Open the schools

This is in response to the letter from eight Solano

County teacher’s associations’ reps:

Although I sympathize with the fright that the teachers and staff are feeling about returning to the classroom, their terror is founded on a year’s worth of misinformation and a terror campaign from the government and media sources.

The letter was filled with emotional angst, but few facts.

The authors claim that many authorities have said that vaccines are “crucial” to schools reopening, but here are actual quotes from the actual authorities:

• “I’m a strong advocate of teachers receiving their vaccinations, but we don’t believe it’s a prerequisite for reopening schools.” — Rochelle Walensky, Director of the CDC.

• “Even though we don’t feel that every teacher needs to be vaccinated before you can open a school, that doesn’t take away from the fact that we strongly support the vaccination of teachers.” — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, during a White House briefing.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has repeatedly reaffirmed that all teachers do not need to be vaccinated before schools can “safely” reopen.

The authors of the referenced letter to the editor also claim that the teachers of Solano County have “compassion” for families, but again reiterate the very dismissive and demeaning beliefs of the Oakley Board of Education (that was forced to resign) that parents need “childcare.” As the grandmother of five schoolage children, I am appalled at the callousness of teachers, unions, and administrators that have so little thought for their students and families and themselves that they reduce their highly trained occupations as “childcare.” As depression and suicides skyrocket in our young people and learning and grades collapse in students, domestic abuse, divorces, and separations are on the rise.

All of this heartache for a virus, which the CDC’s own website states has an overall recovery rate of 99.6% and even nearer to 100% for the demographic of 45 and under.

The authors of the recent letter also claim that many school districts have had to shut down because of viral infection without giving any proof. Here are two local examples of the opposite:

• KAIROS in Vacaville has been fully open since October, with 10 cases (not active illness) that were traced to out of school sources.

• Schools in neighboring Marin county have been open with few problems.

An example from farther away is Sweden which, in the four months prior to Covid, in December of 2019, had 65 deaths out of 1.9 million school-age children. After not closing any schools, or forcing students to wear masks, the four months after Covid, there were 69 deaths among the same population — so a virtual statistical tie that showed that this approach was effective and safe.

Newsom said on Jan. 29 that out of all of California, there have been 87 cases (not active illness) in schools.

I happen to personally know many teachers who want to get back into the classroom but are being hampered by their unions. And I know parents who do not want their children to return to school at this time. There is a super-simple solution to this:

Allow the “at-risk” and/ or frightened teachers to remotely teach the students who aren’t allowed by their parents to go back to school and allow those teachers who put their students first to get back into the classroom.

I think teachers are digging their own graves by this stubborn refusal to teach in person. There has been a long attack on public education and the powers that be (with the enthusiastic help and support by teachers and administrators) are figuring out how to give the smallest amount of education using the fewest educators. I have also defended educators from the attack that they just want to “stay home in their jammies all day and shop on Amazon.” I happen to know from some teachers that on-line instruction is more difficult than classroom teaching and most teachers are not trained to do it well. The longer teachers refuse to actually teach, the more absurd my defense of them and public education is becoming, though.

The authors state that schools could open within a week of the second Covid vaccine dose (five weeks after the first dose). Who knows when that will be? We may as well call the 2020-21 school year a total disaster and wait for the excuses in August for why the schools still can’t reopen for in-person instruction. I have never seen a situation in my memory where labor and management have conspired so diabolically with each other against the population they are supposed to serve, in this case, students.

I stand with the students and families: Every child is being left behind by fear, misinformation, bad science and half-truths. It’s way past time to reopen our schools.

— Cindy Sheehan/Vacaville