Superintendent Dr Loughead’s letters say:

“[Student COVID] cases have been entirely unrelated, with no evidence of school spread”- 11/12/20

“[Allegheny County Health Director] Dr. Bogen and her team have reassured us that notable virus spread is not occurring in Allegheny County schools”- 11/12/20

“We were told that schools remain extremely safe and that there is no indication that virus spread in our region is connected to our schools in any notable manner.”-11/19/20

“[Recent rise in COVID cases] has been due to spread entirely unrelated to our careful practices of in-person instruction.”-11/19/20

CDC Director Robert Redfield (virologist and 30-year infectious disease specialist) says:

“There’s extensive data that we’ve gathered over the last two to three months that confirm that K-12 schools can operate with face-to-face learning and they can do it safely and they can do it responsibly."

“The infections that we’ve identified in schools when they’ve been evaluated were not acquired in schools. They were actually acquired in the community and in the household.”

“The truth is, for kids K-12, one of the safest places they can be, from our perspective, is to remain in school, and it’s really important that following the data, making sure we don’t make emotional decisions about what to close and what not to close, and I’m here to say clearly the data strongly supports that K-12 schools—as well as institutes of higher learning—really are not where we’re having our challenges.”

“It would be counterproductive from my point of view, from a public health point of view, just in containing the epidemic, if there was an emotional response, to say, ‘Let’s close the schools.’”

Despite all this, Dr Loughead and the school board have delayed their phased reopening plan and have pre-emptively cancelled school from December 1 through December 10. The data supports re-opening the schools, as the CDC Director has said and the superintendent himself seems to have noted in his letters on November 12 and 19. This "emotional response" to close the schools, as the CDC Director has called it, has been done not at the suggestion of the Hampton students or parents, not at the recommendation of the PA governor or PA Department of Health, not at the recommendation of the CDC, but at the suggestion of an Allegheny County official, the Director of the Allegheny County Health Department, Dr. Debra Bogen. The Director of the CDC has a 30-year background in virology and infectious diseases and has access to national information and data to determine where the virus is spreading, and more importantly, where it is not spreading, which would be in schools. Dr. Bogen has a background in clinical research, pediatrics, and psychology. She has no known experience with virology or infectious diseases, and has access to less information than the CDC Director, but seems to believe she is better equipped to make these decisions. The Allegheny County health officials are appointed by County officials mostly elected by the city of Pittsburgh, not by the people of Hampton Township. The people of Hampton Township elect the school board, and therefore we put our trust in the school board and in the superintendent now to stand up to the County officials and do what is right. Every day that students are not in school is another day their education, as well as their mental health, faces massive and irreversible detrimental effects. We implore you, follow the data and re-open the Hampton schools.