March 14, 2022
ICYMI: Rochester Schools Officials Get Personal, Attack the Parents Who Advocated for In-Person Learning
Lansing, Mich., March 14, 2022 – Rather than using resources to get students back in classrooms, Rochester schools used significant resources to stalk parents on social media and contact their employers if they dared to question the school district’s disastrous COVID-19 policies. The Detroit News reports:
“Their revelations and others — one staffer spent as much as 70% of her full-time job compiling dossiers on parents — show how widespread efforts were by the district to contain one of the early controversies of the pandemic.
The two Rochester mothers have several things in common: They were part of a sizable contingent of parents who advocated for in-person classes during the first fall of the COVID-19 pandemic, and both ran afoul of school district leaders who branded them and other parents ‘protesters,’ surveilled theirs and other parents’ social media, and compiled dossiers.”
The revelation of Rochester Community Schools’ actions raises new questions regarding Governor Whitmers’ handling of schools during the pandemic. Superintendent Robert Shaner, who receives a substantial, $700,000 annual salary, served as a member of Whitmer’s “Return to School” Advisory Council. With a board member who oversaw a massive investigation of parents who simply wanted their children learning in classrooms, Michigan parents are left wondering if Whitmer’s “Return to School” efforts were nothing more than political theater.
“It is disturbing, albeit not shocking, to see Gretchen Whitmer has a glorified Facebook stalker as part of her return to school council,” said Eric Ventimiglia, Executive Director for Michigan Rising Action. Ventimiglia continued, “Robert Shaner should have been focusing on addressing learning loss from the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than trying to get parents arrested and fired from their jobs.”