Reopening Schools: Dangerous and Irresponsible

 Dear Superintendent and School Board, 

March 11, 2021

You must put the brakes on reopening now and start the process of planning for the Fall, 2021 school year, and educating parents and the community about why you have changed directions. 

 

First, it is irresponsible, dangerous and cruel to be reopening any crowded indoor environments now, including schools, as most of the country is already in the early stages of the next surge, a surge that will be greatly accelerated by the presence of multiple new highly infectious variants. The UK variant is expected to become the dominant variant in the U.S. within the next two weeks. It’s 59-70% more infectious than the wild-type (original) Covid. The experience in the UK and other European countries was that it spread much more easily among children and teens, and that schools were a major source of new outbreaks. Indeed, we are already seeing large clusters of school outbreaks in Michigan, and in Colorado. 

 

It’s not just the increased risk of infection with these new variants. They are deadlier, too. A new study found that the death rate for the UK Variant was 64% higher in people 30 and older. That age group includes the vast majority of our staff members, as well as the vast majority of our students’ family members. Most adults still have not been vaccinated. Even for those 75 and older, only 50% have received their full 2 doses. The only people under 65 who have been vaccinated are some teachers, some food workers, some emergency service workers, and many frontline health workers. That leaves the overwhelming majority of parents, extended family members and community members vulnerable to infection and death by this more deadly and transmissible strain. Consequently, 2021 could be like 1919, when the Spanish flu mutated and became much more virulent, and the mortality that year dwarfed the already terrible death toll in 1918. 

 

Secondly, there is no way to ensure that the schools are truly safe. Asymptomatic and presymptomatic people easily pass through wellness checkpoints. Even with improved HVAC systems, desks 6 feet apart, masks and plexiglass shields, there will still be 10 or more people sharing an indoor space and swapping air for extended periods of time, and some virus will continue to circulate. This is why school outbreaks continue to proliferate, in spite of mitigation efforts, as we saw in Europe in Dec-Jan, and we are seeing now in Michigan and Colorado. Even the CDC’s own back-to-school recommendations were based on studies in which school outbreaks continued to happen. 

 

So, what you are really telling teachers, students, families and the public is NOT that it is safe to return to school. This is not something you can guarantee during a pandemic. What you are actually telling all of us is that YOU ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF ILLNESS AND DEATH in exchange for giving roughly 50% of our students (because the other 50% have opted out, as they understand that they’d be risking their lives and those of their family members) the chance to continue doing the exact same Zoom lessons they’d be doing at home, but with masks on, inside crowded classrooms, after waiting in long lines at the wellness checks, and with oppressive restrictions on movement and behavior throughout the day. After 2-3 days of this, many of the students who opted in for in-person, will see how onerous it is. They will stop coming and we’ll be taking these unnecessary and potentially deadly risks for only a fraction of our student population. 

 

This is unacceptable. The superintendent and school board members are not gods and should not be playing god with the lives of tens of thousands of Bay Area community members. I say tens of thousands of lives because it’s not just our students who will be affected when an outbreak occurs. Infected students will take it back into their homes and neighborhoods, infect vulnerable family and community members, who will, in turn, spread it to vulnerable neighbors, shop keepers, strangers at the playground. And this will exacerbated the next surge and magnify the number of hospitalizations and deaths. 

 

One final comment on the absurdity and irresponsibility of the March 31/April 1 return-to-school date. Assuming we actually stay in the red tier for a full 4 weeks and get a full 4-5 days in the orange tier, as required by the agreement between the district and the teachers' union, this would leave us with only 2-3 days of in-person learning. Then we’ll have spring break and lots of people traveling, who will then be forbidden from returning to school. Like we saw this winter, that travel will either lead to a new surge or exacerbate the one that is brewing now, and force the reclosure of the schools. 

 

I hope I am wrong about another terrible surge sending us back into the purple. But why bother reopening for only 3 days before spring break? It would be a lot more rational, prudent and compassionate to everyone to wait until after spring break, see if we are still in the orange or if we have backslid, give people who traveled a chance to quarantine, give the district more time to upgrade and test HVAC systems and meet the other stipulations in the agreement. There is no rational or compelling reason to reopen on April 1, rather than April 12. That’s only 3 days of instructional time, but it buys us an extra 12 days to get prepared and watch the infection trends. 

 

Even more prudent, responsible, compassionate and sane would be to wait until the fall of 2021 to reopen. By then, all adults will have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. Possibly teenagers, too. Hopefully, by then, we will be back down into the yellow or green and actually be able to do the proper testing and contact tracing to keep the numbers that low. We will have had plenty of time to ensure that all HVAC systems are repaired, upgraded and tested. Plenty of time for professional development over summer break. Plenty of time to observe the infection trends and make sure we really are at protracted low-point. 

 

Lastly, there is NO acceptable amount of illness or death. Anyone, student, staff or family member, who does get sick, hospitalized or dies because of a covid infection connected to the reopening of our schools, will be a tragedy that could have been averted, that was unnecessary, and that was caused by the irresponsible decision of this school board to reopen the schools. No amount of bribery or threats from the governor justifies reopening now and subjecting anyone to the risk of dying or losing a family member. No amount of screaming and threatening by a loud and vocal minority of mostly very privileged parents justifies those risks.  

 

I understand how difficult it would be to put on the brakes now, after you’ve been cheerleading for weeks about the imminent reopening. But it can and needs to be done. And it won’t be half as difficult as writing those letters of condolence to our students, staff and family members who lose loved ones because of infections picked up at our schools. Nor half as bad as all the wrongful death lawsuits that follow. 

 

Thank you again for your time and consideration,