So much for that “small government” mantra.

From the News & Observer:

Some Republican state lawmakers want to force North Carolina public schools to reopen for in-person instruction.

Republican Senate leaders announced Thursday that they are working on drafting legislation to reopen schools. The timeline offered for a bill was the “coming days.”

The legislation would “require all school districts to operate in-person in some capacity,” as well as an option of virtual only, according to a news release Thursday from Senate leader Phil Berger’s office.

Sen. Deanna Ballard, a Watauga Republican and co-chair of the Senate Education Committee, said in an emailed statement that: “Among all the COVID tragedies, the most preventable is the lost learning potential that, for some kids, will last a lifetime.”

“After hearing from so many parents and teachers, we have to act immediately to return children to the classroom to stop further damage,” Ballard said.

The hypocrisy of this bill is rather palpable concerning all previous stances about government overreach and the need for more local control.

The hypocrisy of this bill is rather palpable considering this is the same body that can’t even pass a new budget for those very public schools and refuses to dip into rainy day funds to help schools “reopen” safely.

The hypocrisy of this bill is rather palpable when the same body has not made it a priority to get teachers vaccinated beforehand.

Ironically Ballard and Berger (who are featured in the aforementioned article) represent areas that actually had school systems open with full remote with a fraction of the spread that has occurred within the last month.

Below is an August 2020 map from Dane West, who had been keeping direct tabs on each LEA in the state and their plans for reopening school buildings. It was as complete a map as any and he actually followed as many school board meetings across the state as humanly possible.

Dane is a Social Studies teacher in the Wake County schools.

Blue represented Plan C (full remote).

And Berger & Ballard represent hypocrisy.