We request Williamson County reopen its schools and return to fulfilling its mission to educate our children.

This request is based on the science, which clearly demonstrates that children not only are less vulnerable to Covid than the flu, but that they also rarely transmit it to adults. This is the clear consensus of hundreds of studies conducted around the world since the outbreak began.  It has been further confirmed in Europe and Asia where most countries have had their schools open since May with little to no issues. 

Per the CDC, children are over 400% more likely to become seriously ill and require hospitalization from the flu than from this virus and are the primary spreaders of flu, and yet our schools remain open every flu season.

A small sampling of the voluminous information on this can be found at the link below:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiswp0udasrzlqf/school%20evidence.pdf?dl=0

Primarily due to this data but also because of the tremendous costs of school closures on children, the American Academy of Pediatrics and its more than 67,000 pediatricians made a clear recommendation that schools reopen.  In their statement, the AAP added emphasis to this phrase: AAP "strongly advocates that all policy considerations for the coming school year should start with a goal of having students physically present in school."

Finally, as your own survey of Williamson County School parents demonstrated, a decisive majority (65%) want their children physically present in school.  That group was nearly 90% when including those who were "leaning toward" in-person attendance.  Further, only 3% were firmly against sending their children to school. We support their right to not send their children if they wish and hope WCS will provide them with online resources, but mandating this policy on the majority who do not agree is completely inappropriate.

In sum, we urge you to follow the science, the data, the evidence, and the recommendation of the nation's pediatricians and fully reopen our schools immediately and resume properly educating our children.