Philadelphia educators to defy district, maintain all-virtual schooling Monday
Thousands of Philadelphia public school teachers are set to defy their district’s order to return to classrooms Monday. They will instead work virtually. This week marks the third attempt by the school district of Philadelphia to reopen school buildings in the midst of the pandemic. The district has been remote-only since last March.
District officials demanded that approximately 2,000 kindergarten through second-grade teachers prepare classrooms beginning February 8 so that students could return on February 22. Nine thousand students are scheduled to enter buildings first, with further grades phased in later.
Following the policies of Democratic Mayor Jim Kenney, Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and the Biden administration, the district is issuing threats, lies and trying to browbeat teachers into acquiescing to its demands. “If you are expected to be in your building on Monday and choose not to do so
Toothless state recommendations over school reopenings are being swept away under Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Tom Wolf, as districts are told to return K-8 students to face-to-face learning in line with the Biden plan.
Workers across the US speak out in defense of COVID-19 whistleblower Rebekah Jones
On Monday, Florida state police forcefully entered the home of Rebekah Jones with guns drawn at her and her family. Jones is a data scientist and whistleblower who has faced backlash from the political establishment for aggregating and publishing data on the spread of COVID-19 throughout the country, including The COVID Monitor, the most comprehensive tracker of outbreaks in schools. Police took Jones’ phone, computer and several hard drives in an effort to prevent her from continuing to publish data on COVID-19 outbreaks.
Video footage of the fascistic police raid has gone viral on social media and has been met with mass outrage by the public. Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, loathed by workers across the state for his criminal response to the pandemic and indifference to the suffering of masses, has been widely denounced for orchestrating the raid against Jones.