Social media outrage at governor after he asks school children to report on parents

/ November 27, 2020

Republican Gov. Phil Scott is being lampooned nationwide and on social media for instructing school workers to get children in Vermont to snitch on their parents for having attended Thanksgiving events that violate his COVID rules.

Numerous and often hostile social media posts could be seen on Twitter and Facebook this week after Scott announced that schools will be asking children about their family Thanksgivings. If kids answer that they celebrated the federal holiday with anyone other than their immediate family, they will be forced into two weeks of remote learning or a one-week quarantine plus a COVID test.

The governor is also asking that businesses put the same questions to their workers, with the same threat of quarantine.

Orca Media

UNDER PRESSURE: After Gov. Phil Scott required schools to ask children about their parent’s Thanksgiving activities, a tremendous backlash has occurred on social media.

When asked by a reporter at Tuesday’s press conference if Vermonters could be expected to tell the truth under COVID-related interrogation, Scott said residents should simply cancel holiday gatherings.

“In the anticipation of that question, maybe you ought to cancel some of the plans you have made,” he said.

Another reporter asked if this constitutes asking children to tattle on their parents. Scott suggested it’s not.

“I’m not sure it’s ‘tattling’ on anyone,” he said.

Many responses on social media have been critical and even hostile. A tweet by the account “Robby Liberty” had harsh words for the governor.

On Tuesday, Scott attempted to defend his actions on Facebook by posting about COVID-19-associated deaths. Vermonters responded with nearly 700 comments in just six hours. While some readers supported the governor, many took the opportunity to vent at his restrictions on their personal lives.

Kailee Mahoney, of Colchester, wrote: “So if our kids see their aunt on thanksgiving opposed to doing a 45 person holiday like normal, they have to quarantine for 2 weeks after? this is nuts. i can agree to restrictions but totally NO gathering is just unconstitutional esp when it comes to family and certain circumstances. what about divorced families?”

Jan Parker LaPerle, of Barre, compared Scott’s policies to nations with communist history: “This is absolutely beyond belief. Is this Russia? Seriously. Teachers interrogating children as to what relatives they interacted with at Thanksgiving. This is out of control. Bullying little children. What about divorced families. I am appalled it has come to this. I would love to elaborate but can’t even find the words. Going after little kids makes me sick to my stomach thinking how guilty they would feel. We had 87 deaths from the flu in 2018 and look at the drug overdoses and suicides. You are barking up the wrong tree. Let’s stop fear mongering at be realistic. They lost their minds in Montpelier.”

Aimee Lee, of Essex Center, notes that the governor’s request puts school children in a difficult position: “School is a place for education. It is not a babysitter, it is not a hang out and it is funded by the very families in attendance. It is wildly inappropriate for administration to ask children these types of questions. We NEED children to trust their educators. If kids get sent home for being honest about thanksgiving and their families struggle afterwords, IT WILL BE THE CHILDREN WHO FEEL RESPONSIBLE. We have put enough pressure on them.”

Dana Salter, of St. Albans, was more succinct: “People who think the government is going to save them are the ones who need the help the most!”

Suzanne Sargent Whiteaker compared Scott’s decisions to those made in Germany during World War II: “They used these tactics in Auschwitz too,” she said.

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at bielawski82@yahoo.com and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.

Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and Orca Media

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51 thoughts on “Social media outrage at governor after he asks school children to report on parents”

  1. I asked Ann G. over on VTDigger.org why they didn’t cover this very important piece of news, and I am still waiting to hear back from her. Who’s surprised?

  3. “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.”

    H. L. Mencken

  4. Scott’s actions got as far a Texas! Why isn’t the Republican Party looking for better candidates to run for places of authority? Only 5% of Vermonters voted for Trump! If this is to stay a Christian nation why don’t we have more Christians running for places of authority? Or have they all left the state?

  5. Looking back over the events of 2020, they almost seem like a culmination of many different things coming together as if they had been engineered for a specific purpose or objective, even though each seemed isolated as it occurred.

    If we seem divided, there may be good reason to be fearful and not of just a virus. Especially if we are in a tug of war for our liberty without realizing, and if that be the case, we could very well lose it, should we be unaware, or willing to surrender our sovereign authority out of fear or neglect!

    What the masses and politicians fail to see is there is no vaccine coming that will make us immune from the loss of liberty we have encountered in 2020. Indeed, this fear that allows arbitrary dictates by our government is about a virus being treated as if it is a pandemic, although many seem unaware of other motives. That said, it is never a good idea to let fear of anything become your one and only focus.

