DC Teachers Union Makes Absurd Demand in School Reopening Negotiation

By Samantha Chang February 10, 2021 at 8:49am

After nearly a year of remote learning, public schools in Washington, D.C., are set to reopen. However, they must first submit to a laundry list of demands from the Washington Teachers’ Union.

Among the stipulations is that schools must immediately close for 24 hours if a single COVID-19 case is detected.

Moreover, students must quarantine for 14 days if a case is detected.

The DC Teachers’ Union and AFT Prez Randi Weingarten have called on DC to close entire schools for cleaning for at least 24 hrs if a Covid case is detected.

Kids are grouped in cohorts, and currently cohorts – not schools – must quarantine for 14-days if a case is detected

— Perry Stein (@PerryStein) February 9, 2021

The union rattled off its demands in a letter Tuesday to D.C.’s Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser, and public schools chancellor, Lewis Ferebee.

In the letter, the WTU said teachers will not return to work until a “Situation Room” is set up at every school to address any emergency COVID-related issues.

The union further demanded that any school where viral exposure has been confirmed must “close immediately for at least 24 hours to allow for a deep cleaning.”

Keep in mind that these “educators” are not curing cancer or performing brain surgery. Their job is to teach math, English and other subjects to children, who are at minuscule risk of either contracting or spreading the coronavirus.

washington teachers union demands

During the mass school closures of the past 11 months, most teachers were still paid even though they were not working the same hours as they did pre-COVID.

It must be a luxury to have a job where you’re paid your full salary for a year even if you don’t show up for work.

This is a whimsical extravagance at a time when millions of Americans are unemployed, have been forced to shutter their small businesses or have to wait in long lines at food banks in order to feed their families.

But if you belong to a teachers union, these plebeian concerns apparently are beneath you. You’re entitled to rattle off a long list of conditions before you deign to return to work.

Critics say all this suggests that many teachers simply do not want to work. Why work when you can get paid not to?

Numerous physicians and commentators have slammed the panic-pimping media, Dr. Anthony Fauci and left-wing politicians for doing incalculable damage to millions of children by forcing them to stay home for months when they should’ve been at school, learning and socializing.

Dr. Nicole Saphier, a physician and mom of three, said school closures are unscientific and have done more harm than good.

Do you think the union's demands are out of line?

“Not only is keeping children out of full-time inperson school anti-science but also complete horses—,” she tweeted Tuesday.

Sadly, it is low-income children who are suffering the most from these school shutdowns. Why? Their parents can’t afford to stay home and tutor their kids because they have to work to put food on the table.

Moreover, many low-income children are fed at public schools, where they eat breakfast and lunch for free.

Last week, a student at a public high school in Harlem, New York, spoke at a “Keep NYC Schools Open” rally at City Hall.

He recounted how horrible it has been for him and his peers to not be allowed to return to school for the past year.

“I feel like they gave up on us,” he said. “They looked at the public school kids and said you know what? They really aren’t that important.”

He underscored that remote learning is a farce. “Virtual school is not real school,” he said.

.@NYCMayor @UFT
A Harlem public h.s. senior & athlete from the Bronx at our City Hall rally this morning:

“I feel like they gave up on us…they looked at the public school kids & said you know what? They really aren’t that important.”#KeepNYCSchoolsOpen #openschools pic.twitter.com/b7Lele6s81

— #KeepNYCSchoolsOpen (@KeepNYCSchools1) February 3, 2021

In December, Fox News host Tucker Carlson blasted Fauci after the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases finally admitted that closing schools was a huge mistake because the data do not support the contention that schools are a viral hotspot.

Other so-called experts also conceded that former President Donald Trump was correct from the beginning when he said schools never should have shut down in the first place.

Carlson said the only reason the media breathlessly howled that schools should shut down was that their Trump Derangement Syndrome caused them to oppose anything he said.

Scientific studies confirmed that children are not at high risk to spread or contract the coronavirus. Nevertheless, Fauci and the left-wing media hyperventilated about the dangers of reopening schools.

Carlson said this was done to pander to the coddled teachers unions, which are among the largest donors to the Democratic Party.

“In April … a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that school-aged children who get the coronavirus ‘develop only mild symptoms and typically recover within two weeks,’” the Fox News host recalled.

“In June, a study in The Lancet affirmed this: ‘COVID-19 is generally a mild disease in children, including in infants.’ … Other studies found the exact same thing.”

Carlson concluded: “So the question is, why did we do this? The answer is to save the teachers.

“The teachers unions pushed this, and their servants in the Democratic Party obeyed. They’re the single largest donors to the Democratic Party, so of course they did.”

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