This week, my kids’ schools will be closed a total of 3 days. 2 of those are for teacher workdays at my youngest’s pre-school. “But you don’t have to pay for those 2 days, right?” Bless your heart.
The other day is tomorrow, Super Tuesday. My oldest is barred from school because her school, like other public schools in our state, will be used as a polling place.
For some reason, Virginia and 18 other states where election days are civic holidays refuse to find a way to open the polls without robbing students of a day of learning. Never mind that reading and math scores are at their lowest level in decades.
This is wrong. Election Day shouldn’t discriminate against students.
There’s good news, though; it doesn’t have to be this way. If states are willing to be flexible, the solutions are abundant.
Here are 5 alternative (and secular) voting locations that would allow adults to continue participating in the democratic process while ensuring that our children are where they should be on a random Tuesday – in school.
1. Community parks and rec centers. There are more than 9,300 community parks and recreation centers in the U.S. I’d venture to guess that most of them are not crowded on a Tuesday. We could set up polling booths in sparsely used rec centers? For colder weather areas, we could stand up heated tents in a part of the park. “Eh, that sounds expensive.” Folks, you can buy a heated tent for $559. Let’s say states and localities get funding from Congress for 2 tents in 5,000 parks. That’s roughly $5.6 million. That’s a rounding error in Washington. When you factor in the economic benefit of keeping schools open an extra day and giving parents the ability to go to work, it’s probably a net gain in the long run.
2. Non-school government office buildings. Many local government office buildings, like Fairfax County’s government center, were converted into vaccination clinics when the first Covid-19 shots became available. There are 85,000 local governments in the U.S. I can’t find data on how many non-school facilities there are among those municipalities, but let’s assume conservatively, for the sake of argument, the number is half. That’s 42,500 buildings. If we can convert these buildings into vaccine clinics, we can convert them into polling places and have employees telework for the day.
3. Community colleges and larger 4-year public colleges and universities. “But now you’re closing one educational institution to keep another open!” I don’t find that argument super persuasive. Most elementary school students struggle to learn virtually. But for most college students, it’s easier. There are 1,000 community colleges in the U.S., plus hundreds more 4-year public colleges and universities. Take classes online for a day and convert those student unions into a polling station. Sure, it’s a sacrifice for college students, but a very small one in the grand scheme of things. Life is about tradeoffs.
4. Empty fairgrounds. This one’s a no-brainer to me. There are more than 1,350 fairgrounds in this beautiful country of ours. Order those heated tents ($559 x 2 x 1,350 = $1.5 million) and let’s do this.
5. Stadiums/arenas & parking lots. When the Covid vaccines rolled out, governments worked with stadium tenants to set up vaccination stations in stadium parking lots. Obviously, there isn’t a stadium or arena in every district. But let’s put on our thinking caps and get creative. Using the DC area as an example, is there a world in which voters from DC, Maryland and Virginia can vote at Nationals Park or Capital One Arena with partitioned lanes or quadrants for different districts? Call me a dreamer, but I think so.
Regardless of whom you vote for tomorrow, I think we can all agree that kids should be in school as much as possible. Voting shouldn’t come at the expense of discriminating against children. We can do much better.
