Teachers union boss denies influential role in COVID mandates for kids

The head of America’s second-largest teachers union Wednesday denied the union’s instrumental role in implementing COVID-19 restrictions for children, which included closing schools.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten is known not only for promoting lockdowns but also for successfully lobbying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to keep schools closed even as evidence showed schools were not at risk for spreading COVID-19.  

Emails obtained by the New York Post showed that Weingarten heavily influenced the CDC’s school re-opening guidelines, which in some places included the union’s suggestions nearly verbatim. While the CDC had reportedly been ready to recommend that schools re-open safely, it changed its guidance dramatically to make no clear recommendation after talks with Weingarten.

AFT members went on strikes to protest the reopening of schools.

The AFT head also reportedly joined the largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), in bullying the CDC to restore mask mandates for children regardless of vaccination status.

But in her statement to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Wednesday, Weingarten denied ever pushing for school lockdowns and mandates, instead insisting she has always been for in-school learning.

“Being in school is essential to children’s academic, social and emotional well-being,” she said. “We know this not as a matter for study or the grist for a congressional investigation. We know this because we live it every day.”

In just the seven months after the pandemic began, psychiatric emergency visits rose 24% for 5–11-year-olds and 31% for children 12–17. Emergency visits by girls 12–17 for suspected suicide attempts rose 50%.

In October 2021 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and Children’s Hospital Association declared a national emergency in children’s mental health.

“Our efforts over the last three years to safely reopen schools — working with our members and with parents, communities and public health experts — provide a mountain of evidence that demonstrates our commitment to in-person learning,” added Weingarten.

A study from the UK’s National Health Services last year found that one in four teenagers 17–19 are likely to suffer from a mental disorder after lockdowns sparked a surge in cases. The number has skyrocketed from 17.4% per year to 25.7%. 

“We teach children, and we believe kids need to be in school — in school buildings. And it is even more offensive to suggest that our views at any time were shaped by considerations other than our profound desire and duty to protect children and their educators from the ravages of COVID-19,” said Weingarten Wednesday.

Despite pressuring the CDC to recommend masks for children regardless of vaccination status, Weingarten claimed that “vaccines were a game-changer” and “enabled us to advocate for a safe off-ramp from universal masking.”

But the union boss did not find sympathy among several Republican lawmakers on the committee. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) accused Weingarten of purchasing COVID-19 guidelines through donations to the Democratic Party. In the 2020 elections, the AFT was the 28th-largest outside spender, and the 24th in the 2022 elections.

“It’s no secret that your union, your local affiliates, spent $20 million on political donations, with nearly all of the funds going to Democrats and liberal groups in the 2020 cycle as the debate about reopening schools raged,” Malliotakis told Weingarten during the hearing. “And I think a question that we have is whether you had this type of access because of those contributions. We don’t see the parents being asked their opinions, or the private schools being asked their opinions on school re-openings.”

Malliotakis also noted that private schools opened a year before public schools did.

Previously, Weingarten attacked Jewish parents who pushed for re-opening schools, saying they were part of “the ownership class” and wanted to deprive others of opportunities.  

“American Jews are now part of the ownership class,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Jews were immigrants from somewhere else. And they needed the right to have public education. And they needed power to have enough income and wealth for their families that they could put their kids through college and their kids could do better than they have done. Both economic opportunity through the labor movement and an educational opportunity through public education were key for Jews to go from the working class to the ownership class.”  

She then accused Jewish parents of trying to undercut others.  

“[T]hose who are in the ownership class now want to take that ladder of opportunity away from those who do not have it. Am I saying that everything we do is right? No. Are people in Los Angeles fearful? Yes.”  

Weingarten went on to say that teachers are “scared” of returning to in-person teaching. 

Nevertheless, the AFT chief in October joined a call for “pandemic amnesty” and “to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.”