Actor-comedian Rob Schneider sounded off on what he called “the collapse of pubic schools” amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Saturday Night Live alum warned that keeping schools closed is “a new kind of child abuse,” which is being “paid for with your tax dollars.”
“We are witnessing a new kind of child abuse: bought and paid for with YOUR tax dollars,” tweeted Schneider. “The collapse of public schools who follow this example will surely follow. History will not look back at this Kindly.”
The actor was responding to a tweet by another user on Twitter, who shared a video of a classroom filled with desks, each appearing to be almost completely 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,” commented the Twitter user.
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“This is my classroom — I have 28 in 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 woman in the video, showcasing the classroom with desks surrounded by plexiglass.
The woman filming the video then appears to make her way to one of the desks in the back row, to show how difficult it would be for a student to see the board if they were sitting at a desk in that back row.
“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?”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been saying for months that schools are safe for students and teachers to return to in-person learning. The public health agency released new safe school reopening guidelines last week. The new rules come as the devastating impact of school closures is coming into scope.
One of the largest school districts in America is planning to phase back into in-person learning following a rise in student suicides. Students are reportedly starting to commit suicide in response to the depression that is derived from coronavirus-related mandates.
As of December 2020, the Clark County school district in Las Vegas, Nevada suffered 18 student suicides, which was double the amount that the district saw the previous year.
Also in December, a Maine high school football player committed suicide due to the mental anguish he developed because of the coronavirus lockdowns that closed his school and prevented him from playing tackle football.
CDC officials have maintained that schools are not a substantial drivers of coronavirus outbreaks in U.S. communities. Florida schools, meanwhile have been open for in-person learning since August 2020, with some schools reporting a single case.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.