Normally, this isn’t a place for politics. It’s my happy place to try to make people laugh or to question the mysteries of the parental universe, but I’m taking a detour this week, because I read something on the internet that made my head explode, and I’m just at the end of my rope when it comes to meaningless legislation that does nothing more than play to a base.

A local legislator announced via his Facebook page that he’s supporting a bill that “require(s) Kindergarten to 12th grade schools to post curricula online in a standardized, user-friendly manner.” He then cited Glenn Youngkin’s “emphasis” of the “importance of parental input regarding what their children are taught” as being one of the reasons he’s supporting this now.

First of all, from March 13, 2020, until about roughly the start of this school year, our public school system relied heavily on “parental input,” in fact, required it as students were forced to attend classes virtually, and parents were suddenly thrust into an ad hoc teaching role. I don’t know about you, but I saw quite a lot of moaning on the internet that parents were not meant to be teachers. I also heard from many educators that kids had gone off the grid, and multiple attempts to contact parents and involve parents went unanswered. Tales of administrators going door to door, trying to contact families are legendary.

Parents/guardians/anyone filling the role of a parent had their chance to be as intimately involved in their kids’ education as they wanted to be, and oddly enough, many didn’t step up to the plate, and those who did were quickly overwhelmed and exhausted by it. On the other hand, there are many like me, who are far more prepared to teach fifth, seventh and ninth grade than we ever wanted to be. Parental involvement is up to the parents. Period. You can drag a parent to a school, but you can’t make them be involved unless they want to be.

Secondly, recent headlines about the challenges that one of our local school districts is facing, due to a lack of funding, were heartbreaking. Seventy-five young children sharing one bathroom facility. Students using textbooks that were current in the 1990s. There are real problems in our schools that require real solutions.

My own children have been forced to share textbooks because there aren’t enough to go around. Cuts to certain programs mean that even though my kids spend all day long on their Chromebooks, not one of them has had an actual typing class since they’ve been in the public school system. That is like being handed a pencil and never being taught how to print.

Last year, my fifth-grader had assignments that involved writing paragraphs and essays. In the time it took her to hunt and peck out a word, she forgot what she was trying to write about. There wasn’t a lot of learning being done. Sure, her previous teachers had tried to teach rudimentary typing skills, but since they’re also the regular teacher, the art teacher, the technology teacher, and the teacher that has to fill in when other teachers are out because there are not enough substitutes, well, let’s just say it wasn’t high on the priority list.

Back to the proposed legislation. The matter of making this information available via the internet. Rural areas are notorious for not having access to high-speed internet connections. Where is the legislation and support for nationwide broadband access? Have you ever tried to read a school textbook on a phone screen, or even a Chromebook screen? I have. It’s not fun. The Chromebook definitely has its place in education; but the rushed rollout of it, fueled by the pandemic, has left a lot of gaps. The school community still crosses many generations, and technology isn’t available or used universally. The most frustrating phone call I get is the one that tells me to go check the website for the information. I hate having to click around full-scale websites on my phone, and it may be hours until I can get to my PC, and I’m a technology proficient adult.

The ultimate kicker on this illustrious plan to involve parents more deeply in their children’s schooling is that the whole program will be handled by an administrator, so as not to burden teachers. Right off the bat, show me any system anywhere that has benefited from having more administrators. It also strikes me as a huge disconnect to have a person not actually in the classroom teaching the curriculum being the one to disseminate it to the general public. How much of this administrator’s time is going to be spent answering questions and educating parents as to what various topics mean? What is the plan for when someone takes issue with something being taught? Who decides if it’s a legitimate issue? What happens when a lecture goes off curriculum? Some of my most memorable, engaging classroom discussions were not necessarily about the curriculum, but about another tangent or current event.

In a community where many families are atypical, where many families are affected by substance abuse, where many families are already at their breaking point, just trying to provide the bare necessities, throwing up a website where they can peruse online resources is not going to foster the kind of familial engagement that will benefit students and teachers. In school districts where teachers are already wearing too many hats, and struggling with too few resources, and at their breaking point after almost two years of being front-line essential workers, giving them one more mandate that they have to support is a slap in the face.

At the end of the day, teachers are still going to get the job done, just as they always have. Wouldn’t it be great though, if they could do it with all the resources they need, all the support they need, and free from the interference of useless mandates, and clueless parents who were told by the internet they should be outraged by something? In the meantime, I don’t need a website to tell me what my kids learned today, I’m going directly to the source and asking them.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.