Entire California school board resigns after officials caught on hot mic trashing parents who wanted to reopen schools



An entire school board in northern California resigned after a video of the officials bashing parents went viral. In a virtual meeting, the school officials ridiculed parents who wanted in-person public education to resume. The video grabbed nationwide headlines.

Shortly after the video surfaced online, a petition sprung up that called for the resignation of the school board members, and quickly amassed thousands of signatures. The president and three other members of the Oakley Union Elementary School District resigned on Friday after they were caught on a hot mic leak lambasting parents who want schools reopened.

President Lisa Brizendine, as well as Kim Beede, Erica Ippolito, and Richie Masadas, all resigned after becoming infamous on the internet for trouncing parents, including insinuating that they're drug users.

The district's superintendent, Greg Hetrick, announced the board's resignation on Friday and disavowed the "truly inappropriate comments."

"The comments made were not in alignment with our vision and are definitely not what any of us stand for as leaders," Hetrick told Fox News. "I know that we lost trust with the community. I will not make excuses for what happened or why it happened."

Hetrick said that the departing school board would temporarily be replaced by members of the Contra Costa County education board, according to Mercury News. The school district is about 50 miles east of San Francisco.

Brizendine issued an apology after announcing her resignation as president of the school board.

"I am raising a 10-year-old with special needs and having him home during this pandemic, while also holding down two jobs to support my family has been a huge stress," Brizendine said. "I suffer with many of the same things that parents are going through from mental health issues to regression. My remark was callous and uncalled for and for that I am truly sorry."

However, during the viral video, Brizendine didn't seem to show empathy toward parents who are struggling to balance their new stressful pandemic lives where they have taken a greater role in the education of their children.

"It's really unfortunate that they want to pick on us because they want their babysitters back," Brizendine said of parents in the video, which she thought was a private conversation with her peers, but was being broadcast to the public and recorded. She also insulted teachers by calling them "babysitters."

School board member Richie Masadas seemed to suggest that parents are upset that classrooms are closed because children being home interrupts the adults smoking marijuana. Masadas said his brother is a cannabis delivery person, "and the clientele were parents with their kids in school." He allegedly noted that the parents were angry because could no longer "smoke up" now that their kids are home.

Oakley Union trustee Kim Beede reportedly went on a profanity-laced tirade during the eight-minute video.

"Are we alone? "B****, if you're gonna call me out, I'm going to f*** you up. Sorry, that's just me."

Beede, Masadas, and Ippolito issued an apology.

"We deeply regret the earlier comments that were made in the meeting of the Board of Education earlier this week," the joint statement by now ex-board members reads. "As trustees, we realize it is our responsibility to model the conduct that we expect of our students and staff, and it is our obligation to build confidence in district leadership; our comments failed you in both regards, and for this we offer our sincerest apology."

Ashley Stalf, whose 6-year-old daughter attends a school in the district, reacted to the school board openly disparaging parents.

"We meet regularly with the board as parents and we're constantly sending in letters and emails and telling them our griefs and our strife's over distance learning," Stalf told host Steve Doocy on "Fox & Friends." "It seems as of late that they mocked us, that we're just complaining and we have nothing better to do."

Stalf asked, "What are their true intentions, if they feel so freely that they can talk, you know, on a mic that may or may not be hot, what's truly being said behind closed doors?"

Parents are frustrated since public schools in California have been closed for in-person education for months.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, declared earlier this month that schools shouldn't reopen until the massive $1.9 trillion COVID-19 economic stimulus plan is passed.

Oakley Union Elementary School Board Meeting www.youtube.com

LA Times editorial board tells city's superintendent of schools 'to put on his big-boy pants' and reopen schools



To say that parents nationwide are tired of the mixed messages they're getting from school district leadership, the state governments, and the teachers' unions would be an understatement.

But parents are easy to ignore. American school districts have been doing it for decades.

From New York to Chicago to Portland, elected leaders are instead cowering to teachers' unions and refusing to get teachers back in classrooms even as state and federal health officials repeatedly declare that it's safe to return to in-person instruction.

