This petition is in response to the District’s lack of Covid protocols for the 2021-2022 school year.

 The plan you follow does not align with the recommendations of the CDC, the MDHHS, or the American Association of Pediatrics. All of these agencies recommend that the District, at the very least, require all individuals to wear masks ,

 We  know mask work better if everyone has one on especially with these new variants  .

Vaccinated or not you can catch and or spread the virus .

We now have the omnicron variant lurking which is more contagious then Delta and our hospitals are in trouble . 
We can not just sit back and do nothing . 
You are putting our children their families and our community at risk . 

We are confused as to why you did not adopt these recommendations and are dismayed that once again, we face a choice between the education and the safety of our children! 

The CDC has limited authority to issue orders. For example, the CDC requires children to wear masks on the bus because public transportation is an area the CDC has the authority to issue a requirement. Therefore, the lack of requirements issued by the CDC for masks in the classroom for unvaccinated individuals IS NOT because the CDC does not deem this necessary. Rather, the CDC does not have the authority to issue such a mandate. They can only recommend best practices. Second, the Michigan Legislature has taken several steps in the last year that curtailed the authority of the Governor and the MDHHS to issue orders. This is political maneuvering. Yet, it has real consequences for all of us. One of those consequences is that you, as a school district, have had to make difficult decisions about Covid mitigation. It is unfortunate that so many of these public health policy issues fell to the schools to manage. We sincerely wish it had been easier and the state or county had issued mandates. However, they did not.

We ask you to further review the recommendations of the AAP, the MDHHS, and the CDC and reverse your decision to make masks optional for all students.

Please require that (at the least) all  students , teachers and staff wear masks in the classroom until such time that we have a high community spread and reassess we community spread is low . 

This is the only real way to offer equitable choices for the student s and their parents at this time. We truly wish that we did not have to ask you for this, but the virus is constantly changing course and we all need to operate flexibly at this time.

If there is a reason why the district is unable or unwilling to institute a mask policy without an order from the state or county, we ask that the BOE pass a resolution to formally request the state and county to issue such an order.

We need to work together to keep our kids as safe as possible learning inside the buildings the remainder of this school year and out of the hospitals because kids are getting sick and having to be hospitalized ,

we want you to reconsider your decision at this time to offer a safe learning environment for all children including vulnerable children who are missing out on being in the school buildings this year due to lack of requirements.