2.21.25 – Fox News
“Caesars Palace, MLB stadium, an Ice Cream Truck: DOGE Reveals How Schools Spent Billions in COVID-Relief Funds”
By Aubrie Spady
[COMMENTS FROM DONNA GARNER: As an experienced, retired teacher myself, I can understand how important it was to gather students back together after the isolation experienced during COVID.
However, what students were craving was to be with one another and to learn to talk face-to-face again – not text on their phones but actually to talk live once again.
This could have been achieved through creative classroom activities meant to increase communication skills, and teachers could have then eased back into the teaching of academics.
No school should have spent their COVID-Relief Funds on frivolous, costly activities at taxpayers’ expense.
What taxpayers were wanting was for their children to be allowed to get back into normal classroom routines where hopefully they could regain the years of skills lost by the COVID lockdowns.]
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2.21.25
“Caesars Palace, MLB stadium, an Ice Cream Truck: DOGE Reveals How Schools Spent Billions in COVID-Relief Funds” -- by Aubrie Spady - Fox News
About $86K of COVID-relief funds were spent on hotel rooms at Caesars Palace, DOGE says.
Schools spent hundreds of billions of COVID-relief funds on expenses that had "little" impact on students, such as Las Vegas hotel rooms and the purchase of an ice cream truck, according to the Trump administration's cost-cutting department.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk to purge wasteful government spending, revealed on Thursday that schools have spent nearly $200 billion in COVID-relief funds "with little oversight or impact on students."
(Info. from Parents Defending Education and shared with DOGE)
***Granite Public Schools in Utah spent their COVID-relief funds on $86,000 in hotel rooms at Caesars Palace, a ritzy Las Vegas casino;
***Santa Ana Unified spent $393,000 to rent out a Major League baseball stadium;
***schools spent $60,000 of COVID-relief funds on swimming pool passes;
***a California district used its funds to purchase an ice cream truck.
"All of this money was drawn with zero documentation," DOGE wrote in a post on X.
DOGE highlighted that the Trump administration is implementing more thorough requirements for dishing out the $4 billion left from the funds, requiring that all grantees must "provide receipts for every purchase before funding is released."
While the Trump administration reworks the Department of Education's issuing of funds, the revelations about where money has been spent have sparked outrage from local leaders and education groups across the country.
"Recall those school board meetings when the ruling elites of “Covidstan” branded mothers as selfish disruptors simply for challenging their interpretation of "The Science" and scrutinizing how they allocated ESSER Funds? Never let them forget that we were right about everything," Moms for Liberty said in response to the findings.
Will O'Neil, chairman of the Orange County Republican Party, called the funds being spent on renting the MLB stadium "an absolute joke."
"This is outrageous," wrote the Republican Party of Bexar County.
DOGE has taken specific aim at cutting spending by the Department of Education (DoEd), slashing $370 million in taxpayer dollars being spent on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) just last week.
The department terminated 70 DEI training grants within the department, including one that funded training for teachers to "engage in ongoing learning and self-reflection to confront their own biases and racism, and develop asset-based anti-racist mindsets," DOGE said.
[COMMENTS FROM DONNA GARNER: Those COVID mandates have now been almost totally debunked – COVID jabs, COVID boosters, isolation, 10 feet of distance, masks, lockdowns, curfews, etc.
The practices that do work are for the public to keep their immunity systems high, take the correct amount of Vitamin D and Zinc, wash their hands thoroughly, practice good hygiene, exercise often, avoid obesity, and try not to cough in people’s faces.]
MORE INFORMATION
6.19.24 -- “COVID and Its Pack of Lies: My Story” -- By Donna Garner -- https://donnagarner.org/6-19-24-covid-and-its-pack-of-lies-my-story-by-donna-garner/
2.7.25 -- "Elon Musk and His Genius Assistants Even Helping To Uncover Sedition and Treason" -- By Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families -- https://donnagarner.org/2-7-25-elon-musk-and-his-genius-assistants-even-helping-to-uncover-sedition-and-treason-by-gary-bauer-campaign-for-working-families/
2.17.25 -- “Every American Should Be Furious with the Social Security Administration” -- By Donna Garner -- https://donnagarner.org/2-17-25-every-american-should-be-furious-with-the-social-security-administration-by-donna-garner/
2.11.25 -- "A Detailed Blueprint To Shut Down the U. S. Dept. of Education" -- By U. S. Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) -- https://donnagarner.org/2-11-25-a-detailed-blueprint-to-shut-down-the-u-s-dept-of-education-by-u-s-parents-involved-in-education-uspie/
2.20.25 – “Yale Scientists Link Covid Vaccines To Alarming New Syndrome With Long-Term Effects” -- By Donata Leskauskaite -- AOL.com -- https://www.aol.com/evil-wicked-scientists-covid-vaccines-184405464.html
9.15.23 – “Dr. Peter McCullough: COVID Vaccines and Future Boosters – Not Safe for Humans” -- By Naveen Athrappully – Epoch Times -- https://donnagarner.org/9-15-23-dr-peter-mccullough-covid-vaccines-and-future-boosters-not-safe-for-humans-by-naveen-athrappully-epoch-times/
11.30.21 – “More Than 400 Studies on the Failure of Compulsory Covid Interventions (Lockdowns, Restrictions, Closures)” -- Dr. Paul Elias Alexander – Brownstone Institute -- https://donnagarner.org/11-30-21-more-than-400-sudies-on-the-failure-of-covid-interventons-dr-paul-alexander-view-article/