a cnn town hall, the war over education, with virginia's republican governor, glenn youngkin. i'm jake tapper. it is the issue that has become a flash point across the country in classrooms, at school board meetings, at the ballot box. communities nationwide reckoning with big questions about parental rights and k-12 classrooms and what children are taught in school. and virginia, governor glenn youngkin has made education the centerpiece of his successful campaign and his agenda. and tonight, our audience is made up of parents and teachers and students from across the commonwealth of virginia who will have the chance to directly question governor youngkin about these issues that impact children's futures. so let's get right to it. please welcome virginia governor glenn youngkin. >> thank you so much. good to see you. >> how is everybody? how are you? thank you. thank you. >> have a seat, sir, if you would. education is the key issue for you, perhaps more so than any other governor in the country. you ran your campaign on it. you issued your first executive order on it. why? why is this issue your main focus? >> well, first of all, jake, i want to say thank you. thanks to cnn for hosting tonight. i want to thank all the virginians that are here. thanks for coming from all over the commonwealth and focusing on these most important topic where. we almost have to step back a little bit and reflect on the fact that virginia was known to have the best high schools. we have the best colleges, the best universities ranging all the way from thomas jefferson high school which is ranked number one in the country as the best high school, to our revered hbcus, to a higher ed system that's ranked top in the country. and yet here we are at ground zero, ground zero in the debate and the battle over high schools, colleges, curriculum, parents, the role of teachers. this is virginia. you know, the big question we always ask is how did we get here? and you look back to pre-pandemic, and what happened was administrations lowered expectations for children and for schools. and then we got into the pandemic, and parents all of a sudden had a front row seat in their child's education as kitchens and family rooms were transformed into classrooms. and what they saw they didn't like. they saw the results of lowered expectations. they actually saw, jake, that what was being taught in the schools was pitting children against one another based on race or sex or religion. and what they also saw were materials that really weren't comfortable for them and consistent with their family values. and then once folks went back to school after an extended closure, which was unnecessarily in virginia, in mew view, what happened was masks were mandated. and violence in schools went up, as school resource officers were barred from being in schools, and the behavior health crisis escalated and academic performance plummeted. we saw the scores come out over the summer from the national report card, otherwise known as n.a.p.e. hot we saw was virginia kids suffered more than kids across the country. fourth graders had the largest learning loss in math, the largest learning loss in reading. and all of a sudden, the fear that so many parents had that schools weren't delivering for their children was realized. now we find ourselves in a campaign in an election, and we watched virginians come together. republicans and democrats, not republicans versus democrats. it was all around a very simple concept. parents matter. and parents deserve not only to be at the table but they deserve to have the head seat at the table. and when we had seen once we got into office that it was worse than we expected when we actually saw the fact that many of the things that the left liberal progressives were saying weren't going on in schools were actually going on in schools. so we had to go to work right away in order to make a difference. >> let's take our first question. i want you to meet michelle wingfield, a high school language arts teacher from north chesterfield. she's a republican. michelle. >> if education is supposed to be such a high priority in virginia, why are teachers, which as you know are so hard to come by right now, so underpaid? as a newly single mother, i can barely afford rent on my salary even with this being my seventh year teaching. >> so michelle, first of all, i want to thank you for teaching. and i look back on the teachers that had an impact on my life growing up, ms. better weaver who was my fourth grade teacher, and i'm just in awe of the great men and women across the co commonwealth who have dedicated themselves to educating our children. so thank you. thank you, because i know there will be somebody along the way who says, you know, i remember my teacher, it will be you, and you had an impact on their life, so thank you. and one of the big challenges that we have across the commonwealth and across the country is just a horrific shortage in teachers. and the reality is, of course, that historically, teachers in mew view were underpaid, and it was why i made at the center of our campaign making sure that we paid teachers more. and i'm proud to say that in our first year, we were able to pay teachers more and deliver on that promise. a 5% raise last year, another 5% raise this year for 10% over a two-year period. but we need to do better. and we know that. because if we're going to attract the best and the brightest into teaching, we need to make sure that they