At least twice in the last week Gavin Newsom has claimed that his family is suffering through “Zoom school” along with the rest of California, but that’s simply not true.

In his State of the State address, Newsom said:

Our kids are missing too many rites of passage: field trips, proms, graduation….

Look, Jen and I live this as parents of four young children. Helping them cope with the fatigue of “Zoom school.” The loneliness of missing their friends. Frustrated by emotions they don’t yet fully understand.

Then when speaking to Jake Tapper, Newsom said:

Yeah, look, I’ve been a strong advocate for safely getting our kids back in person for instruction. I have four young kids myself. I’ve been living through Zoom school and all of the challenge related to it.

Newsom has four children, aged 4 to 11, and at least three of them attend a private school in Sacramento County (the youngest would be in PreK, and it’s unclear whether he attends PreK at that school or not). The school’s website says that full-day K-6 instruction has been available since November 9, and “half-days with waiver prior” – that “prior” being mid-September 2020. RedState was provided the name of that school by multiple sources, and confirmed the date grades K-6 resumed in-person instruction based on public information on waivers granted.

While it was well-known to the state’s political insiders that Newsom’s kids were in school as of mid-September (other politicians send their children there, and Sacramento’s a small town), Newsom didn’t publicly admit it until a news conference October 30, as Politico reported:

Newsom said at a news conference that his four children, ages 4 to 11, have returned to classrooms in some capacity.

Newsom’s children attend a private school in Sacramento County that has a hybrid schedule that alternates remote and in-person education before it will return full-time next month, according to a source.

In case Newsom claims that he misspoke or was misunderstood (not an unknown tactic for him) a November 20, 2020 story in the Los Angeles Times proves that his children were, in fact, attending in-person school:

One of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s four children is quarantining at home after a Sacramento private school classmate tested positive for COVID-19, the governor’s office said Friday.

So Newsom and his wife (most likely his wife, let’s be honest) had “Zoom School” for the last eight weeks of the 2019-2020 school year, and perhaps three weeks of the current school year, and he’s acting like he’s one of us.

As with all things Newsom, he claims to identify with the “common man” but the reality is that he enjoys a level of privilege that very few Californians could ever hope to achieve. He *should* stop lying about this, but he won’t. He’s not capable.