According to CDC Guidelines for reopening of schools: "Small, in-person classes, activities, and events. Groups of students stay together and with the same teacher throughout/across school days and groups do not mix."
Through this trimester of virtual classes, students have maintained contact with the same people whether that be for labs, studying, or being roommates. With that in mind, some cohorts have expressed the idea of being able to choose the subsection groups. By forcing students to be exposed to 7 new students, you are also exposing them to the 3-8 students each respective person has been in quarantine with. Not only does this uneccessarily increase exposure in the classroom, but for those of us who live with another student within the cohort, we will then further expose each other to the other person's group. This increases possible exposure to the virus and decreases our safety.
While many people have been obliging to the guidelines and precautions of social distancing, there are many that have not. I understand the equity stance the administration wants to adhere to. However, we feel that the safest route for USA's students is to avoid being exposed to more people than we have already been in constant contact with within our cohorts. We appreciate USA's staff and hard work in handling our education in the midst of this unprecedented pandemic, we just hope you can take our concerns into consideration.