can afford to live, they can afford to live in virginia. that's why we went to work over the summer to dedicate $30 million to recruit teachers from across the country, to streamline the licensing transfer process when teachers come from other states, and to make sure that teachers who might have retired and might come back, there woin't be any blocks to them coming back and teaching again. the heart of education is parents. right behind them are our teachers. and we know that when we have a partnership between parents and teachers, virginia's kids will thrive. so thank you again for being a teacher. >> so your first executive order ends the teaching of critical race theory or crt in public schools. for those who don't know, critical race theory teaches that racism in the united states is systemic, meaning it's engrained within the judicial or health care or school system. so we have a question about crt from brock barnes. brock barnes, a social studies teacher in augusta county, virginia, who is an vpt. >> in recent years, there has been a lot of debate regarding the teaching of crt in public schools. as a social studies teaching, i find it imperative to teach history through facts and the perspectives of the people involved in the historical events. governor youngkin, what is your view on the difference between teaching crt in the classroom and the teaching of historical injustices such as slavery and segregation and the impact it's had on americans? >> thank you for that great question. thanks for coming all the way to be with us tonight. and again, thank you for being a teacher. and again, the role that teachers play in our kids' lives is invaluable and for anyone watching tonight who might be inspired to be a teacher, come be a teacher in virginia. teaching our history is critical. and i have said all along that our standards should be to teach all of it. the good and the bad. and we can't walk away from our history because there have been just incredibly difficult challenging dark times in our history as a commonwealth and as a nation. and that's why when i laid out my key objectives for our history standards, it was doing exactly that. teaching all of our history. the good and the bad. i'm pleased with our history standards because i think they will be the best in the nation. we in fact enhanced the discussion of slavery and made sure that everyone understood for the first time in virginia history standards that the cause of the civil war was slavery. and the teaching of that basic fact is critical. recently, i had the great privilege of going on a field trip with fourth graders from an elementary school, and we went to ft. monroe. if anybody hasn't been to ft. monroe, you should go because extraordinary things happened at ft. monroe. of course, with the fourth graders, we learned together and discussed the fact that while ft. monroe was a union fort during the confederacy, something extremely important happened there more than 400 years before. and that was the beginning of slavery in the united states. in 1619, the first enslaved africans were brought to the colonies to america, and it happened right there at point comfort. we had a chance to talk about this with fourth graders. we had a chance to talk about the fact that enslaved people were brought here against their will, and how horrific that was. but we also had a chance to talk about what happened more than 200 years after that, during the civil war, when brave individuals gave refuge to slaves and brought freedom to so many people at ft. monroe. what a rich discussion it is. and so i think we need to make sure that we are teaching all of our history, the good and the bad. but the key point is how we teach it. >> right. >> we need to teach it honestly and transparently, but we shouldn't teach it with judgment. and one of the clear realities is that what had crept into our school systems were divisive concepts, divisive concepts that had curriculum and materials that were forcing our children to judge one another. >> let me exactly ask you about that, which is kind of following up on what brock was asking. your executive order that ended the teaching of crt said that it would end the teaching of inherently divisive concepts, including crt. so other than crt, can you give us a specific example of what is an inherently divisive concept you think should not be taught in virginia schools? >> the inherently divisive concepts are taking directly from the civil rights act, and they're teaching children that they're inherently biased or racists because of their race or their sex or their religion. they teach that a child is guilty for sins of the past because of their race or their religion or their sex. they teach that a child is oppressed or a victim because of their race, their religion, or their sex. and of course, we have seen this in curriculum. you see, critical race theory isn't a class that's taught. it's something that is -- it's a philosophy that's incorporated in the curriculum. we saw it in fairfax county with privilege bingo and games like this. we also saw it in teacher training, in professional development, in recommended books entitled critical race theory. this is why it was so important for us to clearly define what was not going to be taught in schools and what was. because this is a chance to make sure that we're not pitting our children against one another paced on race or religion or sex, but teaching all history, the good and the bad. >> let me ask