On Tuesday’s broadcast of C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten stated that the CDC “asked us for language and we gave them language when they asked us for it” on school reopenings.
Weingarten said, [relevant exchange begins around 20:00] “Well, the CDC was doing its job and we were doing our job, and everything –. So, essentially what happened was, the CDC, in February and March, basically asked all sorts of different organizations to sit down with them and give them comments about what they thought was important. They talked to parent organizations. They talked to the two unions. And one of the things that we didn’t see in the CDC draft — and they explained what their draft was — is that there were variants that were right around the corner in Great Britain. Look, there’s this variant in India that I’m very concerned about that some epidemiologists are very concerned about. … But, we said, if you see these variants, could you actually look at them and see if there’s something that you need to do to rethink the guidelines? And frankly, they actually rethought them in a different way. They rethought them to say that physical distancing should be three feet, not six feet. Which we, initially, were concerned about. So, that was number one. And the second one was that we are really concerned about intergenerational households and people being concerned about bringing COVID home. … So, we said that the accommodations that should happen should happen if you are taking care of a grandma in your home, if you’re taking care of a sick child, and that you’re afraid — particularly, before the vaccines — that you’re not going to — that you’re going to bring COVID home. Remember, 45% of COVID spreads asymptomatically. So, this is normal rulemaking. Frankly, this is what every administration used to do. The problem with the last administration is they didn’t do it.”
Host Pedro Echevarria then asked, “So, you call it normal though, I guess in the write-up in the Post saying those two suggestions that you offered — at least your organization offered make it nearly verbatim in the final draft. You call that normal as far as the ability to do that?”
Weingarten responded, “Look, Pedro, we — they asked us for language and we gave them language when they asked us for it. But if you look at the public record, I was saying these things publicly, these kinds of things. So there’s nothing nefarious about doing these kind — this kind of work. And frankly, we have said to the CDC, everyone should have — parents should be — they should be communicating with parents. They should be communicating with educators. They have to communicate with those who actually are impacted by their policies. The science tells you where the pandemic is going. The impact, the logistics are something that one has to do. This is — there was nothing — everything that we said privately, we’ve been saying publicly. And ultimately, the fact that there are variants, the fact that there needs to be — there needed to be accommodations, this is part of what creates the trust that we can reopen schools fully in the fall. Again, safety is the way in which you reopen. Only people who think that our members are not the people who are impacted like students, like parents, would raise these issues.”
(h/t Grabien)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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