BpS: Bundle up!
Windows still open to reduce risk of COVID transmission
Students and teachers have to bundle up in their classrooms because of a Boston Public Schools mandate that windows be kept open 4 inches to reduce the risk of COVID transmission.
“Good morning families,” one school wrote to parents before their children headed off to class. “It is still very cold. Remember the windows in our classrooms have to be open. I suggest layering your child’s clothes (2 pairs of pants, 2 shirts and a sweater, 2 pairs of socks, etc. (Plus all their outerwear (hat, glove, scarf, etc.).”
That advice has angered some parents.
“These are the notifications I get from a BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOL … in the 21st century,” one parent tweeted. “I hate this so much. How is my 4yr old to concentrate on learning trying to keep warm?!? An adult has trouble in the cold these kids are enduring so much.”
At Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting, Samantha Laney, a teacher at Holmes Elementary School in Dorchester, said she and her students have to keep their coats on in class because windows are required to be open to circulate the air.
She also said schools need COVID tests “right away” and need more social workers, not only for students, but for teachers who are “burned all the way out.”
Mary Dibinga, a Boston Latin Academy teacher, told the School Committee she started her day on a bus crowded with students, with no social distancing, because many school bus drivers aren’t coming to work.
She arrived at her “55-degree classroom,” where she has two students with sickle cell anemia, one of the diseases that put people at
greater risk of not only contracting COVID but also dying.
A walkout is planned at 10:30 a.m. Friday to demand better working conditions during the pandemic.
“This is the protocol for each school to mitigate COVID risks,” a Boston Public Schools spokeswoman said Wednesday of the openwindow mandate. “Temperatures in school buildings have been adjusted to 76 degrees to help combat the
required window ventilation, and teachers/staff are urged to contact their school leader if they are experiencing issues with heat or cold.”
On Wednesday night, the School Committee approved nearly $400 million in federal, COVID-relief grants, but some parents and students urged the committee to defy the state’s insistence on 180 days of in-person learning, with several going so far as to say schools should be closed altogether until it is
safe to return.
Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius maintains that a classroom is the best environment for students to learn and to receive the resources they need. But she also agrees that the omicron surge presents a special circumstance and believes that the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education could foster goodwill with school leaders by loosening the 180-day, in-person learning requirement.