We, students from both within and without our district boundaries, are calling for a 3-5 week return to a modified Distanced Learning. We are citing rising COVID cases, the threat of Omicron, the potential of longer future lockdowns, students who are quarantined not being able to effectively learn or participate in class or extracurriculars, and decaying student mental health from returning to school for our reasons for why we should do this.

Look, not a lot of people want to return to Distanced Learning, but we've reached a point where we have to. Not only are COVID-19 (especially Omicron) cases rising steeply not just across the nation (causing our largest case spike ever), but they are also causing a good chunk of the student population to be out for COVID more and more since returning from Winter Break.

For nutrition, mental health, clubs, and extracurriculars, we propose solutions like:

• Livestreamed at-school/on-site performances for Performing Arts students
• Continuing sports on-site with only parents and limited students allowed to attend events
• Providing free breakfast and lunch like how it was done last year
• On-site meetings with counselors and therapists, as well as online for those who would prefer to remain home
• Free COVID testing on-site, so if case numbers dip below a certain level, we can return to normal sessions

We know that we all have friends that we want to see and commitments we want to participate in, so we hope that this will prevent anything further from getting in the way of that.

Thank you and we hope you consider signing our petition!