you one more follow up on that, which is what do you say to a teacher who wants to teach any one of any number of scholars who say that the condition of black americans today can be traced all the way back to ft. monroe in 1619? that it's not as if every generation is just brought forth new, that there were hundreds of years of slavery, 100 years of jim crow, and today is part of that? >> yeah, i first of all, we must step back and teach all of that. and then we have to recognize where we are today. and see, i think the opportunity for us today is to recognize that there are students who need extra help. and there are students who can soar right where they are. we have to teach to both. and one of the challenges of today's world of equal outcomes for all students at any cost is that we in fact are holding all students down. and that's why i have been so consistent. we can raise the ceiling and we can raise the floor. and we can teach our children where they are. we can provide opportunities for those students to run as fast as they possibly can, and we need to provide extra resources for those students and those schools that need them. the reality is that's something that we went to work on right out of the box. that's why in my first session, we passed the virginia literacy act in order to focus on k-third reading and provide reading coaches for those schools and students who need them. we're doing the same thing in math now. >> i have another member of a faculty here, tyronn barnes, a high school band director from fairfax. he's a democrat. mr. barnes. >> governor youngkin, do you agree there's an unspoken culture of racism and implicit bias against teacher of color in school districts nationwide? >> i believe racism exists and racism has existed for centuries and thousands of years. and we should condemn it. and you know, my faith teaches me first to love god above all other things. and then to love each other as he loves us. and i think it is imperative that there's no room for racism. there's no room for bias. there's no room for harassment in our schools or in our communities. i also believe that we have an opportunity to come together as virginians and as americans and to lock arms and say we're going to look forward and we're going to create opportunity, we're going to educate our children to go take that opportunity. and we can lift up all virginians. see, what we found ourselves in a moment where we're allowing ourselves to be pitted against one another in all things. and we all of a sudden find that everything has to be viewed through a lens of race. i don't think we should ignore our past. i think we should know it. i don't think we should pretend that racism doesn't exist because it does. but how we move forward is up to us. and i think there's an opportunity for us to put down the accusations and put down the judgment and move together in a way that lifts up all people. >> we have all heard about the pilot advanced placement or a.p. african american studies class which has become a national order because the governor of florida banned it. you have ordered a review of this pilot program. what are your specific concerns about it? >> well, i don't have any specific concerns other than under my executive order one, i want to make sure that there aren't inherently divisive concepts that are used in the teaching of this a.p. course. and so i just asked our department of education to do exactly what executive order number one asked us to do on all of our curriculum. and i have no reason to believe given the changes that i know have been made to that course that it won't be a fine course for virginia, but i have to let our department of education do their job. this is what i asked them to do, and i look forward to getting the report back. >> here's a parent i want you to meet. thomas, a father and physicist from newport news. earlier, a 6-year-old student shot a teacher in newport news and it's in thomas' son's classroom, and thomas is a democrat. >> since the start of the year, verge has had two incidents of 6-year-olds bringing a gun to school. since 2021, there have been hundreds of weapons confiscated on school property. what concrete measures are being taken to protect both students and staff in their schools? >> thomas, thank you. and thank you for bringing up what is just an incredibly difficult topic for all of us. what happened with the 6-year-old bringing a gun to school and then shooting his teacher is just extraordinary. and all of us find ourselves in a moment as a parent -- i'm a parent of four -- wondering how that can happen. and how do we keep our children safe. see, virginia has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. and what we continue to find is that those gun laws don't keep us safe. because it's not laws that keep us safe. it's the behavior of people that we need to make sure that we're paying attention to. parents have a responsibility to keep guns out of their young children's hands and they need to be account frbl that. on top of that, coming out of the pandemic, we have an extraordinary behavioral health crisis across the commonwealth and across the nation. coming out of the pandemic, i think our children were put in circumstances that they had never yet experienced, loneliness, isolation, and before we know it, we see the behavioral health crisis representing itself in our young people worse than almost any other generation. that's why it's been so important for us to move forward