Under current MA Dept of Elementary and Secondary School regulations parents  are facing an impossible moment- choosing between being able to keep our unvaccinated children ages 12 and under safe from the Delta variant of COVID19 by removing our children from the school communities they love and keeping them with their friends, teachers and in their schools while the Delta variant rages through our communities. It’s an agonizing choice, and one that we as parents should not have to make.

Right now, per the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, there is no option being given for remote instruction as offered by children’s schools- parents can choose to homeschool, enroll in limited spots in online public school or find a spot in a private school. For many these are not viable options, and for all this runs the risk of our children losing ties to their school communities forever.

Children are at risk, with a recent study in the Lancet (Twohig, Nyberg, et al) released Aug 27, 2021 showing that "among patients who were unvaccinated or had less than 21 days since the first vaccination dose, patients with the delta variant had a higher estimated risk of hospital admission and a higher risk of either hospital admission or emergency care attendance than patients with the alpha variant." (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00475-8/fulltext The CDC notes: “[t]hough COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in school settings, multiple studies have shown that transmission rates within school settings, when multiple prevention strategies are in place, are typically lower than – or similar to – community transmission levels.” (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/schools-childcare/k-12-guidance.html Our current transmission levels are high: for example, in Boston the rate is currently ranging a cumulative percent positive rate from Back Bay, Beacon Hill, West End, Downtown, of 6.4% to East Boston rates currently at 16.9%. (https://bphc.org/whatwedo/infectious-diseases/Infectious-Diseases-A-to-Z/covid-19/Pages/default.aspx Our children are not safe. 

DESE, we as parents are asking you to allow parents to have options that do not result in our children losing their seats at their beloved school communities. Give us an option for virtual schooling within our children’s schools until a vaccine is widely available. If this is not possible, then allow our seats to be held as we find options for our children that are safe, so that they can return to their classmates, teachers, and school community that they love after parents deem it to be safe.

As a parent of two students in the BPS system, who have close friends, favorite teachers, and a huge sense of school spirit, please let me keep them safe for the time being, while we wait for vaccinations for children 12 and under, without needing to pull them from everything and everyone they know and love in their school community (which is their world!).