Well, actually my point is that teachers, instructors in determining what's valid, should use the tools they teach to research and get to the best sources, compare sources, and use their discernment. This is a major health, economic, and political event happening live during their lifetimes. In other words, be active and do their own checking vs being passive.
They do know this because it's part of their training on teaching critical thinking. Many K-12 teachers a Masters Degree and this is what you're taught in grad school. My barb is they don't apply what they know. Thus, is 'education' an empty ritual where the adults can't even apply what they supposedly teach? The goal is to prep young souls for living, not to churn the processes taught back into school settings and nowhere else.
To be in a leadership role (union president) for people that presumably know these tools and to not be able to show the public you're up on what's true is a discredit to their profession. Any one of their members could nail down the truth.
On the other "side," the school board doesn't take undue risks or consult a crystal ball—it makes decisions on reopenings based on the same sources that the governor and health departments use. Those sources come from collated data from separated government departments across the state or country. WHO's data comes from collating data from national governments. When a school board vets in public session what the data is and whether to approve reopening any citizen (or head of a teachers union) can also see what sources they are leaning on.
Anything we need to 'track down' is there somewhere to be found on the WWW. Medical journal abstracts? Tables of the raw data? Literature reviews. All there, you have to search, judge the quality of the source, and you have to think.
I once read a great blog by a teacher who casually tossed off during class that an article wasn't to be believed. And the students were fascinated, how did he know that? The source, the care with data collection and description, whether it matches what else you understand, the date, other works cited, and so on.
I know this is a philosophy and stance that the weight of determining the truth rests in ourselves, not in passively accepting things that happen to catch editors attention. Propaganda and spin are nothing new; readers have always held their own responsibility to see through the hype and lies that anyone with a pen can spew.
Anyway, I won't excuse the teachers without a written note from their parents.
R