Braun Tells Schools "Take a Little Risk" in Reopening

Mike Braun
Official Senate Photo

Mike Braun wants teachers, students, parents and school leaders to, "Take a little risk," and reopen schools for full in-person instruction. 

Anything less, Braun apparently thinks, is a "head in the sand" approach.

Citing Notre Dame and Purdue University as examples, Braun criticized Arizona education leaders casting doubt on the August 17 mandated start. Ironically, he also encouraged schools to mitigate risks and, "Be safe." Braun made his comments on Stuart Varney's program on Fox Business.

That's your Senator, Indiana. 

Braun, of course, loves nothing more than attempting to please Donald Trump at all times. He showed a little independence earlier this year in pushing qualified immunity reform, but he snapped back into line when he received a little pushback. 

This seat is the same seat once occupied by Richard Lugar and Joe Donnelly. Can you imagine either of them telling parents to risk the lives of their students? Can you imagine them asking teachers to risk their lives so brazenly?

All of these comments come as the CDC and the United States Government have provided confusing and constantly changing guidance for schools on how to open safely. At first, the CDC provided clear guidelines, but Vice President Mike Pence and President Trump pushed back and undermined the agency who revised the plan making the guidance less strict.

I guess the question for Senator Braun is to define what a "little risk" is. After he defines it, he needs to tell us if he's prepared for the possibility that opening schools for in-person full instruction could add to the nearly 3,000 Hoosiers who have already died and all the horrible scenarios that come with that.

Indiana schools lack any guidance from Governor Holcomb on what to do right now in day-to-day operation. He's pushed that off on local communities. On the surface, that makes a lot of sense. What's appropriate in Benton County may not be the same as what's appropriate in Marion County. In practice, it's created a lot of confusion among administrators and school boards about whether to open fully in person, use some hybrid of in person and online learning or moving totally online. 

In the absence of any guidance from the state, Marion County created an easy-to-follow protocol and communicated it last week. It remains to be seen as to why the state can't copy Virginia Caine's homework on this. I predict that eventually, Governor Holcomb and the Indiana State Department of Health will follow Marion County's lead because that is essentially what has happened often since March.

But, back to Mike Braun. Using a higher education model to somehow shame local school boards is ridiculous. Purdue, Notre Dame and Indiana are all requiring COVID-19 tests for students returning to campus in some form. There is no such requirement or funding for K-12 students and staff as schools reopen. I'd argue that with a rising statewide positivity rate in testing that it's impossible to know what exactly we're risking.

Arizona's Hayden-Winkleman Unified District Superintendent Jeff Gregorich was more blunt about what's at risk in talking about his rural Arizona district. He told the Washington Post that he's been working hard to open, but he sees no way that his district can safely provide in-person instruction. Gregorich wrote, "Kids will get sick, or worse. Family members will die. Teachers will die."

Hopefully Hoosier voters will remember Braun's callous position on this when he stands for reelection. For a former member of a school board, Braun seems ready to put Hoosier students, teachers, administrators and school staff in danger so he can look good in President Trump's eyes.

In the leadership vacuum that exists in Indiana, Braun should be empowering each local school board to make the best decision for their local district based on the guidance and information they are receiving from local health officials. He shouldn't be telling them to essentially head to the COVID-19 Casino and keep the rabbit's foot nearby for luck.

Questions Fair on Delayed Mask Mandate

Eric Holcomb
Official State Photo

A month ago, after seeing a 300+ case one day jump, I raised concerns on Twitter about that jump in COVID-19 cases. The state COVID-19 dashboard shows the precipitous rise since then.

For the last few days, we've seen numbers topping out at or near state records. We've seen hospitalizations jump. We've seen positive case testing rates jump. Things have been rising up up up. It's not new. It's been happening for weeks.

All the way, Governor Eric Holcomb has been going about his jovial way. He dishes up sports clichés and Hoosierisms quickly, but he dithers when it comes time to take decisive action preferring to leave it to the local governments to make the toughest decisions on the pandemic.

But, the numbers don't lie and someone saw that.

Joe Hogsett has been ahead of the Governor on almost every action when it comes to the pandemic, but he's gotten very little credit for his efforts and even has received unbelievable flak for them. That's not to say that Hogsett has been perfect. The idea that the Marion County Fair was allowed to happen boggles my mind, but Hogsett did react to the increasing numbers with a mask mandate on July 2. He made that mandate take effect on July 9.

Many were flabbergasted when the Marion County Republican Party came after him for not instituting the mask mandate immediately. Chair of the Indy GOP, Cindy Kirchhofer asked, "If Joe Hogsett says masks will save lives on July 9, why wait until then?"

Well, Rep. Kirchhofer, if Governor Holcomb says masks will save lives on July 27, why did he wait until now? Furthermore, why did he wait at all?

Ask Governor Holcomb why did he not see what dumb me saw when I saw that huge jump back in June? Why did he ignore as we went from 350 to 450 to 550 to 650 to 750 to 850 to 950 cases per day? It's been a march.

Of course, Kirchhofer won't answer, and she won't press the issue. I'm assuming she'll issue some sort of congratulatory news release praising her party's governor for taking this action.

Since she won't ask the questions, we all should. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians. We should all be mad as heck that it took Governor Holcomb this long to finally make a decision to "mandate" people to wear masks.

I put mandate in quotes in that last paragraph because, like Hogsett's order back in early July, there are technical penalties for not wearing masks. Governor Holcomb said that the "mask police" would not be out to enforce the mandate. It's my opinion that those mandates should be enforced, strictly. The education would be your fine for not wearing a mask. The people that won't comply are happy not to.

I'll praise Governor Holcomb for doing the right thing. I'll just wonder why it took more suffering to do something to try to reverse a trend that's been a reality for a month.