Political Quotes

“Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for yielding the time. Madam Speaker, I rise today as a voice for the thousands of students across this country who have not stepped foot in a classroom or on a playground for over a year. In Iowa, our Governor has put students' education, their mental health, and their safety first. Our schools have reopened safely in Iowa. My kids got on a school bus this morning and went to a classroom, and they rode that same school bus home. They got to play with their friends. They got to learn in a classroom. Schools nationwide have to have a plan to reopen before it is too late for our students. The mental health toll of long-term school closures on our students is staggering. Recent data shows that mental healthcare claims for children ages 13-18--these are our teenagers, our next generation--have doubled over the past year, according to that data. Emergency room doctors are saying that they are treating more and more young people in crisis than ever before. Now, it is being reported that students across the country have fallen off the grid. That is right. We don't know where they are. School districts can't find them. As weeks out of school have turned into months, and months have turned into a year, our kids are the ones who are falling through the cracks, academically, emotionally, and physically. Thousands of our youngest, most vulnerable Americans are unaccounted for.…”