In Los Angeles, teachers have been fighting going back to work for months now — and the cries of parents and students seemingly have been ignored by the bigwigs of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

However, one group in L.A. that is harder to ignore just jumped into the fray on the side of parents: the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times.

In a Wednesday editorial, the paper declared that the city's school district "is officially out of excuses for keeping elementary schools closed" and that the superintendent "needs to put on his big-boy pants" and tell educators to get back into the classroom.

The paper noted that despite the fact that schools across the country have reopened with little risk and that elementary students are "far less likely" to get COVID or infect others and that there have been zero surges caused by reopened schools, L.A. Unified schools (and many others throughout California) have remained shuttered.

According to the paper, Superintendent Austin Beutner can finally open schools now because the county's infection rate has fallen to the point where it is "officially safe" for every elementary school in the county to open.

Yet, Beutner — who has been in an ongoing struggle with United Teachers Los Angeles — still does not have any immediate plans to reopen, the Times said.

"There are no more excuses. Further delay is unacceptable," the paper declared.

Beutner has been acquiescing to UTLA's demands — getting school buildings ready for teachers and students, updating testing availability, and implementing an elaborate tracing regimen, not to mention pushing to get teachers vaccinated before returning (which public experts have repeatedly said is not necessary) — yet the union continues to stand in the way.

The Times has a message for Beutner: Get tough with the unions and demand that teachers get back to work — or understand they could find themselves out of work.

From the Times:

It's not easy to go against UTLA, as Beutner learned during a bruising strike two years ago. But at this point, the superintendent needs to put on his big-boy pants, reopen schools and demand that teachers return or risk their jobs. Union leaders in turn need to realize that not only are students done a tremendous disservice by the continued closures, but most parents vehemently want their kids back in the classroom. The union is jeopardizing its own popularity if it continues to put the needs of students and families last.

It's also time for Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the paper said, to "fall in line with the CDC" and get kids back into schools.

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

'Really f***ed up': Progressive writer blasts Democrats for playing politics, cowering to unions, and ignoring science in refusal to reopen schools



Parents across the country have been clamoring for state governments to reopen schools, yet in blue states those calls are largely being ignored, while red states are far more likely to have reopened schools.

The Democratic intransigence on opening schools has not escaped Americans' attention — both on the political right and left.

One Bay Area writer — and admitted left-wing progressive — is taking her fellow leftists and the Democrats they support to task for playing politics with kids' lives by cowering to teachers' unions and ignoring science in their refusal to get schools open again.

Dr. Rebecca Bodenheimer, an Oakland-based writer, posted what she called her "rant" about the politics involved in the fight over reopening schools this weekend — and she went directly after the "Democratic apathy" and the party's ties to teachers' unions.

Noting that experts in public health, including the CDC, have said it is safe to reopen schools and that reopening should be a priority, Bodenheimer lamented that "anyone can sit by and think this is an acceptable state of affairs for a developed country" and said it makes her "blood boil to see how little this country cares about kids."

And then she went after the specific culprits in all of this: Democratic leadership and teachers' unions.

"The politicization of this issue is what's really f***ed up," she wrote.

"Schools are largely open in red states and closed in blue ones," Bodenheimer continued, pointing to "Burbio's K-12 School Opening Tracker."

The tracker — which features an "in-person index" based on weighted averages of virtual, hybrid, and in-person instruction — clearly shows that red states are far more likely to have students back in the classroom than blue states.

Burbio's K-12 School Opening Tracker (updated 2-17-21)Calculated by weighting % virtual instruction at 0, % hybri… https://t.co/YhfT36qLpl
— Chris Field (@Chris Field)1613570842.0

Bodenheimer has found herself flummoxed by the situation.

"It's very difficult for me to understand the simplistic thinking that says: Trump said open schools, so we must keep them closed at all costs," she said. "I have never felt so alienated from the people I usually align myself with politically. I will never understand how the left in this country has decided that advocating for putting kids first is somehow right-wing."

