As mentioned in my article fact-checking Newsom’s State of the State speech, and in my March 17 article directly calling out Gavin Newsom’s “Zoom school” lies, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-BougiePrivateSchool) the embattled governor’s four children have been attending in-person school since the fall of 2020. Given that the Newsom family was forced to quarantine in late November because one of their children was exposed at school – and that this was widely reported at the time and acknowledged by Newsom’s staff – it’s not been a secret, and political reporters on both sides of the aisle have been surprised by Newsom’s insistence on over-empathizing with California parents whose children have literally been out of classrooms for a year.

During a Friday press conference Newsom was asked again about his Zoom school comments and claimed that his kids “have attended school on Zoom on and off for months,” hoping that would satisfy the journalists and the public. Of course, I quickly called that out.

This is a liehttps://t.co/jnpfJhdONw https://t.co/6FXlUBxAPN

— Jennifer Van Laar (@jenvanlaar) March 19, 2021

…as did others, including Politico California reporter Mackenzie Mays.

Newsom told CNN this week he's "been living through Zoom school."

Last week at SOTS: "Jen and I, we live this as parents of 4 young children helping them cope with the fatigue of what my youngest son calls Zoom school."

His kids have been in in-person private school since Fall. https://t.co/URFTjk5M1c

— Mackenzie Mays (@MackenzieMays) March 19, 2021

Newsom used to enjoy a cozy relationship with the reporters covering him, but as his gubernatorial and personal actions have become increasingly erratic and hypocritical that relationship has become a little less cozy – no one likes being made a fool of.

Mays dug a little deeper and contacted Newsom’s wife’s spokesperson about the issue and got – shocker – the truth.

In response to questions, a spokesperson for first partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom said Thursday that their status hasn’t changed since POLITICO first reported in late October that they were going back to in-person school.

“The Newsoms’ four children attend a school that is carrying out in-person instruction at this time. However, that was not the case until later in the fall of last year,” Siebel Newsom spokesperson Daisy Vieyra said in an email. “Distance learning was especially difficult on two of their children, who have learning differences, as well as on their youngest child, Dutch, who was four years old at the time.”

My first thought upon reading that Dutch was having a difficult time with Zoom school was, “Why would someone put a four-year-old in Zoom school?” For crying out loud, computer-based learning games would be much more effective at that age than forcing a kid to participate in Zoom school. But I digress.

Mays’ article gives more particulars about the school’s schedule, which corroborate what was published here at RedState:

Their school, which POLITICO is not naming for privacy reasons, offers in-person classes five days a week for pre-kindergarten and elementary school students, as well as three or four days a week for upper grades. The school took a longer break after Thanksgiving, while Newsom’s children quarantined at home in November after potential Covid-19 exposures to a classmate and a California Highway Patrol officer.

Newsom has taken a lot of flak in California for sending his children to a bougie private school with a $25,000 per child price tag. That issue is sure to be “pounced” upon during the almost-certain recall election – and it seems that Newsom might have a solution for that issue that, of course, doesn’t involve his children suffering the way most of California’s children have suffered.

According to two sources who requested to be unnamed, the Newsoms have completed applications for their children to transfer to a Catholic school in the Sacramento area and are on a waiting list (most Catholic schools in the state have a waiting list as parents scramble to find some way for their children to attend in-person school). Gavin Newsom professes to be a Catholic, but it’s not clear whether the family belongs to that parish. In any event, tuition for all four of his children at that school, which isn’t being named for safety reasons, would be less than the tuition for one child at their current school, and the optics of sending their kids to a parochial school instead of to an elitist private school are much better in a recall election in which he’s accused of being out of touch.

Now to do something about that reputation for not telling the truth.

(P.S. Oh to be a fly on the wall when the Newsom children come home from school saying, “But Daddy, Sister Mary Frances says abortion is murder.”)