Dear Union School District Parents

While as a society we are far from ending the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a duty to educate our children both safely and effectively.

On June 13, the USD board along with Superintendent Denise Coleman made the decision to a five phased approach to bringing students back to campus, starting with distance learning. While we appreciate the conservative approach to starting the 2020-2021 school year with safety in mind, there was little in the form of dialogue with the board as well as the USD teachers on compromises or alternative approaches.

Not all parents have the luxury of being able to homeschool their children. There are parents who are single who need to work full time. There are essential workers who need to work on the front lines that don't have the option of homeschooling their children. 

The spirit of this petition is to bring to the USD board and teachers union an alternative option for those parents who feel comfortable enough to have in-person education, as well as those teachers who also feel comfortable enough to teach these in-person classes. 

This petition is not intended to force action away from the phased approach. However, we do recognize many parents are in similar situations where homeschooling is simply not an option or where their kids have special needs that require in-person instruction. What we're asking for is an alternative in-person option starting in the first half of the 2020-2021 school year for those parents and teachers where in-person is necessary

Some suggestions on approaches we'd like to explore with the USD board and teacher's union to ensure a safe and effective in-person learning option:

• Outdoor learning
• Reduced class size
• Request for emergency funding from State and Federal governments to ensure safety of in-person learning (e.g. hiring personnel for cleaning/sanitizing classrooms, PPE for teachers, etc)