The CDC and the scientific community at large confirms without a doubt that covid-vaccines do not prevent transmission and that viral loads are the same for vaccinated or not. In the Edmonds WA school district, hundreds of healthy kids are sent home as "close contacts" with no access to education/learning.  Let's support the change to keep them in school with the Test to Stay model. (Washington Post piece on a sensible strategy for students.)

The pandemic took away 1.5 years of school from our students in-person education.  And while many school districts across the state and country have adjusted quarantine policies to keep healthy kids in schools and mitigate thousands of lost days, the Edmonds School District has chosen not to implement a similar policy.  The district has the ability to pivot and change this NOW by collaborating with the local health department to implement the safe Test to Stay option which will avoid a 7+ day quarantine for healthy kids.  Please help to voice our deep concerns of the serious and ongoing loss of in-person learning and unequal treatment to our kids, by signing and sharing this petition.

Background:  The WA State DOH guidelines provide schools a Test to Stay option that would remove unnecessary quarantines. (Positivity in school settings is extremely low in multiple studies on the CDC site which have shown the current strategy is not effective at reducing transmission and ultimately only contributes to greater learning losses, disproportionately effecting low income  students and their families.)  This option has been available since early October and multiple school districts across Washington and the country have implemented Test to Stay to continued success, ie Shoreline  -Puyallup-  Mercer Island -  Lakewood - Snohomish to name a few and Seattle School District in January.   Unvaccinated are not infected and healthy kids are entitled to an equal educational opportunity to the same education as their peers.

By the district website statistics, (prior to Dec 15th) over 4,000 students are close contacts and by estimates over 3,000 have missed a cumulative estimated: 10,000 plus school days since just September. Statistically with masking and current mitigation techniques only an extremely small percentage of these students would be case positives- if so many asymptomatic. Some students have had multiple quarantines exceeding 18 days or more and at the current rate and now Omicron variant could potentially risk losing a month of school if not more this year. 

We’re asking the Edmonds School District to pivot immediately to stop this loss of in-person learning.  The District can opt-in now instead of delaying additional time, with a request to the Snohomish DOH.  While it will require some administrative changes, the system is in place and the district could mirror the countless schools that have already instituted this smarter, safe and effective solution.  

PLEASE SIGN AND SHARE with parents, friends, and unite on treating students based on the real world data with this proven and safe strategy.  The virus doesn’t discriminate between vaccinated and unvaccinated, neither should Edmonds School district.  Please keep our kids in school and share this petition with friends, family, students.