I live in a school district that has been extremely fearful of Covid and reopening. My kids have been in school for 8 full days since March last year. In multiple open forums many parents have complained, used science and everything to sway the board and no go.

Tonight we had another open forum. And my wife planned on going with a couple friends while I was at work. My 11 year old daughter asked what happened at these forums and when my wife explained she asked if she could come and say why she felt schools should be open.

My wife said sure and so we got a sitter for my two little ones and they left for the meeting. Right before my daughter got up she called me to tell me how scared she was. I told her that it was ok to be scared, but that she was a voice for all those kids who could not be there that night, who wanted to go back to school. I told her to take a deep breath and that it would be ok.

Well she did a great job. She spoke about what it was like as a 5th grader, how all the things they remembered were changed, how kids couldn’t see friends in other classes, how they spent hours on their computers, how they couldn’t talk to their teachers face to face. She shared some research about screen time, she shared about her anxieties and her struggles and at the end of her 3 minutes she got a round of applause (apparently no one else did).

At the end the board discussed things, and two hold outs were swayed to change their votes. One said my daughter reminded him about what it was like to be back in 5th grade and as such he felt it was time to bring some normalcy back. They voted to return to school with the first day back being Feb 16th.

Never been more proud of my daughter. She was super scared, but faced the board and actually swayed them. What a great night.