with an aggressive transformation of virginia's behavioral health system. you see, our health system can't keep up with the demand. the behavioral health crisis has put such an extensive burden on the system that we have to transform it. that means that in our plan, which we call right help right now, we proposed investing nearly $250 million in order to create capacity in schools with counselors, with telemedicine, to create capacity with mobile crisis units and crisis receiving units, and to provide capacity after a crisis so that there's a place for people to go. >> we have a question on mental health that we'll get to in a little bit. just to follow up on what thomas was asking about, if i may. what about individuals who say there are laws that could help law enforcement keep guns out of the hands of people who would use them for harm? you could strengthen the red flag laws in virginia. you could require by law parents to lock their guns either in safes or with trigger locks. and that would keep a 6-year-old from being able -- much less two 6-year-olds from getting guns and bringing them to school. would you contemplate anything like that? >> let me repeat, as i said, virginia has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, and we have red flag laws and requirements that parents keep guns out of the hands of young children. the reality is, if people don't follow the law, then the laws aren't as powerful as they otherwise could be. >> the safe storage law is kind of weak. >> this is the challenge we have, which is at the end of the day, we in fact need parents to take ownership for what they're doing. and we need to also make sure that we're addressing the crisis in the family and the crisis in behavioral health that is putting people in a position where they want to cause harm to themselves or to others. we can't dismiss the behavioral health issue. >> no, no, we have questions on it later on. >> we can't. at the heart of this is the fact that our behavioral health crisis is showing up in the workplace, showing up in schools, showing up at home. peek are taking their own lives and hurting others. >> we're going to take a quick break. up next, two critical issues in virginia schools now, gender identity and the rights of parents in classrooms. we'll be right back. let's get started. bill, where's your mask? 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robitussin. the only brand with real honeyand elderberry. meet a future mom, a first-time mom and a seasoned pro. this mom's one step closer to their new mini-van! yeah, you'll get used to it. this mom's depositing money with tools on-hand. cha ching. and this mom, well, she's setting an appointment here, so her son can get set up there and start his own financial journey. that's because these moms all have chase. smart bankers. convenient tools. one bank with the power of both. chase. make more of what's yours. with unitedhealthcare my sister has a whole team to help her get the most out of her medicare plan. ♪wow, uh-huh♪ advantage: me! can't wait 'til i turn 65! take advantage with an aarp medicare advantage plan... only from unitedhealthcare. welcome back to a cnn town hall on education with virginia governor glenn youngkin. governor, i want you to meet quen aveer k., a nurse practitioner and a mother of two girls from maclaine, virginia. a lifelong republican who recently became a democrat. ms. k. >> schoolwide testing was very revealing in that lower math and reading scores were affected by the covid shutdown. the whole world was behind on reading and math. why aren't we providing free on-site, after school tutoring to every kid who needs it automatically? why not recruit retired teachers or retired anyone to provide this much needed service? >> great. thank you for that great question. and you just wrote my executive order from last august. and so thank you. i also want to say thanks for being a nurse. my mom was a nurse, and she was a nurse practitioner as well so i know your heart for people. >> you're welcome. >> we have a tremendous learning loss. and it was worse than we thought. and one of the big challenges, of course, is that it started prior to the pandemic when expectations and standards were lowered for all virginia kids, and sadly, they met those lowered expectations. and in fact, during the pandemic, when schools were closed for an extended period of time, kids lost even more. and the n.a.p.e. scores showed this. they show that as i said earlier, that our fourth graders had the largest learning loss in the nation in math and in reading. and in fact, for our black families and our hispanic families it was disproportionately worse. so we went to work immediately. and we did exactly the things you pointed out. one is how do we provide tutoring? and so we enabled a free tutoring service through schoolhouse.org for parents to come. we just announced $30 million in microgrants for parents to apply for grants for special tutoring services for their children. we worked hard to bring more teachers back in. and are opening a teacher pipeline from other states to make the licensing requirements easier in addition to $30 million in recruitment money were critical. the bottom line is, we have got to make up lost ground. two decades of progress was lost. and we have to go fix this. the reality is that it starts all the way -- it starts all the way through k-12. but we also see it almost the worst in our younger children, and if they don't catch up, then