Biden team sought teachers unions' advice on school closures prior to taking office

It has been revealed that before assuming office, President Biden's transition team reached out to the American Federation of Teachers union for advice on COVID-19 which resulted in the delay of schools being reopened, New York Post reports.

While testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, union president Randi Weingarten, 65, admitted to congress that she was in discussions with both the Biden administration and the CDC.
 

"We were talking to the Biden transition team before he was sworn into office," Weingarten testified.

"Did they reach out to you?" Republican representative Brad Wenstrup of Ohio asked.

"The Biden transition team reached out to us," Weingarten replied.

"Did that include the next CDC director [Rochelle Walensky], or anybody that went to work for CDC?" Wenstrup asked.

"I don’t want to speculate," Weingarten said.

A clip was posted of Weingarten testifying before Congress saying that they "spent every day from February on trying to get schools open." Twitter users brought receipts to Community Notes, showing that history of the time shows that this was absolutely not the case.

Weingarten also testified that she had Walensky's direct number.

Both the AFT and the National Education Association (NEA) were in discussions with the White House beginning Jan. 29, 2021. Records show that Weingarten and CDC director Walensky spoke on the phone on Feb. 7 and Feb. 11.

After these phone calls, the CDC reversed course on its guidance. Walensky had said "schools should be the last thing to close and the first thing to open." But after talking with the teachers' unions, and gathering the opinion of "stakeholders," Walensky changed her tune.

It was shortly after these phone calls that the AFT and NEA developed a national press strategy, which included delaying in-person learning. 

In a press briefing on February 12, Walensky explained that the schools guidance was based on "...an understanding of the lived experiences, challenges, and perspectives, of teachers and school staff, parents, and students."

According to documents obtained from May 2021, the AFT had requested provisions be made to the re-opening of schools which then became a direct reflection of the Biden administration's covid guidance.

Those provisions included educators be allowed to work-from-home if they were considered "high-risk" or had a family member that was, and communities with high numbers of covid "cases" be allowed to conduct virtual learning.

In February 2022, CDC scientist Dr. Henry Walke testified before the House select subcommittee and said that the collaboration between the CDC and AFT about creating policies would "uncommon," the Post reports.

In 2021, an AFT union spokesperson said that their union was the CDC’s "thought partner" and praised the CDC for its "openness to the suggestions made by our president, Randi Weingarten." Weingarten's attorney has stated that the two proposal suggestions were within the union's legal rights.

"What happened was there was one particular edit that they [the CDC] accepted," Weingarten testified. "There were several ideas we proposed."

While House Republicans pressed the union president for answers, House Democrats failed to ask Weingarten tough questions.

Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene held Weingarten's feet to the fire.

The New York Post reports that out of the eight Democratic lawmakers who questioned Weingarten, six received "thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from AFT, including Ranking Member Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.), Oversight Chairman Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC) and Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.)."