She's not the only one her in tribe noticing the left's failure, she said. Liberal California parents like her are about ready to take out their frustration on Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom:

I'm hearing from progressive parents all the time who are so infuriated about the Democratic apathy around school reopening — from politicians like Gavin Newsom, who are willing to allow their stances to be dictated by teachers' unions — that they're considering supporting the recall effort, maybe even switching parties.

But she reserved her harshest criticism for the unions that have ignored the science surrounding the coronavirus and schools:

[H]ere's the thing: parents are not willing to sacrifice their kids' wellbeing for the sake of ideology or being a good leftist. And they shouldn't. It's our most important job to do what's best for our kids. And if that means calling out teachers' unions, so be it. I won't stay silent while unions ignore the science and the entire public health community, and all the research telling us schools aren't drivers of transmission, that spread is much lower in schools than in the surrounding community. Last March we didn't know any better. But now we know — and we've known for months. Europe opened up in the fall. Florida, Texas, all the red states opened up. Rhode Island was one of the few blue states that was committed to putting kids first. Can you remember even one major outbreak that was tied to school transmission (not a handful of cases, but an outbreak)? I can't. And teachers aren't at greater risk either.

Many of the parents I'm working with on this issue see themselves as progressive and have until now supported organized labor and unions (I myself went to the picket line for Oakland teachers 2 years ago), but it's so clear to us that teachers' unions are dead wrong on this issue and that their interests are diametrically opposed to what's best for our kids. Your own kid might be doing ok in remote learning, but by and large, kids aren't doing well. Mine sure isn't. Just remember: the principles of child development haven't just vanished because we're in a pandemic. It's still not good to have our kids in front of the screen for hours upon hours every day. Kids still need to learn alongside other kids and still need to play with other kids. What I'm saying is, there's no amount of improvement of distance learning you can do that will make it be a good platform for learning.

Unions and their allies, according to Bodenheimer, need to abandon their "absurd justifications" for not reopening — "like denying there's any learning loss associated with distance learning or suggesting parents can be adequate substitutes for teachers" — and get back to work.

The teachers' unions' "tone-deaf and ridiculous" claims are undermining the proclaimed worth of teachers, she noted.

"If parents or anyone else could fill in so easily, why should we pay teachers more?" she asked. "Why should we value them as professionals?"

Female columnist wants to know: The 'anti-science' school closings are hitting women extra hard, so where are the feminists?



New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz has been leading the charge in New York media to get schools reopened. All of her research and campaigning and networking have led her to an important question:

"Where are all the feminists when women need them?"

In a new op-ed, "Feminists are MIA as anti-science school closings brutally slam women," Markowicz took a look at the recently posted job numbers that showed the U.S. economy lost 140,000 jobs in December. According to the National Women's Law Center, Markowicz noted, "women lost 156,000 jobs while men actually gained 16,000."

One of the leading factors in female unemployment, the writer said, is the fact that tens of millions of children are stuck at home as state and local governments buckle to teachers' unions' demands and refuse to reopen classrooms.

For example, in New York City, tens of thousands of middle and high school students who go to public school have not been in a classroom since November, when the district was offering part-time in-person instruction. This despite the fact that Gotham prioritized teachers for the COVID vaccine — at the behest of the unions — in order to get classrooms reopened. Yet the teachers have refused to go back full-time, and United Federation of Teachers is threatening that the schools might not even be able to reopen full-time by September.

And who is bearing the economic brunt of teachers' recalcitrance? Markowicz asked rhetorically.

Women.

Yet feminists are nowhere to be found:

Even more female workers may have felt forced to “voluntarily" give up their jobs to be home looking after kids exiled from their school buildings at the behest of powerful teachers' unions. Oh, and as CNN reports, the job losses hit black and Hispanic women disproportionately. Feminists are supposed to care about minorities, along with women, aren't they?

The giant, roof-busting elephant in the room: Women have been hit especially hard by the pandemic in large part because school, in many major American cities, has all but ceased to exist. And yet that deafening sound no one hears is the tragic silence of a feminist movement that has chosen to side with teachers' unions instead of with women throughout the country who are bearing the brunt of these school closures.

