To the honorable administration of the PCTVS school district, Board of Chosen Freeholders, and Board of Education:

As we know, the COVID-19 pandemic is at its all-time worst at moment. Due to the influx of cases caused by the Omicron variant, PCTVS Administration came to the conclusion that switching to a temporary one-week early dismissal (only for the first week of January) was the most appropriate course of action to reduce the spread of COVID-19 on a 3k+ population campus. However, it is our belief that it may not be the most efficient way to reduce the spread of the virus that PCTVS would be able to offer within their attainable resources. 

As of now, NJ is having a surge of COVID-19 cases and has been flagged as a red state when referring to new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. According to The New York Times, the 7-day average of COVID-19 cases coming in is at approximately 22,000 cases a day, and on December 30th, 35,000 new cases were reported in a single day. 

The District of Paterson, NJ (as an exemplar) came to a conclusion that the best course of action in their eyes was to go virtual until the 18th of January, and multiple other NJ school districts came to similar conclusions due to the current severity of the surge.

With such a dense and close together educational environment that students and teachers are subjected to on a daily basis, we feel as if the best course of action would be to alternatively do a temporary 14-day quarantine for the school to be able to assess the severity of the pandemic properly in terms of how the new Omicron variant will affect the current COVID-19 numbers and to protect our high-risk, currently unvaccinated and immunocompromised fellow bulldogs that attend PCTVS.

Thank you for considering and I encourage all PCTVS Parents/Guardians and Students to participate in this petition.

Sincerely, John/Jane Doe