An Overdue Thank You to Governor Bill Lee’s Administration for Getting Our Schools Open During COVID

I know many of you helped us in the long fight to get schools open in Northeast Tennessee during Covid. It was brutal to see what school closures were doing to our community and our families. While private schools remained open for the entirety of the pandemic along with other public school systems around the country, Kingsport City Schools remained stubbornly closed.

I would like to revisit COVID closures for a minute….Five years ago, we had been battling with the school board in Kingsport to get open. It was a bi-weekly slog. The BOE chair and our superintendent would not allow us to open. It was frustrating. They used every political maneuver in the book. We could see with our own eyes what lockdowns were doing to our own kids. As Christian believers, we did not believe in instilling in our children this fear of death. We were ready to get about the business of living. We even left our home church which was closed, and went and found a new one which was open. We were tired of entities using COVID as a way to consolidate power. We wanted power returned to the people where it rightfully belongs.

My wife and I began a journey of raising awareness. We met with the Mayor of Kingsport. We met with the Sullivan County BOE at their invitation. (The Sullivan County BOE was awesome by the way). We met with the Kingsport BOE multiple times. Eventually, we had a decent sized group of people who were of like mind. That group then went to the Kingsport Board of Mayor and Aldermen. In an almost parallel move, several pediatricians in the region formed a consortium of sorts. They created, and signed a bi-partisan document urging Kingsport City Schools to open. Their document provided sound, scientifically proven strategies which other international locations had used to open their schools safely. Those medical doctors were met with strict speaking time limits at one of the Kingsport BOE meetings. (The Sullivan Co BOE provided unlimited time to physicians who spoke. They reached out to us in a sincere effort to open.)

As an aside…At one meeting my wife was cut-off (mid-sentence) by the KCS board chair . Before the meeting, we had given the speech to others so they could proof it. The next person to speak, instead of delivering their own prepared statement, graciously picked-up where my wife was cut-off, and she finished the speech. We were tickled. It wasn’t planned, but that was how this fight went. As proponents of schools staying open, we had all learned to fight for each other almost in unison.

Meeting after meeting….excuses piled-up as to why KCS couldn’t open. “We would run out of bus drivers. We would run out of food service workers. We would run out of substitute teachers. Schools would become super spreaders.” Instead of courage, we found grown men huddled and trembling in their foxholes – afraid to fight for our community’s students and their families.

Then Governor Bill Lee’s office stepped into the fight on behalf of public school students in Tennessee…it thankfully changed everything.

Fun Story. We were online waiting for the next Kingsport BOE meeting. They were set yet again to vote 3-2 to keep our system closed. Like a miracle, about forty-five minutes before the meeting….Governor Lee and his Health Commissioner Dr Lisa Piercey submitted paperwork that all public schools in the state of Tennessee were to open. (It is complicated, but Sullivan County has its own public health commissioner who did not answer to the state health commissioner. The Sullivan County Health Department recommendations generally made it too complicated to open here. Kingsport was more than willing to comply with Sullivan County Health Department, and stay closed.) Governor Lee and Dr Piercey played a beautiful political gambit which turned the tide. It worked, because the truth was on their side. They made it politically untenable to keep schools closed. Like reluctant dominoes, holdout school systems began to open based upon their courage.

The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself. ~ Augustine of Hippo

Even after the order to open schools, KCS still drug their feet in getting opened. Amazingly, the Governor found his way to Northeast Tennessee. As party of that trip, he visited Kingsport City Schools. Within weeks, our schools opened permanently. “Team Open” had won. More importantly, students and their families had won. It was a relief.

You know, I have no idea if Governor Lee did all of that in a coordinated effort to help us get schools open in Northeast Tennessee, but as they say in all things, “Timing is everything.” Man, his timing was just impeccable. I have never forgotten their(the Governor’s and Health Commissioner’s) graciousness in remembering the students of Northeast Tennessee.

Dr Piercey and Governor Bill Lee gave us(parents) the leverage that was needed as parents to force systems to open. In short, they provided us with school choice, even then.

All of that is evidence that Governor Bill Lee has the best interest of Tennessee students at heart. If lockdowns proved anything, it is that citizens of Tennessee need the ability to choose which schools are best for their own children. If school vouchers had been present during COVID, I firmly believe school systems couldn’t have maintained lockdowns as long as they did. Their system would have been emptied of students as families would have taken their vouchers to private schools which never closed or to public schools which didn’t close.

School vouchers will provide Tennessee families with the ability to hold local districts accountable. School vouchers will protect Tennesseans from unilateral moves by local school boards such as what happened during COVID. With school choice, citizens of Tennessee can hold systems accountable by voting with their feet. They can choose to attend schools which value rigorous educational instruction, high expectations, and strong character education.

School systems are not the property of BOEs. School systems are not the property of lifetime bureaucrats in central offices. School systems are not the property of city governments. Indeed, public school systems belong to all of us. They are the people’s schools.

Public school proponents are right to fear the voucher process. They have long held a monopoly. LEAs(local education agencies) set school districts, and many students and their families are trapped in schools based upon where their house is located. This obliterates that power. It completely erases it. Families are free to choose schools regardless of where their neighborhood is located. School vouchers return the educational process to students and their families. In a very real sense, parental rights are restored.

Just like he did during COVID when our students in Kingsport were trapped in a closed school system, Governor Bill Lee is trying to return educational freedom to the people of Tennessee. With the Education Freedom Act, Governor Bill Lee is providing families the ability to choose successful schools for their children.

During COVID, I ended up sharing a foxhole with the governor. I saw first hand that he had the backs of Tennessee families then. I trust him now because of that.

Education has the power to change the trajectory of a child’s life, and every Tennessee child deserves to attend a school that fits their unique needs – regardless of income and zip code. ~ Bill Lee, Governor of the State of Tennessee