When kids have to be home, the workload of child care, meal preparation and playing Zoom Sherpa lands squarely on moms. Some kids attend schools that have been closed for in-person learning since March. Other kids, the lucky ones, attend schools operating on an extremely truncated schedule, one to three days a week.

Markowicz's stance is backed up by more than just the recent jobs numbers. A recently published Gallup survey showed the impact school closures have had on unemployment. The report revealed that parents of students learning remotely are more than twice as likely to be either working only part-time or unemployed as the parents of students who are in the classroom full-time.

Time to get kids back to school: Parents with kids doing remote learning are twice as likely to be unemployed or wo… https://t.co/zs564SQ7oS
— Chris Field (@Chris Field)1611765407.0

The survey found that a clear majority (57%) of women with kids in school full-time are employed full-time, while just over a third (38%) of women with kids learning remotely are employed full-time. Moms with kids stuck at home are far more likely to be employed only part-time, unemployed, or out of the labor force altogether.

Time to get kids back to school: Employment status of women with kids learning remotelyMore from Gallup:… https://t.co/laSimWl4PS
— Chris Field (@Chris Field)1611765427.0

Right or wrong, feminists are often characterized as shrieking whenever they detect even the slightest affront to women. So where are they now? Markowicz wants to know.

"This should be feminism's moment," she wrote. "Activists on behalf of women should be screaming their heads off that we must follow the science and open schools."

But no, they're not daring to take a stand, demonstrating once again that the feminist movement is selectively pro-woman.

"These supposed champions for women sit silently by as moms crumble in the face of all that is expected of them," Markowicz concluded. "A real pro-woman movement would urge action. That action begins with opening our schools."

Commentary: Remember when the Biden administration was going to listen to the experts at the CDC? That lasted two weeks.



One of the more frequent complaints leveled by the Biden campaign was that the Trump administration was exerting improper pressure on experts from public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to shape their opinions to match what President Trump's base wanted to hear.

"I think it's important to follow the science. Listen to the experts. Do what they tell you," Biden said in April — a refrain that he would repeat often on the campaign trail.

Immediately after being inaugurated, Biden bragged, "We're going to make sure [scientists] work free from political interference and they make decisions strictly based on science and health care alone."

Well, the experts have spoken. Earlier this week, Biden's hand-picked director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, stated unequivocally, "There is increasing data to suggest that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest that teachers need to be vaccinated in order to reopen safely. Vaccination of teachers is not a prerequisite for the safe reopening of schools."

Walensky made these comments at a CDC briefing, standing at a podium and answering questions from reporters in her official capacity as the director of the CDC. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to believe that Walensky's comments constituted anything other than the CDC's official position on school reopening. Nor, for that matter, is there any reason to suspect that Walensky was speaking off the cuff or out of pocket. Indeed, her comments merely echoed what public health experts have been saying since the beginning of the pandemic: that schools are extremely low-risk environments for the spread of COVID-19.

In fact, even the liberal Democrats who run the city of Chicago (and Chicago Public Schools) cited Walensky's comments while attempting to convince the recalcitrant Chicago Teachers Union to return to the classrooms they were hired to instruct in.

Suffice it to say, however, that the teachers unions do not agree with this assessment. Across the country, enabled and emboldened by the elected Democrats that they have donated millions to, they have claimed that they alone, for some reason, should be exempt from having to return to their workplaces, while workers in other, more dangerous industries (like the food processing industries) have been back at work for months.

Rather than listen to the public health experts who have universally concluded that their workplaces already are safe, they have demanded that their schools meet a series of impractical or non-germane metrics before they will return to work — for example, until all children are vaccinated with a vaccine that has not been approved for use on children, or until racial and "equity needs" are met.

Until then, they insist, they will do their jobs from home, and receive deliveries at home from Amazon workers who have been forced to go back to work, and eat food that has been prepared and packaged by people whose lives are apparently worth less than theirs, because they were forced to go back to work months ago. These teachers who have hypocritically refused to re-enter a classroom during the pandemic and have accused people who insist that they do so of trying to kill them have continued, during the last year, to enjoy the benefits of a society that continues to more or less function because of people who, unlike them, have willingly returned to their places of employment, and also unlike them do not have the benefit of a union that donates heavily to the dominant political party in their state.

