Member-only story
School Year 2021–2022
Why are we sacrificing our kids?
I was astounded a few weeks ago to receive an email from my children’s school district detailing how the school year would look. The email stated they would be going back completely normal. No social distancing, masks completely optional, no smaller class sizes, all classes eating lunch in the cafeteria together, all water fountains turned back on, any adults allowed back into the building, and parents can come to eat lunch with their kids as before. What I failed to understand was that they will also be doing no contact tracing… So, a child could expose my child and they would not tell me.
I have 4 children in the school district, at all three levels of education: elementary, junior high, and high school. The older three have already received both Covid vaccinations. But they won’t be available for my 10-year-old until sometime mid-winter…
I get that parents and children need to get back to some kind of normalcy. Parents need to go to work and childcare issues would be the same or similar as going back to school (if the parents can even afford it). Everyone’s mental health is suffering after dealing with social distancing for a year and a half. Kids are missing their structure, their school friends, their teachers, and others at the school (if they didn’t go back face-to-face last year).
