By Blake Haas

BLOOMINGTON – Congressman Rodney Davis (R-Taylorville) wants American Rescue Plan funding to go to families who want their child to go to a different school if the district moves to remote learning.

This week Davis introduced the “Open Schools Act,” which would give families up to $10,000 per student if the school is closed due to COVID-19.

“I have said, ‘COVID and the science clearly shows is not a danger to young children who don’t have underlying conditions.’ As a matter of fact, you’re talking about a 99.9% survivability rate if a child who is in K-12 contracts COVID.”

According to Davis, the bill is being introduced after the Chicago Teachers Union members unilaterally “walked off the job from in-person teaching last week,” in what the Congressman said was abandonment to Chicago school kids.

“The science and data are on our side,” Davis told WJBC’s, Scott Miller. “And we have a mental health crisis; we have a learning deficiency crisis in this country because of responses coming out of places like the Chicago Public Schools Teachers Union who are fighting to keep kids out of school.

My bill would allow you, if your public school is going to go fully remote, it would allow you to take American Rescue Plan money to go to another public school; go to a different private school. So that you as a parent would have a choice because I’m sick and tired of educational institutions not using the data and the science when it comes to kids and when it comes to adverse impacts that we’re seeing with kids right now when it comes to kids and their remote learning.”

This week, District 87 in Bloomington announced a change in their class schedules to limit the spread of COVID-19.

According to a news release, the grant would recall funding from the nearly $130 billion that was appropriated for K-12 schools in the American Rescue Plan.

Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].