they're in for a lifetime of challenges. that's why i'm so excited about the virginia literacy act we passed last year on a bipartisan basis where we're standardizing the way we teach reading in virginia. the science of reading. we may have known it as phonics when we were growing up, but all teachers will be taught the same way on how to use instruction and materials as well as parents, and through my budget proposal, we're going to extend it through sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. this is a critical time not to lose a generation. that's why we have been so proactive to make sure extra learning opportunities, extra funding, more teachers are made available to students all across virginia. >> very important question. thank you. we had a republican mom from virginia who wanted to ask you a question about new guidelines for transgender students but for family reasons she had to c cancel. let me ask you, can you just explain your transgender policies and what you're trying to achieve with them? >> i can. this is a really important topic for us to discuss. because it's a tough one. it's a tough one. and it starts with my belief that we have to love one another. we have to deeply respect one another. so that's where our policy starts. respecting all students. there's no room for bullying. there's no room for harassment. and we specifically identify that more than 30 times in our policy. but our number one priority is to make sure after students are safe that their parents are involved in their lives. these are difficult, difficult decisions. and parents want to be engaged in their children's lives. they have a right to be engaged in their children's lives. and their children should have a parent involved in their life. that is the heart of our policy. is that parents should know what's going on in their children's lives and have a role. and when they do, then in fact they can tackle these difficult decisions together as a family. >> governor, i want to bring in niko, a 17-year-old student from arlington. >> governor youngkin, your transgender model policies require students play on the sports teams and use the bathrooms. look at me, i am a transgender man. do you think the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me? >> first of all, thank you for, again, asking the question and being here tonight. and engaging in this important discussion. i believe first when parents are engaged with their children, then you can make good decisions together, and i met your dad, and i'm glad you're both here together. that's really, really important. i also think that there are lots of students involved in this decision. and what's most important is that we try very hard to accommodate students. that's why i have said many, many times, we just need extra bathrooms in schools. we need gender neutral bathrooms. so people can use a bathroom that they in fact are comfortable with. i think sports are very clear. and i don't think it's controversial. i don't think that biological boys should be playing sports with biological girls. there's been decades of efforts in order to gain opportunities for women in sports. and it's just not fair. and i think that's noncontroversial and something that i think is pretty well understood. again, i think these are very difficult discussions, and i am very, very glad to see you and your dad here together. >> there are obviously a lot of different views on this topic, and you have said it should be up to parents. but it's not that simple, right? because niko's dad assuredly feels different than the republican mom who was supposed to be here earlier. in that case, which parent do you go with? >> i don't think it's that hard, when we start with the basic principle that parents matter. and you know, there are parents who have unfortunately been on the other side of not being told what was going on in their child's life, and i believe that sage's grandmother is here tonight. >> over there. >> hi. and of course, what happened in sage's life was that counselors and teachers didn't tell sage's family about the fact that she was transgender. and she got caught up in some horrific human trafficking issues, and they almost lost her. and they didn't know. see, there's a basic rule here, which is that children belong to parents. not to the state, not to schools, not to bureaucrats, but to parents. that's where the first step has to be. >> so i don't doubt that sage's grandmother and niko's dad are wonderful. but not every parent is supportive, especially when it comes to lgbtq students, especially when it comes to transgender students. then what? >> well, again, i believe firmly that parents have a right to be engaged in their children's lives. and parents want to be engaged in children's lives. a child does want their parent. this is a moment for counsellors and teachers and parents to come together and deal with what is a difficult issue. but they should do it together. >> let's bring in james miller, an acchaer and former high school teacher from ashburn, virginia. he's a republican. >> thank you. my wife and i are residents of loudoun county. our oldest graduated from public school and we currently have two children in our local public schools. we can't afford private school. and my wife and i are unable to home school. so what would you say, what hope can you give to parents like my wife and i who want our kids to get a good education in a safe environment free of political agenda, left