DeSantis hints at removing Randi Weingarten from DHS school safety board if president

TAMPA, Fla. (FLV) – Gov. Ron DeSantis reacted to head of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten being seated on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security school safety board.

The board will have 20 new members and is set to have its first public meeting in the near future. The members were appointed by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Weingarten became more notable among those opposed to COVID-19 lockdowns due to her frequent insistence on keeping schools closed and enacting restrictions like masking on schoolchildren.

“She should not be in any position of authority,” DeSantis said.

“Maybe someone will have something to say about that in about a year and a half, to be able to get that right,” he continued, hinting at a President DeSantis cleaning out the department’s new board of appointees like Weingarten.

DeSantis pointed to Weingarten being one of the main figures doing “a lot of damage” since COVID-19.

“She really led the effort to force schools to close,” DeSantis said. “They responded by suing us to try to lock kids out of school. They wanted a court to rule that we could not allow kids to be in school in person.”

“Had we gone down that direction, there would have been devastating impacts to our youth,” the governor warned.

“And the sad part about it is, is the people that would often times be public advocating for school closures, a lot of times, they got their kids – private tutoring… they got their kid in a private, in person school,” he continued. “It was really the lower income, the working class families that bore the brunt of her school closures.”

DeSantis made the comments at a press conference Thursday where he announced a state lawsuit against the Biden administration over their accreditation policies.