And so Biden, whose election campaign was bolstered by the teachers unions enormous war chests, found that he was not so enamored of the idea of "mak[ing] sure [scientists] work free from political interference," after all. Almost immediately, the Biden administration claimed, contrary to the evidence, that Walensky was speaking in her "personal capacity" when she spoke as the director of the CDC at a CDC news conference.

Now, the agency has made it official: Walensky's comments will be walked back and replaced with new comments next week.

CDC Director Walensky says the "official guidance" from CDC on school reopenings will be released "in the week ahea… https://t.co/hyWfng69an
— Bo Erickson CBS (@Bo Erickson CBS)1612542976.0

Walensky, who is one of the most respected infectious disease experts in the nation, has already indicated what she believes, based on the science and the evidence. Dismissing her advice, given less than two weeks into her term, as remarks made in her "personal capacity" does not bode well for the principle of allowing the CDC to make decisions "strictly based on science and health care alone," as Biden promised.

Make no mistake: The Biden administration has already telegraphed, less than two weeks into his presidency, that he, too, will allow political considerations to govern the advice given by the CDC. It's just that under his administration, the people who dominate the political considerations will be the people who donated to and supported his campaign, not Trump's.

Oregon teachers unions insisted teachers get vaccinations before schools reopen, so the governor put them at the front of the line. Now, they're refusing to go back to work.



Teachers in Oregon demanded to be vaccinated before retuning to the classroom, so their governor obliged by putting them at the front of the line — even ahead of the state's vulnerable senior population. Now, vaccinated educators, with the backing of their unions, are refusing to go back to work.

And everybody's angry — even the editorial board of state's giant liberal newspaper.

What happened?

Oregon Democratic Gov. Kate Brown took a big risk in January.

Recognizing the importance of schools reopening, she pushed teachers and school staff to the front of her state's COVID-19 vaccination line — even ahead of senior Oregonians — the Willamette Week reported.

The move came because the teachers unions in the Beaver State demanded that teachers and staff be vaccinated before returning to the classroom.

On Jan. 25, teachers and school staff began receiving their shots, while Oregonians ages 80 years and older were forced to wait until Feb. 7, the Willamette Week said.

The move was a "bold" one, according to the Oregonian, considering that seniors account for more than 80% of Oregon's COVID-related deaths.

Seniors, naturally, were upset by the decision, but Brown justified the move by focusing on the importance of reopening schools. But, as the the Oregonian noted in an editorial, "her justification for this extraordinary decision falls apart if schools across the state don't actually reopen — a significant concern as some teachers unions question returning to in-person instruction."

And Brown has reason to worry: The Oregon Education Association and the Portland Association of Teachers both are backing teachers who don't want to return to the classroom, the Willamette Week reported Wednesday, as parents grow more irate and educators' refusal to do their jobs.

Portland Association of Teachers President Elizabeth Thiel admitted to the Willamette Week that, yes, the union "did ask for teachers to be vaccinated before a return to in-person learning. Because that makes sense."

Now, she said, because they did not ask to be put at the front of the line, teachers are in a "terrible position where we've been given a thing that is so needed in our community, that people are literally dying for not having access to, and then told, because we were given this, we need to go into live instruction, even though there are so many unanswered questions and concerns about whether that is going to cause an increase in community spread."

She did not elaborate on how being moved to the front of the line somehow negated teachers' insistence that returning to the classroom was contingent upon receiving vaccinations.

Guidance from the Oregonian

The Oregonian had some advice for their readers when it comes to their governor and her gamble on teachers: They should "expect and demand that she deliver."

Unfortunately, Brown already appears to be disavowing responsibility for ensuring schools reopen. With educators receiving vaccines now, Oregonians should expect and demand that she deliver. A failure on Brown's part would be an unconscionable betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of seniors who are being forced to wait in service of a greater good.

