We are a diverse community of Charlotte-Mecklenburg School parents, staff, and students. We call on Superintendent Earnest Winston and the CMS Board of Education to restore an in person option for families who choose to have their children attend school, consistent with Governor Cooper's guidance and recommendations from Drs. and scientists around the world.
Data from schools locally, regionally, nationally, and globally has shown that schools are not a significant source of spread, and do not materially worsen the covid-19 pandemic. It has become clear that the risks of continued school closures far outweigh any benefit to our community. Leading experts from around the world agree that open schools should be the default.
Recently, UNICEF released a report describing the evidence, after studying data from 191 countries:
"...school closures did little to slow the spread of the virus while causing long-term harm. While higher education institutions have played a role in community transmission, studies cited in the report showed 'no consistent association between school reopening status and COVID-19 infection rates.'"
In December, Harvard and Brown Universities released updated recommendations regarding school openings, even in areas of high community spread:
"Since July, our scientific understanding of COVID has increased significantly, as has our understanding of degrees of risk in schools, and we can now recommend that schools be open even at the very high levels of spread we are now seeing, provided that they strictly implement strategies of infection control. Evidence supports the view that student, staff, and educator risk can all be brought to acceptably minimal levels with robust infection control practices when implemented in a collaborative and transparent way among all stakeholders, including educators and other school personnel, administrators and district leaders, families, and students."
According to Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health:
"There’s no doubt in my mind that schools need to be bolder than they’re being. There is a large mental health cost to children. And we know this is going to very substantially widen the achievement gap between wealthier/white students and poorer/students of color. The effect is going to be felt for a very long time. You always have to weigh those very large costs against the cost of going back to in-person education. Obviously, if going back to in-person education was going to lead to a lot of infections and deaths, you’d say OK, that’s a cost we can’t bear. But districts that are being too cautious are doing enormous harm to children and families in their communities."
Emerging data also shows that a hybrid approach to school actually increases potential virus transmission, as it increases the number of contacts weekly.
K-12 students in North Carolina have a constitutional right to an effective education. For many of them, remote learning simply doesn't work.
Kids Are Safer In School
Attending school in person is critical to the mental and physical health of children and teens and for their ability to receive a meaningful education, including for social emotional learning. Working families, especially women, rely on schools to stay open.
New data shows that women are being disproportionately impacted by our response to the crisis. Between August and September, nearly 1.1 million workers ages 20 and over dropped out of the labor force. Of those workers, 865,000 of them were women, a number four times higher than men.
Schools Are Essential
Children in the state of North Carolina are constitutionally guaranteed equal access to education. All children should have the opportunity to attend school, in person. School closures harm kids, without offering any actual epidemiological benefit to our community.
We ask you to offer in person education to children and families in our community.
