On the recordMarch 26, 2025
I appreciate the message of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Meuser). I think it is actually one of the most important things to be focusing on right now. Mr. Speaker, I take a lot of questions from folks back home. Utah is a State that hits above their weight in academic outcomes. We have large families. This is a big, big deal for us. The confusion of why would you dismantle the Department of Education, I will make sure I do my part, and I have spoken about this to a lot of constituents back home. One of the key aspects and the things that are important under title I is making sure that we have underfunded communities well represented. My son is on an IEP. He is a 9-year-old in the third grade. He is on a specialized education plan that meets his needs. My wife painstakingly got us to the point of making sure that that was the right scenario for him. We value the work that gets done here, and we want to see more resources pushed back to our State, who has largely led this effort. We have had meetings for our boy to be able to get into the situation where he is in a thriving third-grade class at a public school and where he has a little extra attention on things that he does well. He is reading well above a third-grade level, but he really struggles in other areas. He is on the autism spectrum. The attention that our teachers, local administrators, and PTA have put into our boy, who is the pride of our life, we know that that will be cared for moving on.…
