At the beginning of the 2021/2022, I received word from Ben’s school that as an unvaccinated student, he would be subject to a lot of “additional measures.” Here was excerpt from a letter we received in mid July.
Masks would be optional for vaccinated students and employees
Masks should be worn indoors by all unvaccinated individuals.
Vaccinated students and employees who have a close contact with someone who has COVID-19 would not be required to quarantine.
Unvaccinated individuals would need to quarantine for at least 7 days and/or test negative for the virus before returning to campus.
Regular COVID-19 testing would not be required for vaccinated individuals.
Frequent testing could be necessary for those who are not vaccinated.
If your student is not yet vaccinated, please remember that it takes approximately five weeks from the first shot of a two-dose regimen to reach full vaccination. That means that in order to be fully vaccinated by the first day of school, you need to begin the process on or before Wednesday, July 21, or as soon as your student becomes eligible for the vaccine (currently age 12).
Being the outspoken parent that I was, needless to say, I had some comments. I engaged the administration, shared stats and science (not “the science TM”) The response? “We are just following the recommendations of the CDC. Our hands are tied.” Really? How convenient. I don’t remember electing the CDC.
Then, in the days before school began, we received updated guidance.
As the start of the school year approaches, public health officials are expressing heightened concern about the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus. Although close to 100% of school employees and over 50% of our students ages 12+ are vaccinated against COVID-19, the growing impact of Delta on the unvaccinated and rare examples of transmission by vaccinated individuals have resulted in updated recommendations from our partners at Tri-County Health.
OUTDOOR GATHERINGS & LUNCH:Whenever possible, The school will use outdoor spaces for gatherings, and we will continue to offer teachers opportunities to conduct outdoor classes. For lunches, all sixth-graders will eat in tented, outdoor spaces. Unvaccinated students in grades 7–12 may be asked to eat outdoors as well.
CONTACT TRACING & QUARANTINE: the school will continue to use seating charts to track potential COVID-19 exposures. Please note thatunvaccinated students will be required to quarantine if they are determined to be a close contact to a person with COVID-19. Fully-vaccinated students exposed to the virus will only be quarantined if they test positive or show symptoms of infection.
HIGH RISK ACTIVITIES: Certain activities are considered “high risk” for COVID-19 because of the level of exhalation and/or close, face-to-face contacts. This includes certain indoor and outdoor sports, like football and volleyball, and extracurricular activities such as band and choir. If exposed to a case of COVID-19 during these activities, unvaccinated students will be required to quarantine.
The worst part? The school explicitly said if an unvaccinated student was on quarantine, they would not provide resources to support them at home. Sounded more about punishment than education and health to me. And so, I wrote.
In response to perhaps the best of my six emails that followed to the administration, we were offered the opportunity to withdraw Ben from school and receive a full refund. Here was the letter. Yes. I wrote that to a private school. I have net zero F’s to give, like China has about CO2 emissions.
Ultimately, Ben decided being on the golf team was more important than negative impacts of discrimination, so he stayed. He was tested every week and was one of the last kids in January of 2022 to test positive after virtually all of his vaccinated classmates were quarantined earlier.
Now, we have much more “knowledge”, I’m told, and those that followed “the science (TM)” have discovered what those of us that didn’t follow the science knew last year: COVID is here to stay, the vaccine isn’t a magic bullet, and co-morbidities and age are massively influencing factors on outcomes. And now, we are learning more about the negative consequences of the vaccine (surprise surprise … from the same non science followers that had questions last year).
https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/urgent-the-covid-vaccine-paper-on/comments
It’s important to look back, look at the words we said, and validate the actions we took for “future pandemics.”
In that light, here’s a great article from Bari Weiss this morning. Actions have consequences. And sometimes the tail wags the dog.
Amen brother!!! Love that you have that role. Good for you!!!
Fear has driven our education policy for more than two years, and the results have been disastrous.
But we're not supposed to talk about that! :)
I won my school board race in Texas. Eighth-largest district in Texas with 78,000 students has a DRW fan on the board of trustees.