Students, staff, parents, and community members of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District unite to demand a compassionate reopening.

What does “compassionate reopening” mean? Though there may be mounting pressure, both internal and external, to reopen schools at the new semester, we ask the district to reopen when it is safe and when risk of infection for students, teachers, staff, and their families is at its lowest. With COVID-19 cases on the rise across the nation and cases in California nowhere near safe levels, we believe it will not be secure or responsible to reopen schools in January.

The San Ramon Valley Unified School District has a responsibility to consider all of the people it affects. Our students, teachers, staff, and their families are of all different ages, conditions, and abilities. Any one description of the constituent demographic of SRVUSD, especially one that focuses on how low-risk this constituent is, fails to capture how varied its stakeholders are. 

SRVUSD does not only consist of healthy high school students and staff. It is also the young T-K girl whose parents still don’t know she has an autoimmune disorder and the English teacher who just found out she has Type II Diabetes, which will make her COVID-19 outcomes worse.

The San Ramon Valley Unified School District has announced that doors can reopen on the 5th of January, conditions allowing. The petitioners’ concern is that much of the motivation behind this is the growing pressure from the community—pressure which does not pay much mind to the worsening COVID-19 crisis. This pronouncement on a reopening more than two months away is highly questionable to the petitioners, and we worry that come January, the district will not consider present circumstances responsibly and instead succumb to community pressure.

While the petitioners understand the desire for the contact we have all lacked since the beginning of the pandemic, we feel that to reopen schools now or at the beginning of the new semester would be terribly dangerous for our students, teachers, staff, and their families. We are especially concerned that plans to reopen necessarily force teachers to be on campus with potentially infectious students and coworkers.

We’ll say that again: teachers will have no choice but to return to school. The writers of this petition have listened to teachers’ anxiety and tears as they opened up about their fear of the return to school. If teachers don’t feel safe returning to school, they shouldn’t be forced to. More importantly, if teachers don’t feel safe returning to school, neither should their students.

There are so many things students are missing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Much of the pressure on the district, the petitioners have noticed, has come because of these missed events. We are disappointed that some community members feel that loss gives them carte blanche for irresponsibility. Instead of a reaction to loss, our reopening should be a demonstration of compassion for our community members.

A reopening can only be compassionate when it occurs at a time when the district earnestly believes there are low chances of outbreaks on its campuses; when allowing students on campus won't cause danger to the wider community; when there is personal protective equipment available for all students, teachers, and staff at all times; when students, teachers, and staff have enough space to social distance according to CDC guidelines; and when the district and schools feel they can enforce violations of guidelines to the utmost in order to protect its stakeholders.

We the signatories of this petition demand that the San Ramon Valley Unified School District wait to reopen schools until it is safe, responsible, and compassionate to do so.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to write the petition organizers at their emails: sofia.couture14[at]gmail.com or npa.gtz[at]gmail.com.

 

Community Member Stories

The below stories were shared with us by community members and petitioners who for a variety of reasons share our concerns with the direction SRVUSD is taking and want to push for a compassionate reopening.

If you are a district community member and would like your story to be added, please email the petition organizers at sofia.couture14[at]gmail.com or npa.gtz[at]gmail.com. All additions will be kept strictly anonymous.

 

Student Story:

When I first received the call from the doctor telling me I was infected, I couldn’t believe it. I’d been a responsible citizen; I wear a mask, I don’t see people, and when I do I try to socially distance. Even though I followed precautions, I have suffered fevers above 104º and below 94º. I had to go to the hospital and might have to go again. At night, I toss and turn, trying to escape the bone aches and the shivering.

COVID-19 has been much worse than I ever could have imagined. And, while I recognize mine might be an extreme case, I believe that SRVUSD and its students and parents are woefully uneducated about how dangerous the virus and its long term effects can be. I believe that a compassionate reopening is one that considers the health realities of every person SRVUSD affects: staff, students, and their families. When one looks at these groups, their great variation in lived experiences becomes quickly apparent.

How can a rushed reopening ever be justified? How can an outbreak of this terrible virus possibly be outweighed by any benefits of in-person learning? How can it be morally justified that choiceless teachers and staff be infected?

I recognize the great privilege in complaining about the morality of the situation. I know that there are differently abled students. I know that there are students in unsafe homes. I know that there are students that may not even have a home. But for all this, I believe there are solutions that do not involve breakouts in our community. I am begging SRVUSD to be responsible and delay reopening until it is safe, compassionate, and morally unambiguous to do so.

 

Student Story:

I have been working at Safeway for 16 hours per week, every weekend since basically the onset of quarantine. As an essential worker there, I have double the amount of responsibilities to keep track of than I would have before COVID-19 came into existence. Cleaning measures must be followed for everything: the hundreds of carts customers touch, the conveyor belts on which countless numbers of people put their items on every day. Every surface and every station must be cleaned several times a day. Of course, my coworkers and I do our best, but it's simply not possible to keep every single surface disinfected at all times. I feel that in this way, the struggles at my place of work can be compared to how school would be if reopened. Although we at Safeway are constantly cleaning to the best of our ability, and firmly enforcing mask wearing, we can’t control what customers do around the store and in-store when we’re not right there to see it. It’s too big of an area, and too many people to keep track of. For example, I’ve seen people without a care in the world, spitting on the ground outside, coughing up a storm without a mask on in the vicinity of others, not distancing, attempting to come into the store without a mask, or taking off their mask once they enter the store. If I’ve seen this much, who’s to say how many people there have been that I didn’t see?

I know that SRVHS will not tolerate this kind of behavior if we reopen, but the point is that there are things we can’t control when it comes to the virus. No matter how many different ideas we come up with, the safest option will be the same as what’s been repeated over and over: Stay at home. If the person coughing had the virus, there’s no way to figure out how many people it passed to around him, and the people around those people.. until it reaches someone who could be at risk. We can’t forget this virus is contagious. 

Like the customers I’ve encountered at Safeway, the people pushing to reopen may not be as concerned as they should be. Who is to say that the regulations will completely be adhered to at all times and regarded with the necessary gravity if we reopen?