Summary List Placement
Parents at the private school of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s children are furious about the family’s trip to Cancun, Mexico, amid catastrophic winter storms, Politico reported Friday.
Three weeks before Cruz, his wife Heidi, and two daughters, Caroline and Catherine, embarked on their sunny vacation, the elite Houston school, called St John’s, reportedly sent an email to parents warning about international travel.
According to Politico, the email sent out on January 30 said that all students whose families decided to travel must quarantine for seven to 10 days upon their return, as CDC guidelines suggest.
According to the school’s official website, St.Johns will remain closed with no online classes until February 29 due to the storm.
The email was in reaction to a previous controversy that gripped the school after some of its students had attended holiday parties during their winter break, leading to multiple COVID-positive infections.
All of the students in question, who were in grade 11 and grade 12, were asked to quarantine immediately.
Now, some of St. John’s parents are demanding that the school enforce the same quarantine rules, which will keep Cruz’s children, aged 10 and 12, out of class for several days.
“At the end of the day, he’s taking this heat for using his children as an excuse for taking a vacation. And that’s a mistake,” said Lara Hollingsworth, a parent of three kids attending the school, according to Politico. “From a parent standpoint, all I’m asking is the school follows the CDC guidelines, and I need to say I have no reason to believe they won’t.”
“You’ve got someone out here saying, ‘I did this to be a good dad.’ No one is trying to dispute that,” she added. “The question is, are you fully aware of the consequences of what you did? Does it make you a bad parent? No. Does it make you a bad senator? Maybe.”
Another parent at the school, who did not want to be named, told Politico: “It’s enraging to see this politician go out of the country like this, and there’s a concern that he would be putting the school at risk if he was trying to sneak out.”
“There are just a huge number of people who are very angry at Ted Cruz, like most people in the United States,” the parent added.
A spokesman for Cruz said the senator’s “daughters plan to follow the St. John’s policy ” upon their arrival.
Cruz is facing calls to resign after he was spotted en-route to the sunny Mexican destination on Wednesday while millions of people were battling deadly winter storms in Texas.
The senator claimed he was supposed to return to Houston a day after he departed. However, text messages sent between his wife, Heidi, and friends revealed that Cruz was planning on staying until Saturday.
Upon his return to Texas on Thursday, almost exactly 24 hours after his departure, the senator apologized, saying his decision “was obviously a mistake and in hindsight, I wouldn’t have done it.”
“I was trying to be a dad. All of us have to make decisions,” Cruz went on. “When you’ve got two girls who have been cold for two days and haven’t had heat or power, and they’re saying, ‘Hey look, we don’t have school. Why don’t we go? Let’s get out of here.'”
Cruz’s wife and children still appear to be in Mexico.
Millions of Texas people are currently battling unusual winter storms that have resulted in power outages, food shortages, and a clean drinking water crisis.
So far, at least 46 people have died from the freezing conditions, although this number is estimated to be higher.
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Originally published at https://www.businessinsider.com/report-ted-cruz-cancun-trip-angers-parents-at-childrens-school-2021-2 on .
