We Were Right to Fight for Open Schools
U.S. House report vindicates parents
My friend Beth-Ann Rosica is a crusader for open schools and children’s rights. We first met virtually at the beginning of the pandemic- her Pennsylvania group Back to School PA was trailblazing a path to reopening schools and getting parents (rather than union cronies) elected to local school boards.
In NYC, we had a lot to learn, and the Pennsylvania parents took us under their wing. I interviewed Beth-Ann, Paul Martino and other parent leaders in Pennsylvania back in June 2022 for our soon-to-be-released documentary 15 Days which will show just how terrible and unscientific the policies that kept schools closed for up to two years in some places, were.
The unions held all the cards. Parents were left scrambling and many children will never recover what was lost.
Here’s Beth-Ann on the House Select Subcommittee report on the Coronavirus pandemic, which was issued just last week.
Not that we needed vindication, but we got it.
Hopefully now that Jay Bhattacharya is heading to the NIH and Marty Makary to FDA, a new era awaits and public health can redeem itself by committing to help the children and youth who have been so damaged by closures and mandates.
Natalya
“Truth is usually the best vindication against slander,” wrote Abraham Lincoln in 1864 in the midst of the Civil War. Some 160 years later, those words still hold relevance.
As a parent who fiercely advocated to open schools and eliminate masking, social distancing, and quarantine requirements, I feel partially vindicated by the 500+ page report issued by the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
In 2020, I pushed back on Governor Tom Wolf’s orders to close schools for two weeks, then six weeks, and eventually the rest of the school year. Despite my predictions of academic decline, deterioration of mental and physical health, and exponential child abuse, Wolf and every elected Democrat in the state of Pennsylvania ignored me.
I was called a “traitor,” “murderer,” “Q-Anon conspiracy theorist,” “right-wing Christian nationalist,” “racist,” and “transphobe.” My children were bullied at school and in the community because I spoke out and refused to be silenced. Friends and neighbors stopped speaking to me and labeled me as “selfish” because I wanted my kids and other kids to have access to full-time in-person instruction.
We organized rallies to implore our school board to open schools and to compel the Chester County Health Department to lift their ridiculous guidance requiring six feet of social distancing. I deleted my Facebook account because the woke mob kept coming after me and I would not back down.
And finally, this month, almost four years after these tragic events, the subcommittee released the “After Action Review of the Covid-19 Pandemic: the lessons learned and a path forward” report. While there were no surprises in that report for me personally, I finally received some much awaited vindication.
This is not about being right. I sincerely wish that my predictions had been wrong, but sadly they were gross underrepresentations. The current generation of children may never recover from the damage done during extended school closures, masking and social distancing. And that is why it is not enough to simply document what happened — we need to hold individuals accountable for their actions.
The subcommittee report is comprehensive, as they “sent 100 investigative letters, conducted 38 transcribed interviews or depositions, held 25 hearings or meetings, and reviewed more than one million pages of documents from dozens of custodians” as a part of the process.
Their findings span many topics, including confirmation that the virus originated in a lab in China, gross mismanagement of Covid-relief funds, a coordinated effort by public health officials to ignore natural immunity, and the lack of science to support vaccine mandates.
While those are all important findings, the ones of most interest to me are about the extended school closures, masking, social distancing, and the undue influence of the national teachers’ union in these policy areas.
The report confirms there was no “science” to support extended school closures, masking, or social distancing. Furthermore, Dr. Anthony Fauci lied to the American public, and state and local health departments blindly followed his guidance. I hope that he is held accountable for his actions.
The press release issued on December 2, 2024, regarding the report summarizes the findings.
Regarding school closures, “the ‘science’ never justified prolonged school closures. Children were unlikely to contribute to the spread of Covid-19 or suffer severe illness or mortality. Instead, as a result of school closures, children experienced historic learning loss, higher rates of psychological distress, and decreased physical well-being.”
Regarding social distancing, “the ‘6 feet apart’ social distancing recommendation — which shut down schools and small business across the country — was arbitrary and not based on science. During closed door testimony, Dr. Fauci testified that the guidance, ‘sort of just appeared.’”
Pertaining to social distancing, “there was no conclusive evidence that masks effectively protected Americans from Covid-19. Public health officials flipped-flopped on the efficacy of masks without providing Americans scientific data — causing a massive uptick in public distrust.”
These findings reveal that the majority of school districts in Pennsylvania followed not only poor but misguided recommendations — which were not rooted in science — from their local, state, and federal health departments. It also questions whether school districts may be liable for the consequences of extended school closures and forcibly masking children against their parent’s wishes.
Furthermore, the report shows that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) colluded with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), a national political labor union, to keep schools closed.
“Schools remained closed longer than necessary because of AFT’s political interference in the CDC’s school reopening guidance. AFT is a political union, not a scientific organization, that advocated for mitigation efforts that prolonged school closures — including an automatic closure ‘trigger,’” the report said.
The full report contains 27 pages (pages 411 to 437) documenting the AFT’s unique undue influence with the CDC. No other agency had as much influence on the school re-opening guidance than this politically-motivated labor union. “Testimony revealed that AFT President Weingarten had a direct telephone line to contact former CDC Director Walensky.”
The report also properly confirms that the union attempted to rewrite history and pretend that they were focused on re-opening schools when the evidence clearly shows otherwise. “While AFT and Ms. Weingarten have attempted to rewrite history by arguing that they were always trying to reopen the schools, this simply is not true. AFT continually pushed for school closures throughout the pandemic.”
I am thankful for this report and those who produced it for exposing to the American people what I knew all along — school closures and bogus mitigation measures, like masking and distancing, were never based on science, rather it was all based on politics. And while I feel partially vindicated personally, this does nothing to address the magnitude of dire consequences facing our children who were forced to suffer under these illegal and immoral policies.
Unlike Randi Weingarten, I will not allow those who not only supported but implemented and pushed these policies on the rest of us to rewrite history. Rather, every elected official and every appointed bureaucrat who backed these mandates should be held accountable.
Every elected school director who voted to keep schools closed or illegally mask children should step down now. Every county and state health director who blindly followed the CDC and Fauci’s guidance should step down now. And if these people do not step down, parents and citizens should take steps to have them removed from their positions.
We owe it to our children to hold accountable the elected officials and appointed bureaucrats who created this potentially unrecoverable crisis. Actions have consequences, and it is time for those responsible to face the ramifications of their decisions.
This article was previously published on Broad & Liberty.
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We were right; we knew it then. While it is nice to see is vindicated, I just want to cry with frustration that this is being acknowledged too late for so many children and families. The lock down policies were catastrophic on learning, mental health, and physical health. Fauci, Weingarten, etc will likely never face the consequences of their actions.
What is this insanity? Reopening schools too early has ravaged children.
COVID is extremely dangerous and is not only a top killer of children, it is permanently disabled perfectly healthy children.
You were wrong, you are wrong, and people like you have destroyed an entire generation of children with your ignorance of basic science.