Re: January 24, 2022

[Reid Priedhorsky]

Jennifer, board members:

On Jan 18, 2022, at 5:08 PM, Jennifer Guy <j....@laschools.net> wrote:

We are required to watch a 14 day rolling total of cases in each school. If a school reaches a 5% positivity rate, we are required to move that school into remote instruction temporarily. This pause is to help stop school spread among students and staff. At the end of the 10 day pause, we will return to in person learning. The 14 day rolling count starts over on the first day we return (January 24 in this case). We will watch the next 14 days after return for an increase in school spread.

With all due respect, this is nuts.

From an epidemiological perspective, if there is too much COVID for safe in-person school, there is too much COVID. It doesn’t matter whether kids are getting it at school or not.

From a student learning perspective, transitions from in-person to remote and back again are really hard on kids, and they should be minimized. Resetting the count on the 24th simply begs for yo-yo school, and if there’s really still too much COVID for in-person school, you will spend a lot of kids’ health finding that out before you close again.

LAPS should be aggressively testing during remote school, should include those numbers in its rolling count, and should also require a negative test from everyone Monday morning the 24th before re-entering the buildings. Wishful thinking and avoiding data needed for good decision making are not how to address a public health emergency.

Thank you,

Reid Priedhorsky

LAPS parent