    We are taking steps to minimize COVID out of fear for our own mortality, because we are afraid of death, or of bringing death to others, but what are we doing to preclude the death of our Republic and what would it mean for those surviving this virus, if our Republic were only to perish in the process?

      • We have now arrived at a place where, what was once up is now down, what was once wrong is now right, what was once equal treatment is now unequal treatment and where the will of the people is now dictated. Yet some still see nothing to be concerned about!

  6. You are all waking up and it is not too late – whether you want to believe it or not a very powerful divine intervention is taking place – evil is being exposed – you are researching – you are questioning – you are speaking out and hitting the mark on exactly what is and has been wrong – keep this momentum going!

    Take Back Vermont and Vermont Strong rise again!

    There is power in numbers and when it dares to touch our children – it’s time to act…

  7. It is up to all of us to reign in this out of control
    Governor and the unelected agency bureaucrats

    We pay the taxes while we lose our livelihoods and these guys continue to collect paychecks at our expense and peril
    Push back now or this will snowball

  8. At least there is a picture of the puppet master this time!

    Why is anyone listening to Fauci at this point, his “medical” opinion has changed so many times. Of course Fauci is the puppet for the master NWO pimps….

    Just say no to the Great Reset.

  9. Miserable excuse for a human w nothing better to do than try to look important? Threatening the good ppl of our state, majority-support 2-1 by evil Democrats and also fellow RINOs gets worse each passing day – like brain has become infested w termites? So ungodly wicked – never thot he’d be terrorizing children and families channeling Nazi Brownshirt rhetoric – after this there’s no place left to fall *facepalm*

    • Exactly, which is why it has to come from us. We the citizens must respond loudly to the schools and to all state representatives and officials.

      • There is nobody that is gonna save us!
        Yes, it’s time for some action from We The People.

        They work for us, they seem to have forgotten.

    • I expect the majority of those Dem/Progs WE have elected to Legislature are ok, even happy, glad!
      with a Governor who would clamp down on every aspect of freedom and life.
      Use any tactic which would force compliance – even those from the worst times in world history.

      Legislature seems to stick it to our Liberties in a much more subtle and devious ways!

  11. Teach your kids about the 5th amendment and vote every school budget down in March. Or say goodby to freedom forever in this state.

  12. If a third grader tattles on the family and is forced to quarantine for two weeks away from school, how do they get their free condoms? What a dilemma, certainly one to finally get the Legislature involved…

  15. Watch what is happening to our 3d graders now…… then

    Look what our college “indoctrinated” students are doing now.
    Rioting, arson, beating Middlebury college speakers, toppling statues of historic value

    This started long ago and we now see the results – Civil Suicide!!

    Scott – be gone!!!

  16. If you people had any brains at all you could have all had BLM protests at all your houses, with all your friend and families which just happen to coincide with Thanksgiving Day. C’mon man those BLM and Biden signs you could have stole of some Commiecrats lawn to make it look good. And your kids wouldn’t be lying if they went to school and said we had a protest dinner with eighteen people.

    • Great comment James – put out a BLM flag – when other ppl show up put out sign ‘sorry full to capacity’ lol

  17. This is getting so much national media attention.. Gov. Scott you sure did step in it !!
    They are talking about it on Howie Carr on Newsmax AGAIN.
    ANOTHER Vermonter just called in blasting what is going on in the state..

    You should start investigating impeachment of him!

  18. Parents all over the state should keep their children home from school on Monday in protest. In addition, we must inundate our local school principals and school boards with letters, emails, and phone calls. Scott will continue to increase the repression until we loudly say no. Speak up now, while you still can.

  19. So glad we took our kids out of public a few years ago. The academics are a joke and this commie move should be the least of your worries with the indoctrination going on daily (well
    I guess they aren’t even there ft anymore!). For all you know, the states coddling little Johnny as little jenny during school hours. Lots has been going on this is just been told
    To you. Get your kids out !

    • I agree.
      Yes, this kind of stuff has been going on for decades.
      Why do you think that they have been saying that rates of reports of child abuse have dropped so much.. it’s because the kids are not in school.
      Well, some of that is legit. But a whole lot of it is not.
      These teachers are watchdogs and some do this nicely, but many do not. Many destroy families.

