{"id":1823731,"date":"2023-01-25T13:04:44","date_gmt":"2023-01-25T18:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1823731"},"modified":"2023-01-25T13:12:37","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T18:12:37","slug":"email-shows-bucks-county-school-closures-werent-just-bad-for-kids-they-were-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/email-shows-bucks-county-school-closures-werent-just-bad-for-kids-they-were-illegal\/","title":{"rendered":"Email Shows Bucks County School Closures Weren\u2019t Just Bad For Kids, They Were Illegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Femail-shows-bucks-county-school-closures-werent-just-bad-for-kids-they-were-illegal%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1823731&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47-->\n<p>Emails uncovered by concerned parents in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home of the state\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/buckscountyeducation.com\/school-districts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">third-largest<\/a> School district officials reveal that they knew they were breaking state law when they barred students from the classrooms after the 2019-2020 academic school year. Years later, it\u2019s finally coming to light.<\/p>\n<p>John Kopicki, the then-Central Bucks Superintendent at the time, sent an email in July 2020 confirming the legal limits on online instruction for the coming school year. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHybrid options and staggered schedule options are NOT legal as of today, absent a waiver or legislative change,\u201d The email was read. However, the schools were still closed because they did not receive a waiver from the state. <\/p>\n<p>At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, state lawmakers offered schools flexibility from Pennsylvania\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legis.state.pa.us\/cfdocs\/legis\/LI\/uconsCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&#038;yr=1949&#038;sessInd=0&#038;smthLwInd=0&#038;act=014&#038;chpt=15#:~:text=%2D%2DAll%20public%20kindergartens%2C%20elementary,days%20of%20instruction%20for%20pupils.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">180\/990\/900 rule<\/a>The law, which requires students be present in the classroom for 180 days for 990 hours in secondary schools and 900 hours for elementary school, is called &#8220;The Act of Education&#8221;. The legislature granted districts suspension of this requirement until the end of the 2019-202020 academic calendar, but declined to renew it for subsequent school year.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Bucks County School District closed schools for the next two-years. Schools were closed <a href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/central-bucks-school-district-announced-100-percent\/6372209\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">again<\/a>  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inquirer.com\/news\/central-bucks-schools-canceled-covid-20220102.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">again<\/a> Even though there was no legislative waiver, the school year 2019-2020 will continue. <\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for Pennsylvania Sen. Scott Martin, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, told The Federalist schools that violated the state\u2019s 180\/990\/900 rule could face a \u201csignificant financial penalty if they fail to get a waiver.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf there are violations of [the] 990 rule, that can influence whether schools get their reimbursements from the state,\u201d The spokesman stated that. <\/p>\n<p>On whether Central Bucks County violated the rule, Martin\u2019s office deferred to the state Department of Education. The department did not respond to The Federalist\u2019s inquiries, leaving the possibility for substantive accountability in doubt two years later. <\/p>\n<p>The Central Bucks School District also did not respond to The Federalist\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was never legal to shut schools down,\u201d Jamie Walker, a mother of three children from Bucks County Schools, told The Federalist. \u201cIt was always illegal. They knew it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Walker and a group parents are fighting with administrators to halt repeated closures of Central Bucks School District schools. This is just one of many battles Walker has waged since 2020. The closures have been protested by parents, who were also accompanied with seemingly endless mask protocols. Six-foot social distancing was also used, which is an impractical standard that forced school shutdowns. <\/p>\n<p>David Damsker, director of Bucks County Health Department issued a June 2020 statement <a href=\"https:\/\/reopenbucks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/bucks-county-school-reopening-guidance.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">guidance<\/a> On opening classrooms again for fall, the policy included a three-foot distancing and an optional face mask policy due to the difficulty in keeping children&#8217;s faces covered. However, teachers unions launched an immediate operation to discredit Damsker. They demanded a six foot distancing policy which forced students into virtual learning. <\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania State Education Association, Mideastern Region President Bill Senathiis published this article in July 2020. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buckscountycouriertimes.com\/story\/opinion\/columns\/more-voices\/2020\/07\/23\/guest-opinion-david-damskerrsquos-remarks-about-3-foot-social-distancing-in-schools-are-harmful\/42039405\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">op-ed<\/a> A local paper headlined the story \u201cDavid Damsker\u2019s remarks about 3-foot social distancing in schools are harmful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Bucks County<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Central Bucks Schools shut down despite no waiver from the legislature to close classrooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":1823734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[7086,9290,4879,3662,4077,4207,4247,3924,6387],"class_list":["post-1823731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-bad","tag-bucks","tag-closures","tag-county","tag-email","tag-illegal","tag-kids","tag-school","tag-werent"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1823731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1823734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1823731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1823731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1823731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}