Bill to give vouchers for remote-only students fails in House

A House subcommittee rejected legislation on Friday that would provide financial vouchers to families of students within public-school districts that solely provide remote instruction.

Del. Michael Webert, R-Marshall, filed  HB 1742  to create a prorated voucher equal to school districts’ per-student state taxes. These financial vouchers would be given to parents who withdraw their children from public schools in exchange for in-person instruction in an alternative setting. The Pre-K-12 Education subcommittee, which has a Democratic majority, rejected the bill in a 5-3 vote along party lines.

“The reason this bill came about was when our school system went virtual, we had a lot of parents in a similar situation I am, where their student needs some sort of in-person learning,” Webert said.

Webert said that this bill would be the best way to empower parents who wanted to educate children through in-person learning.

In fall 2020, 52 of the 132 Virginia public-school districts were fully remote, according to the  Virginia Department of Education. Only nine districts were fully in-person.

“There has been basically nothing that really says kids should not go back to school,” said Victoria Nicholls, an independent and former 2020 candidate for the Chesapeake City Council.

Nicholls supported the voucher program.

“I mean, the amount of anxiety, depression…kids that are either dealing with suicidal ideation…we need to put kids in situations where they are going to be able to get the schooling and the atmosphere that they need,” Nicholls said. “To do anything else is really not fair because the state is not providing the education that it should.”

The Virginia School Boards Association strongly opposes any bill that would take public money and put it to a private voucher program, said J.T. Kessler, government relations specialist at the Virginia School Boards Association.
“When you do that, you are defunding public schools,” Kessler said. “We’ll get these kids back to school as soon as everyone is vaccinated and it is safe to go back in.”

The Virginia Secretary of Education’s office also opposed this bill, said Kathy Burcher, deputy secretary of education.
All Democratic members of the subcommittee opposed the bill as well.

“We see these bills every year,” said Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico. “We see these bills nationally every year. These bills would gut public-school funding and they are always framed as to how they will help certain kids, but they don’t talk about the thousands that will be hurt when public schools suffer dramatically as a result. I always find that part of the equation missing.”