Berkeley Federation of Teachers president Matt Meyer was recently spotted dropping his two-year-old daughter off for in-person instruction at a private pre-school while telling the public it isn’t unsafe for kids to be back at school. A group known as Guerilla Momz called out Meyer’s hypocrisy in a tweet, including video footage of him dropping off his daughter at school.
“Meet Matt Meyer. White man with dreads and president of the local teachers’ union. He’s been saying it is unsafe for *your kid* to be back at school, all the while dropping his kid off at private school,” Guerilla Momz wrote.
The group declined to identify individual members by name and avoid identifying the preschool Meyer’s child was attending by name. Several parent groups have protested against teacher unions for wanting vaccines before they “feel safe” restarting in-person instruction.
“We’d heard for a while that he sent his kid to private preschool and we’ve been hearing him make crazy claims at the school board meetings — it was ‘too dangerous’ for schools to open because kids wouldn’t wear masks. Meanwhile, his kid is wearing a mask at school,” the group explained in a written statement.
Meyer has been a consistent fighter in what he called the “gold standard” for the teachers he represents. He insists that Berkeley schools should only reopen to in-person learning when all educators are vaccinated. In a tentative plan between the Berkeley Unified School District and Berkeley Federation of Teachers, preschoolers through second grade would be returning to class at the end of March while other grades return back to in-person learning through April.
Dr. Shelene Stine, a parent of 3-year-old twins and a 5-year-old attending kindergarten, argued about the divide between quality in-person teaching and the senses-dulling video screens her children stare at all day. She called distance learning a “yawning chasm” and said she’s spoken at many rallies and written public letters to the Berkeley Unified School District to push them to reopen safely.
“I am a physician. It is definitively the scientific agreement that it is possible to deliver safe in-person education. It’s infuriating to know Matt Meyer says kids can’t wear masks when kids in his preschool wear them all day long,” Stine said.
Jonathan Zachreson, a member of an affiliated group called Reopen California Schools, said it only reinforces how frustrated parents are with delays in returning to school. “It’s really a message of hypocrisy where we see this union representative saying it’s not safe to go back, yet he feels safe enough to take his daughter to an in-person institution,” he said.
Meyer told Fox News that the video posted was an intrusion of his child’s privacy and that there were “no public options for kids her age.” He argued the difference between running a small preschool and a 10,000 student public school in terms of size, facilities, public health guidance, and services provided.
Left-leaning unions have made it clear that the support and comfortability of teachers is more important than the rights of public education for all kids. This is no longer a public school system – it’s a government-run institution.
