percent of COVID–19 cases in the 
United States have been among school-age children; 
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 are seven times more likely to 
die of influenza than of COVID–19; 
Whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
(CDC) adjusted social distancing recommendations from 
6 feet down to 3 feet for K–12 students learning in class-
rooms, a recommendation consistent with the World 
Health Organization and the American Academy of Pedi-
atrics; 
Whereas the United States is rapidly deploying COVID–19 
vaccines across the country, and has already adminis-
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tered more than 124,000,000 doses of the vaccine and 
averaging 2,500,000 doses per day; 
Whereas schools have many tools at their disposal to offer 
parents education options that work best for their fami-
lies during the pandemic through school choice and edu-
cation savings account programs; 
Whereas parental support for school choice opportunities to 
continue education for their children has increased during 
the pandemic, across political party lines and ethnicities; 
Whereas Congress provided $13,000,000,000 to K–12 schools 
in March 2020, another $54,000,000,000 in December 
2020, and an additional $122,700,000,000 in March 
2021 for a total of $190,000,000,000, as well as several 
billions in funding to Governors to use for education in 
their States; 
Whereas the CDC estimated the cost of implementing rec-
ommended strategies for reopening schools at $442 per 
student, and the American Federation of Teachers esti-
mated a total cost of $116,500,000,000, both well below 
the amount Congress appropriated; 
Whereas research has found that school closures were linked 
to union influence rather than COVID–19 transmission 
rates and risks; 
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 1,100,000 students had several dozen positive 
tests; 
Whereas United Teachers Los Angeles issued a paper that 
requested several radical left-wing policies in a plan to 
safely reopen schools, including Medicare for All, 
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