The Warren Sun

Though Michigan father Robert Muise and his wife home schooled all 12 of their children, he believes it’s time for public schools to reopen.

He believes the COVID-19 pandemic has been “highly politicized” by opponents of President Donald Trump.

“They seem to have a desire to make this pandemic seem as bad as possible, likely because they want to pin it on President Donald Trump and use it as a ploy for this upcoming election,” Muise told the Warren Sun.

Mandating the wearing of masks outside is a “symbol of oppression,” said Muise, an attorney.

“They say they are relying on the science and the data and every time  I see some new science and data coming out, particularly from CDC, I still scratch my head and say, ‘Why are we wearing all these masks outside?'“ he said. “It creates a public impression that this pandemic is far worse than what it is.” 

COVID-19 is dangerous but mostly to the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions, Muise said.

“The people who are the least susceptible to this by all the science, data, facts, whatever the left wants to point to, are school-age children," he said. “If there is any entity that should be reopened it should be our public schools, particularly for the K through 12."

Teachers or students who might have some underlying issues need accommodations, he said.

"But everybody else is being held hostage by this. There's panic and fear that is very isolated to a certain portion of the community," Muise said.

He believes teachers' unions are using the pandemic to their advantage.

“They are using this, the declared pandemic, as sort of leverage to get in place certain policies and programs and things that they couldn’t get in otherwise that have nothing to do with the pandemic,” he said. 

The Republic Party supports school choice, which he said is necessary. He thinks people would feel public school in droves because they are largely failing.

"You have these unions that are  imposing their will on the public because they have a certain political agenda and they are using the students as pawns for this agenda,

He worries about what will happen if there is an outbreak of the flu.

One of the concerns I've had from the beginning, and it's getting worse now, is we're seeing these these really tyrannical measures have been imposed upon us, is that this is going to become the new norm,” Muise said.

He asked what the new public health crisis standard will be when we know the flu can affect school-age children far more than COVID-19 does. Will we see these governors exercise emergency powers because of a bad flu season, he asked?

He doesn’t believe property owners should receive a rebate if schools don’t reopen soon. He and his wife have been paying property taxes for 20 years and they've been home schooling their children the entire time.

“Taxes are levied usually for things that promote the public good. Some people don’t want to contribute tax money to pay for the military or roads.” 

However, he does favor reallocating tax dollars for school choice programs.

If a family lives in a failing school district, Muise said, "The parents should be able to take those dollars through their student and, you know, and vote with their feet."