Citation From the March 30, 2021, edition of Fox News' Your World
NEIL CAVUTO (ANCHOR): It just seems crazy, but these are crazy times, Sarah. But what do you make of all this?
SARAH WESTWOOD (WASHINGTON EXAMINER REPORTER): Yeah, Neil. I think, as a mom of a five-year-old who has been trying to learn off of a laptop, there's nothing that parents want more desperately to get classrooms open. The problem here is not that unaccompanied minors are getting in-person instruction. The San Diego County education office said that this is a right for students and I think most parents would absolutely agree that kids have a right to in-person education. The problem here is that teachers unions in particular have been treating that right as sort of a bargaining chip in the San Diego district, in a lot of these urban districts around the country. They've been treating it as a chip to be traded for things more funding, for things like better air conditioning systems for their schools and minimizing that right. And so it's understandably frustrating to parents to have the in-person education characterized as just a fundamental right when it comes to these unaccompanied minors and a subject of negotiations when it comes to their own kids.
CAVUTO: Is it the same people, Sarah, that would be responsible or want to be responsible for helping the migrant kids? Because, as you say, on the surface it just looks inconsistent. If you're arguing that you're against this policy period for the time being because of the risks, COVID or otherwise, you'd be against it here. So I'm wondering who is going to be responsible for the in-person classes for these minors.
WESTWOOD: It's happening on a volunteer basis in San Diego. But as we just heard, there are teachers who are volunteering for this and it undermines the argument from that teacher's union that science alone is driving their opposition to returning to the classroom. Because you don't see those same concerns being raised in the case of instructing these unaccompanied migrants in-person. It has taken months, more than a year, in fact, to get the San Diego schools opened even on a temporary basis, complying with the demands of the teacher's union for precautions, and yet --
CAVUTO: Does the teacher's union there -- I apologize, I just want to be clear. Does the teacher's union allow teachers that want to volunteer to help these kids to do so? If you're going to do that, can't you allow the same teachers to volunteer for help for in-person classes in the public school system in San Diego?
WESTWOOD: That is a great question, Neil. I think that is the central contradiction that is driving the outrage to all of this. Because the schools in San Diego required modifications, and it required months of negotiations with this union that up until a few weeks ago was even treating that the April 12 date as a maybe because they weren't sure that they would be satisfied with the conditions that the district was going to provide for them, but you're seeing them rush in to this program to instruct the unaccompanied minors in-person with just a day's notice. So that is obviously frustrating to parents who have been told that they need to wait to send their kids back to the classrooms because the teachers are afraid.