While we disagree with the decision to postpone vaccines for older Oregonians, whose vulnerability merits prioritization, the die has been cast. We also believe schools can reopen safely even without vaccines, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reaffirmed last week, but recognize the political necessity of vaccinations to get schools open. [...]

But Brown has taken a hands-off approach to the brewing conflicts between school districts and their teachers unions, who are balking at returning to the classroom even with vaccines.

And the paper offered this advice to Gov. Brown:

Brown can start by publicly calling on teachers unions to commit to reopening schools this year, even if that means extending the year into the summer. She can ask teachers who have no intention of returning to the classroom to delay their vaccines and free up doses for those who will. She and the Legislature should also explore what legal tools they have to require vaccinated staff to return to the classroom. And she should remind them of how many essential workers in food processing plants, grocery stores, social service organizations and more have been going to work without the benefit of a vaccine because that's what being an essential worker means.

It's time for Brown, who "sold out older Oregonians," to "not sell out younger Oregonians," the paper said, and instead "own the responsibility of getting it done."

Mike Bloomberg tells teachers to 'suck it up' and get back to work; says President Biden needs to 'stand up to the unions'



Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week that it's time for President Joe Biden to get serious when it comes to reopening schools.

In a wide-ranging interview Wednesday with MSBNC on how the nation can recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, Bloomberg pulled no punches when it came to getting schools reopened across the country and offered some free advice to the president: It's time to stand up to the teachers unions and tell educators "suck it up" and get back to work.

What happened?

Americans have witnessed an ongoing debate at city, state, and federal levels about the need to reopen schools. For example:

  • Cities like San Francisco, New York, and Chicago have seen teachers unions standing in the way of reopening.
  • Iowa had to pass a law to require all state schools to offer full-time, in-person learning by Feb. 15.
  • President Biden vowed to do what he could to get schools to reopen in the first 100 days of his administration, but less than a week after being sworn in, he began echoing national teachers unions' rhetoric about dealing getting back into the classrooms.

Bloomberg, who has been advocating for reopening schools for some time, wasn't standing for it and called the current situation a "disgrace."

"I think that what we're doing to poor kids is a disgrace," the former mayor said. "These poor kids are not in school. They will never recover from this — and they had a bad education experience anyways. We have not had good schools for poor kids. And this, now, is just so much worse."

Biden "has to stand up to the unions," Bloomberg said.

What about the teachers' concerns about safety during the pandemic?

Bloomberg had a message for them, too: Hey, get back to work, risks are "part of the job."

"Teachers say, 'Well, I don't want to go back because it's dangerous,'" he began. "We have a lot of city and state and federal employees who run risks — that's part of the job. You run risks to help America, to help your state, to help your city, to help your family, and there's just no reason not to have the schools open."

But, but, but what about distance learning? Isn't that working?

Nope, Bloomberg said.

"Virtual classes are a joke — worse than a joke," he continued. "Poor people don't have iPads. They don't have WiFi. They don't have somebody at home to sit during the day and force the child to pay attention, and without that, the virtual learning just does not exist."

Biden needs to push unions to the side

In order to counteract the "disaster" that school kids are facing, he said, Biden needs to push unions to the side and focus on the kids. And teachers, for their part, just need to "suck it up."

Noting the problems Chicago and New York City have had with the teachers unions, Bloomberg said, "It's time for Joe Biden to stand up and say the kids are the most important things, important players here, and the teachers just are going to have to suck it up and stand up and provide an education. Otherwise, these kids have no chance, whatsoever."

Relevant portion begins at the 7:14 mark:

Another reason to reopen schools: Parents with kids stuck learning remotely are twice as likely to be unemployed or working only part-time



For the last several months, Americans have had a nationwide debate on the need to reopen schools. The intensity of that debate has picked up over the last few weeks with the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The fight over returning to schools has centered largely on the well-being of students. Is it safe for kids to be in the classroom? Are kids learning as well with remote learning as they would be in the classroom? How is not being at school impacting their mental and emotional health?

Naturally, there also have been discussions about teacher safety. Which, of course, brought the unions to the forefront of the fight over reopening and exposed their role in keeping schools closed.

