June 25, 2021
 
To:  Dr. Xernona Thomas, Clarke County School District Superintendent and the Clarke County School District Board of Education
 
RE:  Covid Safety and Necessity of Mask Mandate CCSD Schools
 
We parents and citizens are deeply concerned about rumors and conflicting reports that the Clarke County School District is doing away with its mask mandate. The fact that CCSD has made a change at the last minute for summer enrichment programs, which should have been under the same Covid safety guidance as the 2020-21 academic year – and with poor to nonexistent communication from the district about this and zero parental input – adds to our outrage and concern.
 
Masks must continue to be required in schools for 2021-22, at least until vaccination rates can increase and the variants are under better control. The most recent guidance from the CDC makes it clear that, in order for schools to remain open for the sake of our kids, masking of anyone unvaccinated is crucial. This means all elementary schools should require masks, and all middle schools (as they include children too young to be vaccinated), and all high schools unless the district is prepared to police masking based on who is vaccinated and who is not (and this should include teachers as well). 

The state of California is requiring masks, as the complexities of navigating who is vaccinated and who is not make it difficult to do otherwise: "The CFT, which represents teachers and other school employees, strongly supported the mask requirement. Teachers monitoring hallways between classes should not have to police which students are allowed to forgo masks and which are not, said union President Jeff Freitas. A partial mandate could raise privacy issues and expose students to unwanted attention based on whether they were or were not wearing masks, he added." https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-10/california-to-require-masks-in-schools-despite-cdc-guidelines-theyre-not-needed-if-vaccinated   
 
The U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy agrees that removing the mask requirement in schools is nonsensical. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/07/1004021488/listener-q-a-surgeon-general-dr-vivek-murthy-on-variants-boosters-and-vax-mandat   
https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1004021488 
 
Students under 12 are still not eligible for vaccination. There is no firm timeline for when they will be able to be vaccinated. Their health and safety is in your hands. CCSD should also be doing more to get vaccines to students 12 and older.
 
Our community vaccination rate for residents 12 and up is currently at a dismal 37.1% as of June 23 (https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report Cases and deaths may be dropping at the moment, but we are not close to herd immunity. The more contagious and severe Delta variant, which has been spreading more quickly by children and young adults in the U.K., is going to become an increasing problem here in the U.S. (https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/delta-variant-greatest-threat-eliminating-covid-u-s-fauci-says-n1271933  
 
Children are certainly able to pass COVID to one another as well as to staff and teachers in CCSD who might not be able to be vaccinated for medical reasons or might be immunocompromised and therefore much less protected by the vaccine. Children may currently be less likely to transmit the virus to one another and less likely to have serious consequences from it, but the chance of complications is certainly a good bit higher than zero. The Delta variant is likely to become dominant here and change that equation for the worse.
 
Even if children are often asymptomatic as they pass the virus to one another, the more opportunities the virus has to transmit to new hosts, the more opportunities it will have to mutate, to become more contagious and more dangerous. CCSD's forcing unvaccinated people into buildings where they are not required to wear masks (because we all know "encouraged" means "we abdicate our responsibility") affects the entire community.
 
Dropping the mask requirement would be extremely insensitive to medically fragile children. CCSD already doesn't have a great reputation as far as providing federally mandated services to vulnerable populations, and this doesn't help.
 
Although Gov. Kemp has declared that schools can no longer rely on his emergency order to implement mask mandates, he has not banned them. City of Atlanta public schools are keeping their mask mandate. If we can police students' bodies through dress codes and uniform requirements, there is no reason that we cannot have a mask mandate.
 
During the pandemic, we have understood that schools and districts are in a difficult position, and that teachers in particular have been under enormous amounts of stress. We have known that there is often not a perfect choice, only choosing among less optimal options. But not in this case.
 
The safety issue for children is clear: they cannot be vaccinated if they are under 12. The only way to keep them safe is to require masks for everyone in the school building until they all, including the children, can be vaccinated. Anything else is unacceptable and shows a shocking disregard for the health and safety of our children. 
 
The current rise in Covid cases as the dangerous Delta variant has become dominant since the start of the petition campaign makes it clear: everyone in the schools must wear masks for the moment. https://flagpole.com/featured/2021/07/13/athens-covid-19-numbers-are-creeping-up-again/ 
 
Thank you,
Athens-Clarke County Parents