Former “Saturday Night Live” actor Rob Schneider seemingly denounced extreme COVID-19 safety protocols in schools as a taxpayer-funded “form of child abuse.”
In a tweet on Saturday, the “Grown Ups” actor shared a video from an elementary school classroom showing rows of desks surrounded by plexiglass.
“This is bad: Forest brook Elementary teacher Teresa Holmes recorded a video of her classroom which has 28 desks now armed with plexiglass shields,” said the Twitter account.
“We are witnessing a new kind of child abuse: bought and paid for with YOUR tax dollars,” responded Schneider. “The collapse of public schools who follow this example will surely follow. History will not look back at this Kindly.”
We are witnessing a new kind of child abuse: bought and paid for with YOUR tax dollars.
The collapse of public schools who follow this example will surely follow.
History will not look back at this kindly. https://t.co/JUGNc1fDzn— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) February 13, 2021
In the video, the teacher lamented how the school board spent up to $5 million on plexiglass and safety measures without seeming to consider the practicality of teaching in such an environment.
“This is my classroom. I have a rather large classroom compared to the other classrooms in our building. But I have 28 desks in here right now, if we go back [to] five days a week, I’ll have 30 or 32 with the kids coming back from virtual,” said the teacher.
“This is the middle seat of the back row of my classroom, this is their view of the board,” she said. “So I’m just wondering, when we ordered this $5 million worth of plexiglass, did we have a classroom of 28 desks set up to where school board members could sit in them and see what this was really going to be like? Because I’m still trying to figure out how, in between my classes, am I supposed to disinfect, how I’m supposed to hear my students when they’re in the back of the room wearing a mask behind all this plexiglass?”
As The Daily Wire reported, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that students can return to school without mass teacher vaccination so long as masks are mandatory.
“I’m a strong advocate of teachers receiving their vaccinations, but we don’t believe it’s a prerequisite for schools to reopen,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CNN on Sunday.
“We have in the guidance clear language that specifies that teachers that are at higher risk, teachers and students that are higher risk, and their families, should have options for virtual activities, virtual learning, virtual teaching,” she continued.
Walensky also told Fox News Sunday that in-person learning would require universal masking for students.
“We are advocating, with the strict mitigation measures … including universal and mandatory masking as well as six-foot of distancing, that at least our K-5 children should be able to get back to school at least in a hybrid mode,” she said.
Critics of the new CDC guidelines have pointed out that they have set impossible standards for reopening without mass vaccination, leading to speculation that the teacher’s unions had a heavy hand in influencing them.
“I have to say, I feel a little dispirited after this conversation because I had high hopes that schools would be able to resume in-person learning because so many scientists and health officials, including you and Dr. Fauci and others, have been talking about the science supports opening the schools as much as possible,” CNN’s Jake Tapper told Walensky during the interview on Sunday.
“I know that a lot of teachers are very concerned, and I know that teacher’s unions have been pushing back on this, but it sounds to me like you’re asking for one hundred percent mask compliance and a number of measures that we’re never going to be able to achieve, and that makes me feel like, boy, I don’t know if the schools are ever going to open until everybody’s vaccinated,” he continued.
Related: CDC Director: Schools Can Open Without Teacher Vaccines But Require Mandatory Masking