or right, when our local school system has frequently made the news for failing in each of those things? >> so first of all, again, thank you for having been a teacher, and i think that what we have seen in loudoun county is really representative of all of the issues that we have been talking about tonight. and that is a school district that embraced equity, embraced divisive concepts in teaching, and parents saw it and stood up and said, wait a minute. time-out. and then it was coupled with the fact that there was a young woman who was sexually assaulted in a school, and the superintendent moved that child without telling the family, to another school and another young woman was sexually assaulted. you know, it took a new governor, an executive order, an attorney general, and an investigation for nine months in order to get an indictment of what was a cover-up. see, there's a basic truth that i believe that school boards and superintendents and administrators need to be held to. one is that parents matter. transparency is critical. and they do have a responsibility to tell parents and to tell the police when there has been crime, violent crime. this issue is at the heart of why we as administration work so hard to pass bills to make it mandatory, that in fact violent crime is reported to police and can't be covered up again, just like it was. we're working hard in order to make sure that curriculum in schools is robust and teaches our children how to think, not what to think. we're working hard to make sure that schools are safe by reinserting school resource officers back into the school system and funding them. we're working hard to make sure that expectations are returned to being the best in the nation from having been taken down to the worst. and we're working hard to make sure that we have an accountability system for our schools that just recognizes when a school is underperforming, we can bring resources to help because looking at our n.a.p.e. scores and sro scores, every school in virginia cannot pass accreditation. we have got work to do, and we're working hard to make sure that you can trust the public school systems, and that is at the top of our agenda. >> i need a school bell is what i need. up next, artificial intelligence in the classroom. should it be banned, should it be embraced? 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>> i think they should. and i think we should just be clear about what our goal of education is, which is to make sure that our kids can think. and therefore, if a machine is thinking for them, then we're not accomplishing our goal. and yeah, i do think it's something to be very careful of and i think more school districts should ban it. >> interesting. we have another student here tonight. there are a lot of kids in virginia around the country and in virginia who rely on public schools to get their nutrition for the day, as you know. on that topic, i want to turn to t taylynn. >> what can we do to improve school lunches both in the amount of food and the variety that we get at middle school? i skip lunch so my parents won't have to pay for a small snack that is lunch for me. i know my friends do the same. it's just not enough food. >> so i, too, find that as i travel around virginia, one of the things i hear most about from parents is about food. and the quality of food. and food insecurity is an extraordinary problem right now. we have the greatest sense of insecurity with food in virginia than we have ever had. and for so many students, that meal at school and with programs, breakfast as well, is their best chance to get a good meal every day. and so i think we start with -- i think we start with recognizing that local schools have substantial funding, and we need to make sure that they're putting it to work. and that from the state level, that we set guidelines on what should be served in school. you know, the school environment provides us an opportunity to really support families across virginia. and to support them in lots of ways. i have been deeply engaged with the schools in petersburg over the last many months through a partnership that we struck with the state government and petersburg in order to really address a whole host of issues that have plagued petersburg for a long time. what we found is wrap-around services in the school from medical care to nutrition to tutoring to simply engaging with children made a huge difference. so i'm excited about the opportunities that our schools can provide for families. >> i know this is a topic we're coming to that you really want to talk to. this is esther, she's from virginia beach. she's an assistant principal at a high school. she's an independent. >> i live in virginia beach, but i do work on the eastern shore for arcadia high school. so i wanted to clear that up. >> all right. appreciate it. fact check. >> so as an assistant principal, i wanted to ask you, this is a big concern at arcadia high school and a lot of rural schools around virginia. how can we better help students who are struggling with mental health issues that go beyond the resources we have in schools? >> so thank you for that most important question. thanks for making the commute across the bridge and going to the eastern shore. >> can you lower the toll? >> just for her. >> let me look into it. >> just for me. >> and really, our rural schools face a lot of the same issues that some of our urban schools face as well, which is shortage of teachers, challenges