A California Teachers Union Head Under Fire After He Took Daughter to In-Person School

Berkeley Teacher

Matt Meyer, the president of Berkeley Federation of Teachers, has insisted for months the public schools have to remain closed until the district achieves the “gold standard.” This includes vaccinating every educator against COVID-19.

But parents in the Berkeley area have slammed Meyer after a video showed him dropping off his 2-year old daughter at preschool.

Meyer claimed there is no public school for his daughter:

Meyer also turned down repeated requests for an interview.In an exchange of emails he said this was a non-issue. He wrote, in part, “Unfortunately there are no public options for kids her age. There are major differences in running a small preschool and a 10,000 person public school district in terms of size, facilities, public health guidance and services that legally have to be provided.”

Of course, there are differences. But a virus is going to virus. It does not care if you are in a crowded public school or a small preschool.

Meyer shouldn’t want his daughter in preschool.

KQED spoke to Dr. Shelene Stine, who treats COVID-19 patients at a local hospital. Her twins attend the same preschool as Meyers’ daughter while her 5-year-old is in kindergarten in the public school system.

Stine is not thrilled with Meyer. She stressed, like so many experts and the CDC, that schools can reopen:

The divide between the quality in-person teaching her twins receive at the preschool — which includes “play-based learning” — compared to the senses-dulling video-screens her 5-year-old looks at for distance learning is a yawning chasm, she said. She has spoken at rallies to reopen public schools and written public letters to the Berkeley Unified School District to push them to reopen safely.Berkeley teachers have claimed that kids may not honor masking requirements, which Stine says her personal experience contradicts.”I am a physician. It is definitively the scientific agreement that it is possible to deliver safe in-person education,” Stine said. “It’s infuriating to know Matt Meyer says kids can’t wear masks when kids in his preschool wear them all day long.”

Tags: California, Education, Wuhan Coronavirus

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