When Governor Jay Inslee (D) closed the public and private schools of Washington State’s 1.1 million students on March 13, 2020, state education leaders made several key decisions that influenced the state’s attempt to deliver education services during the COVID-19 crisis. These decisions reflected the political priorities of the large, unwieldy, and inflexible bureaucracies and unions that run the public schools, not the needs of the parents whose children saw one-third of their 2019–2020 school year cancelled.