      None of this spying on us by way of our kids in schools is new, it has advanced to this level where they now feel comfortable in doing this here.
      People really do need to take their kids out of these schools now.
      Go down to one car, move into a very small home, do what you have to do to afford to have a parent stay home.. Look at multi-generational housing, buy a two family with some friends, whatever. Add onto the folks house. Think outta the box and get this done so that you can give your kids what they need.. these schools today are nothing at all like the schools were when we were growing up.
      We should all be working to defund them at this point.

  20. I remember when I was a child my parents told me about how children in communist countries were encouraged to inform on their parents if they heard them discussing anything against the government. If the child did, it was a sure bet their parents would not be there when they returned home that day, possibly never to be seen again. I thought this was horrifying. I’m 74 now and lived my whole life without seeing something like that in this country. And now I do. And from a Republican yet. It seems we now have the Progressive Democrats and the Progressive-Lite Republicans. I’m as disgusted with them right now as I am with the Democrats. They are as against President Trump as the Democrats with little to no regard for the feelings, wants and desires of a large number of the voters of America. It seems to me we the people have been abandoned by both parties.

    • Barbara, you are so right. Scott is a big Rino. He’s not a true Republican he should put a D after his name. If his mouth is moving you know he’s lying. He trashes Pres Trump every time he can. Yet he sure wanted his big share of the Care money. He and his liberal friends had to get their share of the money for themselves and their friends before they gave it to the .businesses. A lot of small businesses went out or are going out of business. The legislators sat on that money way too long fighting over how much their pet projects would get first.. Scott tries to talk big but those damn democrats pull his strings just like a puppet

      • I listened to our Governor, Leahy, Welch and Sanders trash the president on an emergency phone call across the state. They said…oh sure the money is coming. Sanders asked our Governor, “Have you seen the check?” Scott, ” No I haven’t seen it in the mail box” something like that.

        Yet who failed to distribute the money? Who failed to give it to the people? Who wanted to spend it on other things?

        Wish I had recorded the phone conversation.

  21. Barely the lesser of the major evils soon to be a daily part of American daily life under our Democrat Socialist masters. To be sure, Scott is one of them . And we have asked for it.

  22. Is it any wonder that School Choice is resisted by our politicians and the special interest groups who enable them? Schools are their avenue to political control. It’s been a trend for decades and has now obliterated any semblance of reason.

    There is only one sure way to avoid this totalitarian circumstance. Distribute education vouchers to parents and let them choose the educators they believe best meet the needs of their children. Unless and until School Choice is enabled for all parents, especially the less advantaged, this authoritarianism will not only continue, it will become more and more authoritarian.

    • Jay, it has become increasingly clear over the years and across this country that you are absolutely right – if they can’t get to the parents, they will get to their kids in school! When I was growing up I never contemplated that teachers would be a political arm of the government, but here we are.

    • I am a huge fan Jay of going back to our one room schoolhouse model.
      This method and way of doing things educated what would become “The Greatest Generation”.
      Mark Steyn has covered for Rush and spoken several times of this very same thing himself.
      He has an old schoolhouse in his town that has been set up as a museum. He once said he went in there and saw the lessons of the era on the blackboard. He said that his kids would have been better off in that old school than they have been at the big regional school.
      This is a model that works well for them- because look at what they have done with it!
      We are seeing daily now that this is certainly not what is best for our kids.
      If it was, then we would not be here where we are right now.

      The Tiny House Movement is really growing, it’s time to grow a Tiny Schoolhouse Movement.
      My one town over here in NH once had 8 schoolhouses in one town- and this was normal back then.. this is how it was all over New England.
      These building still stand today and most all are stunning houses. We all know they built things to last back then.
      They dotted the towns with schoolhouses that were within a walk for the kids.
      They got exercise, the whole need for bussing would be gone.
      Parents in that area can all work together to do what needs doing for their little schools.
      They can get their core education in this way and then go out into the community to the private sector and get all the extras in a way the family chooses.

      I’m a homeschooler, I have school aged kids and this model right here is sure what a whole lot of parents would like.
      But try and do this.. you’ll find out real fast how enslaved that we really actually are.

      • I served on a local school board and on the national workforce investment board (liaison between schools and business). As I’ve always held, no two people I have ever met, listened to, or read about, have ever agreed entirely on what a proper education entails. Home school, small school, big school, medium school, religious or secular, in-person or remote, and any combination thereof. No one ever agrees entirely.

        What we need is a free market in education. Willing buyers and sellers making the educational arrangements they feel best serve themselves as parents and students on one hand, and as teachers on the other. The State’s public school monopoly has demonstrated over and again that it is the epitome of what not to do. Vermont’s Act 46 is the latest legislative boondoggle. And this chilling episode of ‘big brother’ is the underlying thread through all of it. The longer the public school monopoly stays in power, the more abuse, expense and dysfunctional outcome we will see, as sure as the sun rising tomorrow. And we all know it.

