The White House put satisfying teachers' unions ahead of following the science when it came to COVID-19 school-reopening guidance, a watchdog group said.
Americans for Public Trust (APT) said that emails between the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the Biden administration consulted national teachers' unions before releasing school-reopening guidance to the public.
The watchdog group obtained the emails through the Freedom of Information Act, the New York Post reported Sunday. The APT has an ongoing lawsuit against the CDC.
The emails portray the White House as an entity seeking to fully please the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers, whose leaders focused on keeping students on Zoom and their members at home.
"These emails show time and time again that the White House inserted itself into the shaping of school guidance with a primary focus of accommodating teachers unions," APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News. "However, the only thing the White House should have been focused on was how to get our children safely back into the classroom."
The emails showed that White House staff arranged a meeting between CDC cand NEA President Becky Pringle, head of the nation's largest teachers' union.
It's clear the White House was concerned with issues unrelated to public health experts' determinations on school reopenings.
In one email, Health and Human Services (HHS) official Michael Baker wrote: "We need to think about this in the broader context of teacher contract negotiations."
The Post reported that one NEA official used her access to get a job inside HHS, which oversees the CDC. That helped ensure that unions always took part in policy discussions.
In the days leading up to the guidance's public release on Feb. 12, an HHS official told colleagues they had "some homework assignments" after getting off a call with the White House, the emails showed.
"Hey team — Just got off a call with the White House and Department of Education regarding the school reopening guidance that is projected to roll out on Friday," HHS official Michael Baker wrote in a Feb. 8 email, Fox News reported. "We have some homework assignments."
The CDC’s May 13 announcement that fully vaccinated Americans could stop wearing masks indoors and outside resulted in the unions claiming that that clarification as it applied in schools was needed, the emails showed.
The White House immediately tried to please the union. "Would you know when Dr. Wolensky would be able to call NEA-Pres. Becky Pringle?" emailed Erika Dinkel-Smith, the White House director of labor engagement, the Post reported.
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