In this episode, I talk with a parent in Western Washington who has school-aged children. Lindy Loo has been trying for months to communicate with her local school board regarding how she feels about coronavirus mandates in schools. 

Lindy and other parents in the school district feel unrepresented. In my perspective, civil servants and civilians are mutually responsible for the erosion of government and institutional representation. During coronavirus, many parents’ attention was turned to how our officials would handle schooling. In the final hour, people realized that they wanted to participate in determining how and what their children were taught more than they originally thought. 

When people disagreed with the decision of government officials, they were compelled to participate in institutional politics. People reconciled that they are at the behest of officials that they voted for. Some of us have voted blindly, maybe with little research into officials, or we didn’t vote at all. I realized quickly that my child’s education was determined by an organization that I felt disconnected from. 

I have values and experiences that are important to me to impart when raising my son. How do I impart my style of teaching when it is beyond my control? When it comes to: if my son can wear a hat in school, if he’s taught math in an alternative way, if he has to follow a certain schedule he isn’t pleased with - I have no objection. We have to compromise with each other at some point. But we as people have the right and responsibility to provide our input, our perspective, our intelligence, and our styling to the public institution of schooling. Most people haven’t been doing this until things got so divergent from their values that Washington Public schools have lost 3.5% of students since corona-virus; nearly doubling registered homeschool students in Washington state.

 Parents have an array of concerns on both sides of the table with Coronavirus. In corporate media, I don’t see perspectives like Lindy’s: a parent who doesn’t want their child to be subjugated to medical mandates that prevent a child from accessing public education or force them to follow institutional protocol due to the inability to care for the child all day, every day.