The powerful teachers union's full-court press preceded the federal agency putting the brakes on a full re-opening of in-person classrooms, emails between top CDC, AFT and White House officials show.
The documents show a flurry of activity between CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, her top advisors and union officials - with Biden brass being looped in at the White House - in the days before the highly-anticipated Feb. 12 announcement on school-reopening guidelines.
"Thank you again for Friday's rich discussion about forthcoming CDC guidance and for your openness to the suggestions made by our president, Randi Weingarten, and the AFT," wrote AFT senior director for health issues Kelly Trautner in a Feb 1 email - which described the union as the CDC's "Thought partner."
In at least two instances, language "Suggestions" offered by the union were adopted nearly verbatim into the final text of the CDC document.
With the CDC preparing to write that schools could provide in-person instruction regardless of community spread of the virus, Trautner argued for the inclusion of a line reading "In the event of high community-transmission results from a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, a new update of these guidelines may be necessary." That language appeared on page 22 of the final CDC guidance.
The final CDC guidance won high praise from the AFT. "Today, the CDC met fear of the pandemic with facts and evidence," the union said in a Feb 12 press release.
The close communication between the union and the feds came despite repeated assurances from CDC and Biden officials that the medical guidelines would "Follow the science" and be free of political interference.
https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/teachers-union-collaborated-with-cdc-on-school-reopening-emails/
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