But one group heavily impacted by school closures has not received nearly as much attention: parents, specifically working (or formerly working) parents.

A new Gallup survey revealed this week that parents of students learning remotely are twice as likely to be either working only part time or unemployed as the parents of students who are in the classroom full time.

What did the survey say?

According to Gallup's report, nearly three-quarters of parents said their student is doing the remote-learning thing at least part time. Some 55% of parents said their student is full-time remote, and 18% said their child is part-time remote.

Only 26% of parents with kids in school said their child is learning in person full-time.

It turns out being forced to have kids at home for remote learning may well have a negative impact on employment.

Parents whose children are doing remote learning full or part time are two times more likely to be either unemployed or employed part time than those whose kids have daily in-person learning. Plus, parents of remote learners are markedly more likely to not even be in the labor force.

From Gallup:

Parents whose children are engaged in distance learning are significantly more likely than those whose kids are at school full time to be out of the labor force altogether -- 24% vs. 15%. They are also about twice as likely to be working part time (18% vs. 9%) or unemployed (11% vs. 5%).
Time to get kids back to school: Parents with kids doing remote learning are twice as likely to be unemployed or wo… https://t.co/zs564SQ7oS
— Chris Field (@Chris Field)1611765407.0

Broken down by moms and dads, the survey found that a clear majority (57%) of women with kids in school full time are employed full time, while just over a third (38%) of women with kids learning remotely are employed full time.

Women with kids learning remotely are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed or employed part time.

Time to get kids back to school: Employment status of women with kids learning remotelyMore from Gallup:… https://t.co/laSimWl4PS
— Chris Field (@Chris Field)1611765427.0

The impact on men's employment is equally profound.

Just 61% of men with kids stuck with remote learning are employed full time while 87% of men with kids at school every day are fully employed.

Men with children learning remotely are more than twice as likely to be employed part time and four times more likely to be unemployed.

Time to get kids back to school: Employment status of men with kids learning remotelyMore from Gallup:… https://t.co/9v8jZIGmsJ
— Chris Field (@Chris Field)1611765443.0

​Teacher union leader says 'white supremacy' fuels reopening efforts, concerns over lockdown suicides are 'white privilege'



The leader of a teachers union in Washington state is facing criticism after he said that reopening efforts are fueled by "white supremacy" and concerns over lockdown suicides were "white privilege."

Scott Wilson, the president of the Pasco Association of Educators, made the comments during a Jan. 12 school board meeting, according to the Tri-City Herald.

"We must not ignore the culture of white supremacy and white privilege. We have seen it in the 'free to breathe,' reopen everything, rodeos and rallies that received county commissioner support. The same county commissioner directs our health," Wilson said.

"No one wants remote learning, but it is the right thing to do. We know the equity concerns, virus transmission is high, heading higher, with so many ignoring and avoiding measures to stop the spread, remote learning is the right decision," he added.

Wilson also compared the efforts to reopen schools to the attack on the U.S. Capitol by those angry with the election results. He later addressed letters to the board from parents calling teachers lazy and demanding the reopening of schools.

"They complain their students are suicidal without school or sports," said Wilson. "As a father daily surviving the suicide of my son, I find these statements ignorant and another expression of white privilege. Huge daily death tolls from this pandemic, seditious attacks on our Capitol, plus a new, more transmittable strain of the virus while our case numbers are rising again."

Some teachers were upset by the characterization from Wilson and pushed back in the form of a letter circulated on Facebook that demanded the teachers leave the union over his comments.

"After the alarming comments made by our (PAE) President Scott Wilson last week, we can no long stay silent," the letter said. "This is not a true representation of what we as teachers feel we sacrifice and strive to teach students of all colors, cultures and backgrounds."

Wilson said in a statement to the Herald that coronavirus infection concerns were more deeply felt among Latino families because of the greater preponderance of multi-generational households.

"We need to ensure that the educational experience is equitable between remote and in-person, because if we're focusing on face-to-face without making our remote system robust, we're perpetuating inequities in educational opportunities that already exist," he added.