2nd, I announced that 80 percent of all teachers, school staff, and childcare workers across the country had received at least one dose of the COVID–19 vaccine. Since then, we have made even more progress in protecting our educators.
The American Rescue Plan is providing critical relief, including $122 billion in relief for K–12 schools to get students back in the classroom quickly and safely and address the needs of students. In addition, the American Rescue Plan includes $7.6 billion for special education, children and youth experiencing homelessness, Tribal educational agencies, Native Hawaiians, and Alaska Natives, emergency assistance to non-public schools, and the outlying areas of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as $40 billion for higher education.
Education is the one field that makes all others possible. Every one of us has been shaped by someone who inspired our curiosity and helped us find our confidence, who guided us to think more clearly and pushed us to strive for better. On National Teacher Appreciation Day and during National Teacher Appreciation Week, we remember the tremendous debt of gratitude owed to educators everywhere who helped define us as individuals and as a country, and to all that they are doing to light the way forward for our families and our communities.
Now, therefore, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim May 4, 2021, as National Teacher Appreciation Day and May 2 through May 8, 2021, as National Teacher Appreciation Week. I call upon all Americans to recognize the hard work and dedication of our Nation’s teachers and to observe this day and this week by supporting teachers through appropriate activities, events, and programs.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
[FR Doc. 2021–09592
Filed 5–4–21; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3295–F1–P
