To the editor:

The COVID-19 pandemic may be the most disruptive event of a generation. Massive disruptions create so much change that they turn culture, conventional thinking and the social fabric upside down and inside out. When the dust settles we hope that we have accommodated ourselves to most of the massive changes and have not just been run over by them. We have to find a way to not be on the wrong side of these changes.

And so in response to the pandemic the teachers union wants to close the schools and keep them closed. More precisely, they have gained control of the Lawrence school board to accomplish this end. I am a lifelong liberal, raised by a teacher, have siblings who are teachers union members, and have had amazing teachers in my life. But closing the schools deprives students of essential social interactions, forces parents to pretend they are teachers, and ends up surrendering without even trying to overcome the challenges of opening safe schools. I am being turned upside down and inside out by this disruptive COVID-19. I see the teachers and the school board they control as being on the wrong side of this disruption. They have failed in their most basic duty to our students. They have become the problem. Will they be the next to be run over by it?

The state of Wisconsin elected a crazy governor in 2010, Scott Walker, and after about a year realized how crazy he was. They mounted a recall effort to remove him from office. In Lawrence the names are Kelly Jones, Carol Cadue-Blackwell, Shannon Kimball, and GR Gordon-Ross.

David Peaco,

Lawrence