To,

Mr. Gavin Newsom, California State Governor.

We appreciate all the support from you and California state so far in dealing with the pandemic and vaccinations for everyone. We also appreciate all that California school districts have done so far. We want our kids to stay safe, and thus have an option for school year 2021-2022 that balances safety and education.

With the evolution of Covid-19 new variants like Delta which are fast spreaders (60% more transmissible) and more dangerous for unvaccinated including kids. The trend line of new cases and deaths due to virus is going up again in California and across United States of America. Given this situation and recent CDC announcement to wear masks indoor it would be very difficult for kids to wear masks during class hours every day.

All the kids in elementary and lot of the kids in middle school are unvaccinated, and this puts our kids at risk. Let's not have parents and kids choose between education and health.

Ask is simple: Have an option to attend online (distance learning), keeping homeschool and class teacher(s) intact. Need this till the situation is under control and vaccination available for kids.

• The current options offered by CA schools is passively forcing to choose in-person learning where students will return to school full time in person. Only this option allows them to keep their home school and interact with their class and subject teacher(s).
• The virtual option (Home/Individual Study) allows online learning but it's a different model with different teachers and kids are not with their designated home school or teachers. Later if kids decide to come back to school, they will have to register again with their home school. If there's space in the home school then they can be accommodated otherwise they'll be put on wait list.
• The virtual option is self guided (i.e) you need at least one dedicated parent to teach kids at home. If both parents are working, not feasible. 
• The virtual option does not provide the same quality of instruction.

Kids who are vaccinated and/or feel comfortable coming to school can go to in-person school (nothing changes there). 

This petition is to allow an additional option of high-quality distance learning (virtual classroom) opportunity that was given in the school year 2020-2021 where students can opt to join from home online if their health is at risk or not vaccinated or if they don't feel safe to come to school given the current conditions.  To elaborate further, this means:

• Having option to join live classes virtually for all grade levels Kids who are not vaccinated and/or feel comfortable go to school in person.  
• Having some integration or involvement with the same teacher(s) as the in-person option
• Keeping same home school

Most of offices have already backed out from their initial plans of re-opening in person return and switching back to work from home for safety reasons. Why take risk with kids in person school?

Please sign this petition to allow for a balance approach where kids' safety, health and education are balanced, and we don't have to pick one over the other. 

From,

Parents & Families of California state.