"K-12 children represent the lowest-risk cohort for Covid-19. Because of that fact, social distancing of children and reduced census classrooms is not necessary and therefore not recommended."
"Requiring children to wear masks during school is not only difficult – if not impossible to implement – but not based on science. It may even be harmful and is therefore not recommended."
"Children play a very minor role in the spread of Covid-19. Teachers and staff are in greater danger of infection from other adults, including parents, than from students in their classrooms."
"Parents, not government officials, are in the best position to determine the education environment that best suits their children. If a school district is unable or unwilling to provide that education...
...parents should be allowed to send their children to a district or charter school that will provide that education. Some parents with the means will opt for private schools or home schooling."
"Temperature checks should be performed regularly. As with any illness, ill children, teachers, or staff should be sent home and if identified not allowed to be on campus."
"As always, good hygiene with frequent hand washing and the use of hand sanitizer should be encouraged.
"Classrooms, meeting rooms, transportation vehicles (e.g., busses) and administrative offices should be thoroughly cleaned each night."
"Classrooms, meeting rooms, transportation vehicles (e.g., busses) and administrative offices should be thoroughly cleaned each night."
Quite brilliant comments from Dr. Mark McDonald:
Children are not dying from Covid-19. Children are not passing the disease on to adults. So the only question is, “Why are we even having this meeting tonight?” We’re meeting because we adults are afraid.
Children are not dying from Covid-19. Children are not passing the disease on to adults. So the only question is, “Why are we even having this meeting tonight?” We’re meeting because we adults are afraid.
As parents, we will face many moments of anxiety: seeing our children off on their first day of kindergarten, their first day of camp, their first year of college. We may want to keep them home to protect them from the world, which can indeed be a frightening place.
But let’s be clear, when we do that, we are not really protecting our children. We are only attempting to manage our own anxiety, and we do that at their expense. We are acting as negligent parents. We are harming our children. We are failing them.
We must agree to make decisions in the best interest of the children. If we do not – if, paralyzed by fear, we continue to act purely out of self-interest – we will ensure an entire generation of traumatized young adults,
consigned to perpetual adolescence and residency in their parents’ garages, unable to move through life with independence, courage, and confidence. They deserve better — we owe it to them as parents.
