Hillary Clinton on Tuesday slammed the Trump administration’s efforts to push the nation’s schools to reopen for in-person learning, accusing officials of forcing teachers to “choose between their lives and their jobs.”
In a tweet, the 2016 Democratic nominee and former secretary of State issued her first comments on the Trump administration’s widely-criticized plan to send students back to school facilities in the fall.
Clinton’s remarks come amid a storm of criticism from Democrats and teachers over the plan, which many say puts both students and teachers, many of whom are especially vulnerable to coronavirus, back into often cramped school conditions just as flu season starts.
“[Trump] hasn’t mentioned one thing — not one thing — about the risks he’s putting on the good people that walk into that school building,” the president of the National Education Association, Lily Eskelsen García, told The Hill.
Trump administration officials have insisted that sending students back to school can be done safely and is necessary to allow parents to go back to work, even as states across the country continue to face surging rates of new coronavirus infections.
“This doesn’t have to look like exactly like it did a year or two ago. Think creatively about how you do it, but do it,” Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told Fox News last week.
“This has to happen,” she added.