Many schools are shut down due to the insane peak of COVID-19 (and it’s variants) cases. We have almost 100 kids out of school having to quarantine or with COVID and at least 10 teachers, right before midterms. Majority of the students are ill-prepared for midterms and with the COVID guidelines now, many of learners forced to be at home were told they weren’t going to be getting the same help and tools as their same peers in the building. We are tired. We are sick. And most importantly, we are scared. When administrative powers at our school seem like they’re brushing it off, students like ours have to take charge to be their own advocates since no one else will. It’s disappointing to see our “leaders” care more about keeping kids in school rather than keeping them safe. Although we don’t want our summers shortened by adding that many school days onto the end, the governor has the power to uplift that. COVID cases have never been this bad. When in school and one of the only thing you hear the teachers and administrators talking about is COVID and how bad it’s gotten, you shouldn’t be in school. The new variant, Omicron, is so highly transmissible that people more than 6-feet away can obtain it much easier than the others. At home tests are at such a high demand that we see cars coming from our high school lined up about 1.5  miles away. Reasonably, the only reaction we should be having from this peak in cases, is a shut down before it gets unmanageable (even more than it already has).