Last night, a majority of the Des Moines Public School Board voted to “direct the district to implement a plan to offer a compliant hybrid model in addition to virtual dependent on public health metrics.”

What does that mean? That if you live in Des Moines and cannot afford to send your kids to private school, they will not be going to school this year.

The metrics that have been put together by Superintendent Tom Ahart, who seems to have a highly charged political personality, state that the school district won’t open its doors unless there is “less than one new case per day per 100,000 population in Polk County on a 7-day rolling average.” And that is only the beginning.

The draft metrics are available here. The summation is this: The board continues turning a deaf ear to Des Moines parents despite repeated pleas to allow their kids back in school and athletics.

Tom Ahart and a majority of the Des Moines Public School Board has no intent on kids returning to school. Every day, hundreds of kids are being left behind and every week millions of dollars are being spent by the school district in violation of the law. A law that every other school district in the state is complying with.

Some members of the board seem to think that Des Moines is special. It is, but not in the way the board members think. It is failing the students, at the price of pleasing the teacher’s union. Special indeed.