"The first OUSD school board meeting of the academic year saw parents and teachers expressing their concerns about safety precautions in schools. From the lack of weekly testing to the inability to social distance, members of the Oakland community are scared for their unvaccinated kids, at risk family members, and themselves." -- Holly Young, 8th Grade
The first OUSD school board meeting of the academic year saw parents and teachers expressing their concerns about Covid 19 safety precautions in schools. From the lack of weekly testing to the inability to social distance, members of the Oakland community are scared, for their unvaccinated kids, at risk family members, and themselves.
This is not the first time in the past few years where OUSD’s board and parents have clashed. In 2019-20, there was a widespread plan to close and merge many schools across the district. “Continuing to close schools during the pandemic was just the dumbest idea,” said Saru Jarayaman, who is an OUSD parent, president of One Fair Wage and Oakland Not for Sale and manager of the Ella Baker Center. “We needed that extra space!” Jarayamann said of OUSD’s merging, which impacted school and class sizes throughout the district.
Mike Hutchinson, District 5 representative, unveiled a plan at the OUSD meeting to implement weekly testing in every school, but was met with resistance from other members of the board.
“Weekly testing is only part of the solution,” said Jarayaman. “It would help, but we have to make sure we’re working with companies who are legit and credible though. It has to be combined with actual smart social distancing.” Of course, recently merged and impacted class sizes make social distancing that much harder.
Jarayaman’s daughter goes to Montera Middle School where there were also some false positive results, hence her reluctance to base safety on testing. False positives are unfortunately more common with the convenient rapid testing and, according to the CDC, may misdiagnose ⅔ of asymptomatic cases.
The cases that are flooding the district, as well as the new Mu Variant (which may have additional ability to bypass vaccines), has prompted many parents, teachers and students to question whether we should even be in-person.
“Though we can't guarantee complete safety in all situations, I do think OSA is taking all appropriate measures to minimize risk of Covid transmission,” said Oakland School of the Arts Principle Mike Oz. “We have only had one positive case so far in three weeks which is a good start, though we need to be sure we do not ease up on our safety measures.”
With fire season upon our doorstep, dread has spread throughout the schools as they have come to the realization of what it could do for Covid safety. “Smoke can affect Covid safety by keeping us stuck indoors and requiring us to close all windows,” said Oz.
“You’re going to have kids not able to go outside,” said Jarayaman, “It could be disastrous.”
When asked for safety advice, Oz said to “Mask, sanitize, distance when possible, stay home when showing symptoms, test as often as possible, get lots of rest, and listen to your body.”
“Be vigilant and ready to fight if the district is not following health values,” added Jarayaman, “If we need to go back to virtual, we need to push for that.” This would involve pushing at the state level, like contacting Tony Thurmond, supervisor for education, or our current representatives, Nancy Skinner and Rob Bonta.
This is not the first time in the past few years where OUSD’s board and parents have clashed. In 2019-20, there was a widespread plan to close and merge many schools across the district. “Continuing to close schools during the pandemic was just the dumbest idea,” said Saru Jarayaman, who is an OUSD parent, president of One Fair Wage and Oakland Not for Sale and manager of the Ella Baker Center. “We needed that extra space!” Jarayamann said of OUSD’s merging, which impacted school and class sizes throughout the district.
Mike Hutchinson, District 5 representative, unveiled a plan at the OUSD meeting to implement weekly testing in every school, but was met with resistance from other members of the board.
“Weekly testing is only part of the solution,” said Jarayaman. “It would help, but we have to make sure we’re working with companies who are legit and credible though. It has to be combined with actual smart social distancing.” Of course, recently merged and impacted class sizes make social distancing that much harder.
Jarayaman’s daughter goes to Montera Middle School where there were also some false positive results, hence her reluctance to base safety on testing. False positives are unfortunately more common with the convenient rapid testing and, according to the CDC, may misdiagnose ⅔ of asymptomatic cases.
The cases that are flooding the district, as well as the new Mu Variant (which may have additional ability to bypass vaccines), has prompted many parents, teachers and students to question whether we should even be in-person.
“Though we can't guarantee complete safety in all situations, I do think OSA is taking all appropriate measures to minimize risk of Covid transmission,” said Oakland School of the Arts Principle Mike Oz. “We have only had one positive case so far in three weeks which is a good start, though we need to be sure we do not ease up on our safety measures.”
With fire season upon our doorstep, dread has spread throughout the schools as they have come to the realization of what it could do for Covid safety. “Smoke can affect Covid safety by keeping us stuck indoors and requiring us to close all windows,” said Oz.
“You’re going to have kids not able to go outside,” said Jarayaman, “It could be disastrous.”
When asked for safety advice, Oz said to “Mask, sanitize, distance when possible, stay home when showing symptoms, test as often as possible, get lots of rest, and listen to your body.”
“Be vigilant and ready to fight if the district is not following health values,” added Jarayaman, “If we need to go back to virtual, we need to push for that.” This would involve pushing at the state level, like contacting Tony Thurmond, supervisor for education, or our current representatives, Nancy Skinner and Rob Bonta.
