When it comes to California’s plans as to when and how to reopen the schools, it’s only natural that the teachers unions would weigh in on the subject. After all, those decisions affect the teachers every bit as much as the students. Casting the net a bit further, a failure to reopen the schools will negatively impact many families if they can’t afford childcare costs, allowing them to return to work and their pre-pandemic “normal” schedules.

So what do the unions want to see before the schools reopen? It would be natural to assume they want to see more distance between students, mask requirements and better sanitation protocols. And they certainly do want some of those things. But according to a statement put out this week by United Teachers Los Angeles, there are several other things on their list of demands. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Paid sick leave for parents to be able to keep symptomatic children home
Clear framework to protect against personal liability, in acknowledgment of the fact that there is no way to eliminate all risk during an active pandemic
Greatly increased federal and state funding to support physical distancing and hygiene practices
Drastically reduced class sizes to no more than 12 per classroom

There’s a massive list of demands in the document, of which those are only a few. Everything revolves around budget increases adding up to tens of billions of dollars to even scratch the surface. And that’s only for the greater Los Angeles area, not the entire state of California. So how do they propose to come up with the money?

Easy as pie, my friends. The Union points out that there are more than 150 billionaires living in California. I’m sure you can guess where this is going. That’s right. They want a wealth tax and a millionaire tax imposed at the state level, to the tune of 1% of your wealth each year if you have “too much money,” with the cash being funded directly into the school systems. At the federal level, they not only want “immediate, full funding” for a number of programs, but also the implementation of Medicare for All. (Huh?)

Oh, and how could I forget? They want to defund the police.

Defund Police: Police violence is a leading cause of death and trauma for Black people, and is a serious public health and moral issue. We must shift the astronomical amount of money devoted to policing, to education and other essential needs such as housing and public health.

From there, we move on to a demand to shut down all the charter schools and mandatory, direct financial assistance to illegal aliens. (I’m seriously not making any of this up.) This is the list of what they want to see done before they will offer their blessing for reopening the schools. In other words… they don’t want to reopen the schools. At least not until after the election in November. And are we really surprised by this? It was all fairly predictable if you ask me.

Perhaps the citizens of California should ask for something in return if they’re going to be this “generous” to the teachers unions. Maybe something like a promise to cut down on the number of instances of teachers sexually abusing their students?

UPDATE: (Jazz) As it turns out, the teachers unions won’t need to worry about it. No sooner had their list of hostage demands been released than the school district announced that normal classroom activity would not be taking place until further notice due to the surge in novel coronavirus cases.