        What we do about it remains to be seen. Wealthy parents migrate to homeschooling, private and parochial schools, or they manipulate the monopoly as best they can. Unfortunately, the less advantaged among us continue to suffer the slings and arrows of their outrageous fortune.

        School Choice is the single most important civil rights issue confronting American society today. Everything, I mean everything, will be affected by its ultimate fate.

        • I agree.
          What is going on today in the schools is a real crisis- and for many reasons. Defund the Police? We should be Defunding Education.
          We really should be.
          It’s a corrupt, failing, destructive, abusive, money robbing disaster.
          And, I would think that the good teachers themselves would be leading the exodus out of there in search of their own freedom to teach as they see fit to do- as WE need them to do.

          • ‘We should be Defunding Education.’

            Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. We shouldn’t defund education but be redirec it to parents to allow them to choose the education that best meets the need of their children.

            School Choice vouchers.

        • Jay:
          Growing up in the 40’s and 50’s was the beginning of the end of what our forefathers had instilled in the minds of the people who followed , for several generations. Example: You mentioned secular schools; I do not believe there were any back then. growing up in that 2 room school with six grades and two teachers, were some of the best years of my childhood, there was discipline, there was loving and
          caring but it was expressed differently. There was the Lord’s Prayer every day at the school’s opening, Flag Salute, there were Christmas Carols, of religious making, and it was to be expected. Memorial Day programs by the schools were opened by a Rev. giving the Invocation and another Rev who gave the Benediction. Flags were placed in the cemetery REVERENTLY, that was expected of everyone who participated. I have been driving a school bus for the last few years of my ability to contribute something to the grand scene, and I tell you, Middle School kids not knowing what the significance of Dec 7 is not comforting to this veteran who served for 28 1/2 years protecting this state and nation. WE have lost tremendously because of the FAILURES of LIBERALISM!!! Getting it back together can start anytime
          as far as I am concerned.

          • Enabling School Choice vouchers for all should be the first tangible step toward ‘getting it back together’. Everything else will then begin to fall into place.

  23. Wow, and I voted for this fool, my God have these people lost their minds, we all understand
    that our schools mostly indoctrinate instead of educating our children, but come on if my kid
    was questioned about our family’s gathering …….. there will be hell to pay.

    Maybe this will wake people up, these Gestapo tactics from our ” Conservative ” Governor
    that’s running scared, but he’ll keep running your mouth about VT being safe and look at all
    the out of staters ” plates ” on cars and you want Vermonters to stay home.

    Vermont, we deserve better !!

    • CHenry, don’t feel pregnant about what Scott has been doing. Typical politician, lie and say one thing to get power, then become a monarchy. Can’t count the number of times he’s done this. He has to be the worse Gov in VT’s history. His approaches to the virus has been 180 degs from what should be done. When in Montpelier, the air there makes one senile.

      There’s got to be a way to get rid of him. Perhaps running under false pretenses and violating the Fed & State Constitutions. Libs must love him. As Yogi said, “it ain’t over til it’s over”.

      • King Phillip will go down as the worst governor in Vermont history. However, he will lose that honor in two years when the idiots in this state pass the Crown to unconstitutional LT. Governor Molly Gray. It appears that there are no honorable politicians of any kind in Vermont. If there were, her candidacy would be questioned in court. If she was honorable, she would ask for a declaratory ruling from the supreme Court.

        • They may have her picked for a higher federal position!

          Nobody wants to rock that boat or even ask the question do they?

          Are there a dozen people within the Golden dome that dare step forward and ask the question? ANYONE?

          You have any ideas Dano……let the word out. How could this be challenged or even just asked?

          • Neil, Deborah Bucknam is the GOP Vice Chair and she is a Lawyer.
            I don’t understand how she can allow that to happen.
            Didn’t she swear to uphold the Law?
            Has anyone spoken directly to her about Molly Gray?

            As far as I am concerned, if she won’t do anything, she should go too.
            Who needs Lawyers like that.

          • Neil, I think the reason for ignoring it is fear of retribution from the higher ups in the state. The people in Vermont no longer are the masters of government. The “We The People” has been changed to do what we tell you or else! How long does it take for the Supreme Court to deliver a decision? We are still waiting for the magazine ban from 2 years ago. She would finish a first term before the court would decide.

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