To the Rappahannock County School Board:

We want RCPS students to be in school, safe, and focused on their classes and activities.  The best way we can achieve this during the escalating Covid-19 Pandemic is by faithfully following public health recommendations and mandates, including universal masking, without exemptions.  We have now lived through multiple school based outbreaks while very few were masked at school.  We want to do all we can to curtail hardship, missed school, and serious illness or death from the pandemic in our community.

Therefore, we request that the current local Covid-19 model be discarded in favor of a simple statement that Rappahannock County Public Schools will adhere to the mask mandate along with the full compliment of mitigation strategies without exceptions until such time as the mandate is lifted.  Let public health officials, not politicians, guide our pandemic response and mitigation strategies.

We would like a school schedule modified to allow for outdoor, safe mask breaks for each student each day, and hope the schools will creatively employ other methods so interactions can be both safe and distanced and personal and friendly.  

Respectfully,

The undersigned.