Republicans and the governor agree on how to reopen NC schools. What took so long?

We won’t pretend there was a long-ago golden age in North Carolina when Democrats and Republicans worked regularly with each other for the good of their constituents. Our legislature, like most states, has long been afflicted with partisan sniping and the party in power doing pretty much as it pleased, rules and norms be damned.

But in recent years, the vitriol between Democrats and Republicans has been especially poisonous and increasingly an obstacle to getting basic governing done. North Carolina couldn’t even pass a budget in 2019, thanks the bunkered posture of Republican leaders and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

So let’s take a moment to congratulate the governor, Republican Senate leader Phil Berger and Republican House Speaker Tim Moore for reaching a compromise this week on a flammable but critical issue: getting North Carolina’s children safely back in public schools during COVID-19. On Wednesday, Cooper and Republicans announced an agreement that will allow for daily, in-person education in North Carolina school districts. Cooper signed it into law Thursday.

The new legislation, which applies to the 2020-21 school year only, requires elementary schools to open under Plan A, which is full-time, in-person learning. Middle schools and high schools will have the option to open under Plan A or Plan B, which has more social distancing. Middle schools and high schools had been limited to Plan B.

Importantly, the legislation gives the governor and local boards of education some power should COVID-19 spike again this year. Local boards of education will retain the authority to make day-to-day decisions about shifting individual schools or classrooms to remote only learning because of a COVID outbreak. While the governor cannot order a statewide reduction or closing of schools in a single, sweeping executive order, he can order individual school districts to reduce or shut down operations because of COVID-19 concerns.

The measure is a reasonable compromise that gives school districts the flexibility to open schools fully or close them because of health and staffing issues, and it gives the governor some room to act if North Carolina’s COVID numbers take an alarmingly wrong turn. We hope that won’t be necessary with warmer weather ahead and North Carolinians rolling up their sleeves for vaccinations, but it’s important that Cooper and school districts have some power to respond to future outbreaks. This bill, though not perfect, accomplishes that.

All of which could have happened weeks or months ago. Instead, Republicans passed an ill-advised bill that would have required schools to offer either Plan A or Plan B to all students and would have stripped the governor of power to respond to a new outbreak. Only when Republicans put together a bill did Cooper publicly call for the two sides to compromise. Only when Republicans failed to override Cooper’s veto did they sit with the governor to finally hammer that compromise out.

That’s unfortunate, counterproductive and to many North Carolinians, frustrating. In poll after poll, Americans say they want bipartisianship, and polling also shows that the public finds commonality on issues and policies far more often than legislators do. No, we don’t expect Democrats and Republicans to lock arms and walk forward toward a better North Carolina. We would, however, like them to realize when it’s time for sniping to stop and work to begin.

But it has become all too common, in Raleigh and in Washington, for our elected officials to posture instead of govern, to emphasize the awfulness of the other side instead of moving conversations and issues forward. That might appeal to the base back home, but it doesn’t do much to serve them or anyone else.

This story was originally published March 11, 2021 at 10:53 AM.