To the Tunkhannock Area School District Board of Education and Administration:

Please adjust your plan to bring the hybrid students back to the classroom no less than four days per week beginning ASAP. The education Tunkhannock Area students in 7th through 12th grades are currently receiving is vastly insufficient to meet their needs. Students are going to physical classrooms twice a week and left the other three days to teach themselves. Our children are suffering for it.  This isn't a failing on the part of our teachers. These are unprecedented times, but we need to accept that the current plan is not working and then do better. We have smart kids that are failing due to not having access to actual instruction and many kids functioning at all time high levels of anxiety and frustration.

The C3 program they use for online classes is ok at best, if there are absolutely no other alternatives, but we have a better option. TASD has the ability to go at least four days a week and still maintain safe and healthy environment. If we are unsure how to do so, we should look to many of our neighboring districts for inspiration.

Our kids deserve a proper education and as much of a normal childhood that we can give them. Depriving them of that education isn’t going to protect them from COVID.  It’s only going to set them back and make them ill equipped to handle the challenges that wait for them tomorrow.

Please look at the big picture when deciding how to proceed. The current COVID incidence rate for Wyoming County does not justify this extreme level of isolation for our children. Our children's futures depend on your actions, today.

There are bigger and more pressing risks to the health of our children than COVID-19 and you have the ability to hear your constituents and protect our kids' futures by getting them back in the classrooms.