with cost of living, challenges of making sure that we have schools fully staffed. but at the top of the list right now are challenges around behavioral health. and as i said earlier, we have seen our behavioral health system overwhelmed. we have seen it overwhelmed because of the challenges that families are dealing with, students are dealing with coming out of the pandemic. we have seen record levels of teen contemplated suicide. we have seen self-harm. we have seen this present itself not just in schools but at home, and yes, in the workplace. this is why our behavioral health transformation is so important. and we identified this on day one. we started working on day one on a transformation program that would provide more resources, more resources precrisis, so that folks can find help when they need it, not when they're in crisis. and we have funded in through our budget proposals this year more counselors into schools, and utilizing telehealth and telemedicine so that students and families can get help immediately. we have also wanted to make sure that our institutions of higher education are resourced as well because of course our college students are seeing similar challenges. this is a moment for us to put politics down and to recognize that the behavioral health challenge in virginia and america is one that doesn't pay attention to republicans or democrats, it doesn't pay attention to your income level. it doesn't pay attention to your race or religion. this is a problem that we're seeing overwhelm our systems. that's why i'm excited about our new program called right help right now. we're getting moving to make sure we bring resources across the commonwealth so we can address this most challenging issue. >> i want you to meet another student. i'm really excited about the students here. you guys are very, very brave. this is cali walsh, a high school student from alexandria. she volunteered with an advocacy group. >> house bill 1448 appeared during this legislative session and would have forced the department of education to make recommendations on the adoption of model policies for the selection and removal of public school library materials. while this legislation did not pass during session, what is your stance on the removal of books from school libraries and how would you act if a piece of legislation similar to this one came across your desk in the future? >> yeah, so thank you for that most important topic. so my whole approach to this starts with parents and transparency. to make sure that parents know what's in the library and parents understand what materials are being used in the curriculum. so last year, we were able to pass a bill on a bipartisan basis that gave parents full visibility into materials in the classroom, and if those are sexually explicit materials that aren't consistent with family values then a parent can request a replacement, a replacement material into their child's curriculum. i do believe there are moments where we have to make decisions about what's age appropriate and what is appropriate. and those are hard decisions, but we shouldn't run away from them. we should engage in them. these are healthy discussions for us to have. what books should be in an elementary school library? should they have explicit pictures in them? or not? well, i don't think they should be there. and these are decisions that i think we should take on as opposed to run away from. and therefore, had that bill passed i would have signed it. and then we would have engaged with communities. not in a strong handed way but in an engaged way, to listen and discuss and make good decisions for our kids. >> i want to ask you about an issue that's gotten a lot of national attention from virginia. last year, some virginia schools failed to notify quickly national merit commended students of their recognition at your request, an attorney general is now investigating this. have you seen anything indicating that these administrators did this intentionally as has been implied to avoid hurting the students' feelings who did not make that honor? have you seen evidence of that? >> well, the attorney general's investigation is still going on, so i can't comment specifically on those facts, but of course, what was suggested and communicated by the senior officials in schools was exactly that. that they had held back notifying students of their national merit commendation because they didn't want other students to feel bad. this was more than just one case. next thing you know, we have over 16 or 17 schools across one school district that this was happening in. the reality is that when a school hires consultants to come in and teach equity for all students, equal outcomes for all students at any cost, we end up with these kinds of circumstances. we have to celebrate excellence. we shouldn't embrace equity at the expense of excellence. students work hard, they receive these kinds of accolades. their parents and their kids should know. they should know. >> i want you to meet jessica. she's a republican from waynesboro. and she's standing with her daughter. yes caw lost her 15-year-old son in 2021 to fentanyl. she recently met with your wife at the governor's mansion and is working to tell her son's story. it's a tragic story, an awful story. we hear it increasingly why are there no narcan available in the school systems where we live? >> oh, jessica. first of all, i'm so terribly sorry for your loss. i'm a father of four. i cannot