Now parents have the momentum
One year ago, hundreds of parents from across the Bay Area teamed with doctors in Berkeley for a teen mental health rally. Hundreds of pediatricians and mental health specialists penned a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom and state and local leadership prescribing an immediate opening of schools to end the isolation exacerbating what was a threat to all children, but acutely teens.
It was painful that not a single elected Democrat from Sacramento responded and just one brave school board director. The threat of death and serious illness from COVID-19 dominated the discussion, and parents who made the case that kids’ wellness ought to be balanced with efforts to limit the pandemic’s spread were more often met with scorn than empathy.
These days, with omicron subsiding, momentum is shifting toward restoring “normalcy” for kids in public schools. And yet, in our uncertain world, serious questions remain about what defines “normal” for kids and teachers and what role elected leaders, public schools, parents and the medical community play in deciding? COVID-19 has disrupted the politics governing public health and public schools. Even as we enter our third pandemic year, the only point of clarity is that there is still too little decisive state and local leadership.
Although parents initially failed to win the battle to open schools for middle and high school students, the progressive parents and doctors who stood up for kids when it was unpopular to do so have grown into a potent new force.
The data is clear: Prolonged school closures were catastrophic to the academic, health and wellness of children in progressive places. The Surgeon General has declared a teen mental health emergency.
Instead of numbering in the hundreds, more than 35,000 parents and doctors have now signed a petition demanding Gov. Newsom and the California Department of Public Health make a post-omicron pivot — calling for the end to masking and all COVID restrictions on children by Feb. 15. It also calls for a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of mitigation efforts that affect children, broadly considering their impact on kids’ health and well-being, recognizing that wellness cannot be narrowly defined as the mere absence of infection.
Yet listening to Wednesday’s Berkeley Unified School Board meeting revealed the extent that decision making is still governed more by politics than a careful consideration of what we are asking children to sacrifice.
It was deja vu for parents to listen to one director after another conjecture on whether testing 1,000 Berkeley High School students for omicron and having not a single positive case was a good thing or a bad thing.
Citing parents’ public comments urging a relaxing of mitigation toward normalcy, one director brought up the battle over masking to assert a bothsides argument that again, reflects a polarity of opinion that looks far more like politics than responsible public health policy.
It was left to the parents to bring up the fundamental unfairness that any unvaccinated adult can walk past an elementary school unmasked, while children are masked for up to eight hours a day. Or the other worldliness of thousands of unmasked fans, children and adults alike, attending concerts and sporting events, while field trips and concerts at schools are canceled.
What can parents expect from public schools post-COVID? Is the new normal parents constantly having to fight for evidenced based policies? And if data and facts are up for political interpretation, who is the decider?
One thing is abundantly clear: Gov. Newsom and the state’s Democratic supermajority are crucial in ensuring that our policies absorb the lessons of the pandemic. Fundamental to restoring trust among progressive parents is acknowledging past failures. But in a state where playing the foil to Trump Republicans wins statewide elections, will Newsom and the state’s Democrats have the courage to look back to leap forward?
Newsom could bring together the professional associations that represent superintendents, school board leaders, public health professionals and parents in a thoughtful, thorough and transparent process, so parents can feel confident and clear exactly how California will protect the health and wellness of kids when crisis inevitably strikes again.
Ironically, pivoting decisively on COVID and toward parents may also be smart politics. Embracing the rich new talent of progressive parents and demonstrating for the rest of the country what Democratic leadership dedicated to putting children first could be Newsom’s legacy (and a nice launching pad for national office).
Whether Newsom chooses to seize the moment or not, progressive parents are acting. On Feb. 15, San Francisco voters will decide whether to recall three school board members who did more to rename public schools than return students to classrooms.
It was progressive parents who proved critical to keeping schools open during the omicron surge, volunteering in record numbers to support in-school COVID testing, monitor hallways, assist with after school and other school activities to lessen epic staffing shortages.
“There’s a burden of responsibility and all of us share that, and that’s why I’m here,” Gov. Newsom recently said in response to rising crime. “I don’t think anyone particularly cares about who to blame, I think they care about what we’re going to do.”
California’s progressive parents couldn’t agree more.