“Thank YOU, friend” — that was the message from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky to Randi Weingarten, head of the nation’s second-largest teachers union. Earlier, Weingarten convinced Walensky to water down language about the ability of schools to reopen following extended COVID-related closures, after which Weingarten thanked the CDC director for the revisions.

In the exchanges between Weingarten and Walensky, the union boss objected to draft language stating that “all schools can provide in-person instruction.” After Weingarten’s objection, the CDC revised the language to read, “all schools have options to provide in-person instruction.”

The newly revealed text messages seem to contradict Weingarten’s recent insistence that her union somehow actually wanted schools to reopen. “That’s a complete rewriting of history. Any parent or child can tell you that,” Fairfax County Parents Association spokeswoman Christy Hudson told Fox News last week. “What we saw over and over were the teachers union and the CDC putting adult wants in front of children’s needs. Students were sacrificed during the pandemic.”

Weingarten’s messages to and from Walensky were obtained by the Fairfax County Parents Association (FCPA) last week through a Freedom of Information Act request. Messages between Walensky and Becky Pringle, boss of the nation’s largest teachers union, were similarly chummy. The grassroots, bipartisan FCPA published the messages in a tweet on Friday.

WATCH FAIRFAX PARENT CHRISTY HUDSON’S INTERVIEW: