The American Federation of Teachers was more deeply involved with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s school reopening guidance from February 2021 than previously known, emails and documents seen by The Post show.
Powerful AFT boss Randi Weingarten spoke twice by phone with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky in the week leading up to the Feb. 12, 2021, announcement that halted full re-opening of in-person classes — including the day before the guidance was released, according to records obtained by the conservative watchdog Americans for Public Trust.
AFT and its fellow union, the National Education Association, also asked the White House and CDC for help shaping its press strategy to show the rank-and-file they and the Biden administration were on the same page, emails reveal.
The extent of the unions’ role in government policy was revealed the day before Weingarten is set to face a House select subcommittee hearing about the effects of school closures on America’s kids.
The records show Walensky took a call from Weingarten on Feb. 7, 2021, five days before the CDC released its “Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools Through Phased Mitigation.”
The same day, then-White House associate director of public engagement William McIntee emailed then-CDC Chief of Staff Sherri Berger, letting her know the AFT and NEA had “a few comms-related questions” about a planned meeting between union educators and Walensky set for Feb. 8.
“They’d like to tweet ahead of the meeting to say something to the gist of ‘The CDC has invited a group of AFT/NEA teachers to meet with the Director on safe school reopening this Monday. What information would you like our members to relay to the CDC Director in the meeting?'” McIntee wrote.
His next request read: “They’d like to coordinate on a readout press release after the meeting. They are battling stories being written that unions and the Administration are locking heads over the safe school reopening plan, so they think it would be helpful for there to be a positive readout of the meeting from both sides afterwards.”
The last request from the unions via McIntee was more prosaic: “They’d like to be able to either tweet during or after about the meeting.”
Another email from the evening of Feb. 11, 2021, reveals the CDC following up with Weingarten and NEA President Becky Pringle after each had phone calls with Walensky the night before the guidance came out.
“As she [Walensky] indicated, we would like to schedule time tomorrow late morning for a follow up discussion with CDC’s technical experts on our forthcoming [guidance],” wrote CDC official Christopher Jones.
“I have copied colleagues from CDC who can help set up the meeting … Looking forward to the discussion!”
“Randi Weingarten colluded with the Biden administration to put politics over science, threatening the wellbeing of children,” APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland told The Post.
“Her multiple calls, emails, and non-scientific recommendations to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and her team illustrate the level of dark money influence that was allowed to shape school reopening policies.
“While both Walensky and Weingarten have tried to mislead the public, their emails and phone logs tell the real story.
“Congress must stand up for the American people and get answers from Weingarten at this hearing to ensure she is finally held accountable.”
A press secretary for Walenksy told The Post that the CDC as “part of long-standing best practices”: “sought input from 14 organizations with an interest in the implementation and applicability of the guidance,” including the National Governors Association, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, the National Association of County and City Health Officials, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National Association of School Nurses, the National Association of School Boards, the National School Board Association, the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National Education Association, the School Superintendents Association, the Los Angeles County Health Department and the American Federation of Teachers.
“These collaborative conversations resulted in nearly two-thirds of schools returning to full, in-person learning by May 2021, which was up from less than half in January 2021. Schools offering full, remote learning dropped from 23 percent in January 2021 to 2 percent in May 2021, which demonstrated the confidence school districts had in the guidance to keep students and staff safely in classes,” the press secretary said.
“The strength of this guidance resulted in 99 percent of schools being open and children being in the enriching environment of a classroom during the delta surge in the fall of 2021.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for AFT declined comment.
In her prepared testimony, Weingarten will say Wednesday’s hearing is based on a “faulty premise.”
“Any claim that the contact the AFT had with the CDC was unusual or inappropriate, particularly in reviewing its February 2021 Operational Strategy, is simply wrong,” she says.
The Post previously revealed that AFT suggested language for the CDC’s reopening guidelines — including providing remote work opportunities for any teachers who claimed to suffer higher risks of COVID-19 or have a high-risk “household member,” and giving the option of shutting down in-person learning for students in communities deemed to have high COVID transmission levels.
In one email from Feb. 1, 2021 that was forwarded to Walensky, AFT senior director for health issues Kelly Trautner described the CDC as the union’s “thought partner.”
“We are immensely grateful for your genuine desire to earn our confidence and your commitment to partnership,” Trautner said in another email to Walensky two days later.
Some of the emails initially obtained by Americans for Public Trust had been redacted, forcing the group to sue the CDC to release the additional records.
Michael Bromwich, a lawyer for Weingarten, maintained in a letter last week to the select subcommittee that AFT’s role in providing suggestions for reopening were “limited and wholly appropriate.”
He mentioned “a handful of other concerns discussed orally with the CDC,” but provided no further information — choosing only to describe one conference call the agency had with Weingarten and senior AFT staff in January 2021.
“During the call, the AFT promised to send the CDC proposed language to consider related to accommodations for high-risk educators and staff, which a senior AFT staff member sent to the CDC on February 1, 2021,” Bromwich wrote.
“The suggestion that the AFT played a major role in revising and editing the Operational Strategy is wildly exaggerated. In fact, the AFT’s role was extremely limited. It proposed changes that amounted to a few sentences in a 38-page document,” he added.
Subcommittee Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), who is a doctor himself, said in a March letter to AFT and 14 other groups that the House panel was “concerned about the potential for undue influence of non-governmental groups on CDC scientific guidance,” adding that AFT “is a political union, not a professional scientific or medical organization.”
Weingarten stayed in touch with Walensky in the months after the school memo to discuss further issues related to reopening, with additional documents showing they both requested meetings of the other on March 17 and April 9 of the same year, respectively.
AFT, which has about 1.7 million members, donated more than $2.3 million to Democratic candidates during the 2022 election cycle, according to the political donation tracking website OpenSecrets.
