Parental Choice v. Mandates

January of 2022.By now if you and/or your family haven't caught one virus or another, you're pretty lucky. Between the freezing temperatures, the negative wind chills and the variant that is making its way through the Midwest, everyone has been exposed to something by now. If you fell ill yourself, I wish you nothing less than a speedy recovery! Fortunately, the variant has been likened to the common cold and the available data supports that narrative.I'm going to go fetch the elephant and sit it down right in the middle of the room, because there are mixed feelings on the topic of the school's role in mitigating the risks of the virus. Currently, there are two conditions that automatically trigger masking: 3% positivity rate in a school or five (5) linked cases in a classroom/school. Absent one of those triggers, parents choose whether or not their child wears a mask and/or to keep their child home.On the other end of the spectrum, there are some candidates and parents that feel mandating masks and/or quarantines should be dictated more aggressively via policy. So rather than just masking their own child, they prefer all children be mandated to wear a mask or quarantine due to close contact. I do not support policies that supersede your parental choice for masking and quarantines.I'm not going to be vague with respect to this topic. The first three bullet points of my "Ready to Get to Work" directly pertain to this topic:

• Empower Parents: I feel parents should make choices for their children. Why? Let's say your child is just getting over infection and they now have natural immunity. Should they have to return on Tuesday the 18th with a mask on? That is a question best answered by the parents of those children. According to the HSSD Dashboard, this includes a good number of students that tested positive this past week, the vast majority of which will be recovered by the 18th.
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• Stabilize Health Response Plans: As parents, we don't like the anxiety of walking on egg shells wondering if or when the protocols are going to change. Folks are watching the dashboard, doing their own calculations, emailing the board with personal opinions or expertise, etc. While the policies have stabilized and become more defined of late, there is more work to do. I feel there must be compelling data to supersede the discretion of you, the parent.
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• Identify & Address Learning Loss: Viruses are not to blame for learning loss, responses to viruses are. Whether it was virtual learning, quarantines or masking, they have all contributed to setting many of our children back. We need to do everything we can to shift the momentum towards catching up from the past two years, before it is too late.

That's where I stand. If you are as passionate about this topic as I am, please join and support me. Our children are not the ones causing burdens on the healthcare system. They are resilient and by now, high-risk individuals have had the opportunity to further mitigate their personal health risks. Let's let our children learn. We cannot afford additional learning loss.