imagine the pain that you have gone through with your family. and, so, the first lady and i have been so focused on this issue that we have seen overdosings and poisonings go through the roof as we have a true epidemic and the free flow of drugs across our southern border. for those folks who don't know, our overdoses have doubled. and over 75% of them are from fentanyl. and this is something that we all have to wake up to, that we have to recognize, that one pill can kill. and whether it was taken purposefully or taken by accident, no one wants to die. no one chooses to die. we have an incredible antidote or treatment for this, which is narcan. i would encourage everybody to go through narcan training. i would go through it. it is easy and important and you can get certified quickly. we just put into our budget to get passed funding to make sure we can fully fund nar can supplies across virginia. the federal funding has run out. i want to replace that to make sure there are not schools or places across the common wealth of virginia that don't have a supply of narcan. >> thank you for telling that story. that is incredibly important that every parent be aware of that. some people might think it is a legal supplement and there is fentanyl in it. coming up, more with virginia governor glenn youngkin who is term limited, so does he have any future plans to run for any other office? 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( ♪ ) the future is here. we've been creating it for more than 100 years, putting the most advanced technology into people's hands. generation after generation. tool after tool. again and again. bringing you the broadest and most reliable network of service dealers. always moving forward. we lead. others follow. ♪ ♪ get $1500 purchase allowance on a 2023 cadillac xt5 and xt6. ♪ visit your local cadillac dealer today. welcome back to our town hall with republican governor glenn youngkin, talking about education. we have heard tonight from parents. we have heard from teachers. we have heard from faculty, two high school students and one middle school student. incredible. just for the kids, i want to ask you. we're talking k through 12 education. you had been a high school parent for more than a decade. your youngest is a senior in high school. you grew up in virginia. you played basketball in high school. did you like high school? >> yeah, i loved high school. i loved high school. you know, i -- but you have those enrollments -- >> boy, look at that. i made that shot. but you have these moments during your education you remember vividly. i remember fourth grade. ms. betty weaver was my teacher in virginia. ms. weaver believed in me. i might not have been trying very hard. she was tough. and she inspired me to try harder. after my dad lost his job, we were in middle haven. i had a pretty good basketball game. and somebody recruited me to come play basketball at a private school called norfolk academy and it changed my life. i had choice. yeah. there you go. i had choice. it was amazing. and pat gave me my first c. she woke me up and said, you could do a lot better if you try harder. basketball opened up all kinds of doors for me. it gave me a college scholarship to study mechanical engineering. i wanted to be an astronaut. they didn't tell me that at 6'6", you're not going into a rocket. but it was a benefit of a sport that carried me a long way. i love school. and i look back and envious of all of you here tonight. you guys have been great, so thank you. [ applause ] >> so for me, english, history, two of my favorite subjects, two of my favorite teachers. what was your favorite subject? >> i was a science guy. but it is amazing the two teachers i remember were my science teachers. they were my general studies teacher in fourth grade. i was probably pressed the hardest and learned the most from folks that may have seen something in me that i didn't see and challenged me. so, yes, for those teachers that are here tonight, i will repeat what i said earlier. there is going to be students that will remember you forever. so thank you for changing lives. >> he's clearly also saying give more cs. i'm just joking kids. no, i'm joking about that. i want you to meet michael mcgabe. he's a high school teacher, a former foreign service officer and a republican. mike? >> thank you for being here, governor. in our school and other virginia schools, we say the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of each day. yet, we cannot require the students to say the pledge, to stand, to pay attention or to do anything except stop walking and be quiet. the people actually saying the pledge are the most teachers and a few students. why not eliminate the requirement to say the pledge in virginia schools? >> i like the pledge of allegiance. i think it's really important for us to remember that there are ideals that formed this nation. it's not a geography. it was a nation that was formed by an idea. and that's why i'm so focused on the fact that our history standards need to tell all of our history, the good and the bad, but also need to tell the full story of america, from its founding all the way through our funding documents, which are critical for us to understand. we were a nation that was founded by imperfect men. a nation in pursuit of a more perfect union. and it's getting better and better and better every year. now, this is a -- this is about, i think, recognizing that america is exceptional. we've had some