We are high school students from across Victoria who are outraged and fearful of the unsafe conditions in which schools are currently reopening. 

The Victorian government's reopening plan is reckless and involves the acceptance of mass infection, thousands of deaths, and the possibility of completely overrunning our healthcare system. Following logically from this acceptance, the government has also decided many reasonable measures to protect the health of staff and students no longer matter at all.

The reopening of schools at the current time is irresponsible. Most students are unvaccinated and are ineligible to be vaccinated. Of those who are eligible, well below 70% are vaccinated.  

On October 5, when students were sent back to school to sit the GAT, only 21.71% 16-17 year olds and 28.08% of 18-29 year olds had received both doses of a vaccine. As of October 22, another 400,000 high school students with lower vaccination rates and half a million primary school students who are ineligible for vaccines will have filled up schools as well. Rushing back to school, exposes  teachers, students and their families to unnecessary levels of risk. 

We can expect that the effects of the reckless reopening will affect students unevenly, mirroring existing inequalities in society. Government schools have fewer resources to ensure adequate ventilation. Private schools have better facilities, smaller classes and are able to choose to maintain online teaching.

The Andrews government has insisted that 51,000 air purification devices will be provided to schools. However, the timeline is vague and there is an outrageous lack of transparency surrounding how many HEPA filters have already been installed, with many students and teachers reporting that they are entirely absent. None of the students writing this petition have seen one. Furthermore, the 51,000 figure that is being bragged about only amounts to 24 units per school which is not enough for shared spaces including classrooms, staff rooms, bathrooms, and reception areas.

When questioned on the 33 positive cases from the GAT tests in Victoria, active during examination but only found afterwards due to a lack of mandatory testing, the Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley called this carelessness a new and more “nuanced approach” to testing and tracing. The specifics of this new and more nuanced” approach (e.g. guidelines on what is Tier 1, casual contact, etc) are, astonishingly, not available to the public or school staff at this time. We have, however, been offered some glimpses. Recently, students have been granted ‘study exemptions’ for their exams which allow tier one contacts  to end self-isolation after only five days, in order to attend school. A quarter of cases turn positive more than five days after exposure. This prioritisation of exams over health is absurd; no exam is worth infection.

This abandonment of measures considered essential until now should be very alarming. In the midst of rising cases, Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton has said contact tracing and the resulting self-isolation, one of the most effective processes for controlling the spread of the virus, must actually be scaled back. This is shameless cost-cutting and represents giving up on any serious attempt at suppression. In fact, the opposite is true. If the society is being reopened, there should be significantly increased funds and resources in contact tracing, public health and welfare.

It is clear that schools are being reopened not because it is safe but because they are central to the economy. Getting back to school allows more workers to get back to work and continue making profits for the system. This logic of profits over health is guiding our government’s current approach. 

The reckless reopening is an attack on students and workers. We stand in solidarity with teachers and workers from across all industries who are fighting against unsafe conditions. We support unions and industrial action to fight for safer schools and workplaces.

With all this in mind, we demand that the state mandate the following measures on schools throughout Victoria:

Every shared space is equipped with HEPA filters and the government must be transparent about when they will be installed. 

All in-person classes are made available for students online. Equally, teachers should have the right to teach all of their classes from home. 

Proper testing, tracing and isolation support is provided. All schools should receive regular rapid antigen testing. Funds should be allocated to the significant task of contact tracing, so that we have an end to the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes a contact or an exposure site. We need a functional contact tracing system that reports on every outbreak the day it happens, and insists on self-isolation for close contacts.

All teachers should be treated as frontline workers: firstly they should be provided with fitted N95 masks, and secondly they should be given the pay rise they deserve.

We ask that everyone signs onto and shares this petition to help protect the public health of students, staff, their families, and the wider community.

Hamish Bruce

Lewis Denham

Valentine Jackson

Paterson Lewis

Holly Medlyn

Thomas Palmer

Dimitris Tafidis

Amaya Castro Williams