“Educators” at a New York City middle school staged a play about COVID vaccination that ostracized unvaccinated students, mocked conservatives and even celebrated Big Pharma vaccine manufacturers by name.
Some parents are understandably outraged.
M.S. 243 Center School Principal Elaine Schwartz told parents in a December email that only 195 of roughly 247 students at the school are currently vaccinated.
The December show featured fifth- to eighth-graders warning unvaccinated kids in song that they would not have any more friends. The youthful propaganda show had kids singing: “It’s safe to vax/and if your friends don’t vax/then they ain’t no friends of mine.”
In one sequence, the young performers held up signs with the names “Pfizer” and “Moderna” painted in red inside the outline of a syringe. Another had students mocked those who seek medical or religious exemptions to the drug. Some held signs reading “I fear God not COVID” and “I am not a science experiment.” Appearing with them were stereotypes of the mentally ill, including one child dressed as a pack of cigarettes and another as Napoleon.
“It was an abomination,” said mother Antigone Michaelides, who saw the play with her husband. “It is discrimination and bullying and there is no reason you should make kids feel bad about themselves.”
Michaelides said unvaccinated children – including her son – were forced to take part in the play, which denigrated their parents’ decision to keep them unvaccinated. She called the show a part of a larger climate of intolerance that singles out unvaccinated kids.
School superintendent Christine Loughlin did not respond to request for comment from The New York Post, which had the story.
“My husband and I are both lifelong Democrats. We do not approach this from a political-ideological point of view,” Michaelides insisted. “But I can’t embrace bullying or discrimination and no parents should. So we are in a very difficult position here. We feel all alone.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the agency is probing the matter.
