Letter to Board

[benstond]

This is the letter I wrote to the School Board, when they met via Zoom to decide we should go back to in person learning.  Not sure if they acknowledged the irony.

Esteemed Board Members,

Thank you for taking my letter.
While I certainly understand why some parents are anxious to have their kids back on site for in person learning, I have grave concerns over what I see as a rush to return too early.

We locked down schools in March, when there were no known cases.  Now, with infection rates skyrocketing (172/10,000 in West Linn, 275/10,000 in Wilsonville), we are being told it's time to go back. This makes no sense. Despite claims to the contrary, we know that children can most certainly carry the virus, and more than half of transmissions come from asymptomatic carriers.

The state has listened to medical professionals who say it's unsafe to eat in restaurants, so how is a classroom full of maskless kids eating their lunches acceptable? We are told to keep six feet of space, even though respiratory droplets have been tracked at 30 feet. Most of our schools have terrible ventilation, as can be seen during hot weather when many classrooms become so barely habitable, teachers are forced to open every window (if they can be opened) and door (if they are lucky enough to have an outside door), and even with a half dozen fans around the room, it's still a sweltering hot box.

With cohorts daily, I am baffled as to how we are to keep the schools properly disinfected? The custodial staff can't possibly keep up with the herculean effort of daily scrubbing every surface after class...multiple times a day in secondary schools. Will teachers be expected to deep clean their own rooms, while teaching both online and in person classes? That seems unrealistic, and while you may decree it to be so, it is unlikely to be sufficient, and puts the safety of the community on very overworked and exhausted shoulders.

We have spent the most of the last year watching "expendable" be redefined as "essential", and now it seems we have given up on science entirely, only to cave in to expediency. I don't envy Governor Brown the endless, and at times psychotic, chorus of malice and contempt she has had to endure from the squeakiest wheels in the state, but I am appalled at the way she threw this grenade out on Dec. 23, without any warning. I implore this Board to hold the line against rash and thoughtless pandering to people who may not have the best interests of the larger community at heart.

I know whatever happens, I will not be sending my children back to school in this district until I see more than the empty and ineffectual gestures towards safety which have been suggested thus far.

Thank you,

David Benston, WLHS

*Spoiler*  They didn't listen.

[benstond]

Esteemed Board Members,

"...it probably is not worth closing every Oregon school for a year to save one life, but it is certainly worth it to save 100,000 lives."
-Dylan Hydes

Call me selfish, but if we're talking about my life, or the lives of the high-risk people in my household, I think it would absolutely be worth it. Unfortunately as many districts have already learned, casualties are unlikely to be limited to one life, or contained to a single family. Restricting the argument to deaths caused makes no sense anyway, as there has been a rogues' gallery of non-immediately-fatal post-COVID issues already discovered, with many more speculated. These range from heart failure in otherwise healthy young people, to sensory loss. Over a thousand people of all ages have experienced a sudden spontaneous loss of all their teeth which may have been COVID related. It will take years to sort out all of the long term damage.

Hydes goes on, in the Facebook post quoted above, to cite Oregon's "low infection rate", while completely failing to mention Oregon's abysmal record on testing: While I'm gratified to discover we're no longer 49th in the nation (above Alabama), we are still far behind the curve in testing and tracking, and continue to see our infection rates rising daily, with Wilsonville at 388/10,000 in the last OHA weekly report (1/20). West Linn was at 205, and Tualatin at 408. Those numbers have been steadily rising since we began this lock down. Mystifyingly, Hydes credits low infections to Oregon's stringent precautions, while simultaneously arguing against caution.

Over the past few weeks, I've heard it said we should open because, "Look at Lake Oswego, they're doing it!" Well now they aren't, shall that be a factor in our determination as well?

Much has been made of the effect of distance learning on small children. I have heard very little discussion of how those same children, and their learning potential will be adversely impacted by the COVID protocols which will necessarily be in place upon their return, and still less of the lost time in switching from off site to in person...and possibly back again if this goes south, which remains a very real possibility.

I am baffled by the sudden rush to return to school now, when we still have no vaccine, and very little idea what long term effects are caused by the virus, or how it is transmitted. The arguments for P-2 learning tend to fall apart when addressing the needs of older kids. I fear the very loud voice of the "Let them play!" crowd has an out-sized influence in this discussion. Certainly the poor judgment required to send teams out to play in a pandemic need have no connection to academics: sports require stadiums and coaches, not classrooms and teachers. I would be interested in seeing the results of the parent survey I filled out, but those numbers have not been forthcoming.

I would also love to see a convincing plan for keeping contact areas clean, and addressing the poor ventilation vexing most of our school buildings. Simply cranking up the HVAC "in schools that support it" sounds very much like something else to throw at the wall to see if it sticks. Nothing the board has put forward publicly has given me confidence these decisions are being made based on science rather than politics. I cannot afford to quit, or take a leave of absence. I love my job, and realize most people I know can't say that, but if this goes forward, I'll have no choice but to roll the dice, and move into a tent in my back yard so as not to expose my family to what the district deems "acceptable risk", and still be able my mortgage. Showers will be problematic, but it should at least help with social distancing enforcement.

I'm grateful I don't have to make that choice for my children: they will not be returning to on site learning this year. I hope next year is an option, but hope doesn't kill viruses.

But to go back to the first point, I would be happy to keep the kids home another year if it meant one person didn't die in Umatilla or Bend.

Thank you for your consideration.



PS...FYI---As I finish writing this, I see the Washington Post has just announced the first US case of a new highly transmissible variant...this time from Brazil.