Dear Montgomery School Officials:

As parents of Montgomery students, we are deeply concerned about the recent development of Covid-19 in the country and in our immediate neighborhood.

WHO has just declared Covid-19 a pandemic!

Due to lack of sufficient testing, people could be walking around unknowingly carrying the virus and spreading it. Many recently confirmed cases are cases with severity, indicating the virus has been around for a while. It is known that the virus can be spread without symptoms (see Harvard link). 

There has been a spike in confirmed cases this week in the country. NJ so far still has stringent test criteria and has conducted very limited testing. As of Mar 10 10:30 am, NJ has only completed 59 tests with 20 in progress .

There have been cases of Biogen employees later confirmed to attend a private part of about 30 people in Princeton, causing a school closure in Princeton and all public schools closed in South Brunswick.  The Montgomery Township sent out an email this morning about individual township residents attending the party. The virus is very close to us if not among us already.

We implore you to please tackle the situation ahead of time while it is still under control. We understand due to various policies, it is difficult for a public school to announce closure when other public schools are still open in NJ. Many universities have canceled classes or announced using online classes. Many companies have allowed their employees to work from home. So the fact is even though adults are working from home, older kids are taking online classes, the little kids still have to go to school in this difficult times.

We would strongly urge you to:

• consider opening online classes asap
• grant concerned parents the options to keep kids home
• not count the absent days due to Covid-19 concerns as truancy
• not count missed tests during student evaluation due to absent period due to Covid-19.

Most respectfully,
Concerned Parents