Thread by @BringKidsBackMA

Today we sent a letter to the Baker administration, urging @MassGovernor to provide a clear answer: what is the end-game, the off-ramp, the objective for in-school mitigation measures on students who are in their third disrupted year of public education?
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As one million MA public school children walked back through the doors for in-person learning, they were met with a patchwork of inconsistent, overly restrictive, non-evidence based protocols that go far beyond the public health measures in any other venues in the state (2/)

Day after day @BringKidsBackMA is contacted by hundreds of parents desperately seeking to understand why their children are sitting in plexiglass stations or on the gym floor to eat their lunch, while children in the next district eat normally at cafeteria tables; (3/)

…or why their children face full-classroom closures/testing for a single positive case when @MASchoolsK12 guidance states this shouldn’t happen; or why their vaccinated child is masked and then penalized for chatting with a friend when unmasked at eating times (4/)

For parents, it’s not adding up. MA ranks 2nd in state vaccination, effectively reducing hospitalizations & deaths for the most vulnerable. Yet, children face in-school restrictions that aren’t backed by evidence, that would be unacceptable to most adults, w/ no end in sight (5/)

Despite strong evidence, we have yet to see transparent communication from @MassDPH regarding children and COVID: messaging that confirms the continued low COVID-related pediatric hospitalizations in MA, even with the Delta variant, is sorely needed (6/)

Sure, local control on educational matters is a long-standing tradition, but we don’t understand why this applies to public health protocols? Rather than evidence, “mitigation-by-consensus” drives local decisions, w/ little accountability & oversight from @MassEducation (7/)

Parents & students do not know what we are striving to achieve w/ continued haphazard mitigation in schools across the state. Naming a clear objective will allow mitigation & off-ramps catered to this objective, while reducing confusion & inconsistencies across districts. (8/)

The stated goal must reasonably reflect the evidence on the ground. Preventing any in-school transmissions is clearly an unattainable goal; but solutions like “test and stay” work toward reducing learning loss and forge a path toward rolling off other measures like masking (9/)

In 2 weeks, test & stay protocols saved 9,000+ school days. Focusing resources on effectively implementing test & stay in all districts would be a more equitable and evidence-based approach, than prioritizing outdated methods like surveillance testing & indefinite masking (10/)

The state of emergency was lifted in June, the adults of the Commonwealth are moving forward, and yet children in MA face far more restrictions in school buildings than anywhere else. We need @MassGovernor to clearly vocalize reasonable objectives, and we need it now.

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