An empty classroom at Redondo Union High School after the campus closed Monday, March 16 to prevent the spread of coronavirus. . For me, it’s a few weeks earlier standing in line to order food at a pizza joint with my wife on February 20th that is burned in my memory.
My statement was less of a prediction, but more of a realization that the government had everything it needed to shut down the state – a media-hyped emergency, a risk-averse populace, weak civic institutions and a governor eager to play the role of supreme ruler buoyed by a bevy of never-ending executive orders.
What do you tell a neighbor hours after arriving at the emergency room in the middle of the night with his oldest teenage son’s wrists wrapped in bloody gauze and clothes wreaking of vomit from a prescription drug overdose after realizing that his baseball career was over? Or the mother of a young child whose daughter’s verbal challenges grow worse as speech therapy is rendered useless over Zoom or with a face covered by a mask? Or a junior in high school who can’t take the PSAT to qualify for...
Our children learned that when the going gets tough, the adults in charge cut and run and make the kids fend for themselves. Parents had a near-impossible task to pivot so dramatically without any preparation and be successful. Teachers’ unions were complicit in this betrayal.We have learned that our kids need to be nurtured, not abandoned and our current educational system is incapable of protecting them.