Proposed re-opening of our school buildings

[Margo Batha]

Dear Superintendent Steinhaus, Assistant Superintendent Guy, and members of the Los Alamos Public Schools School Board,

As a staff member at Los Alamos High School, I urge you to consider the ramifications of bringing our middle school students and high school students back to our school buildings too quickly. As many other members of our community have pointed out, there are risks to bringing back students in a remote plus model. 

First and most importantly, our teachers are not yet vaccinated and unlikely to receive a vaccination in the near future. Los Alamos County has one of the lowest vaccination rates in New Mexico, and since Governor Lujan Grisham has not prioritized teachers for receiving the vaccine, our staff members are at higher risk of contracting Covid. I urge you to delay re-opening our buildings until our staff and teachers are vaccinated. I also urge our School Board and Superintendent to continue pressuring the New Mexico Department of Health to increase the number of vaccines allocated to Los Alamos County.

I am deeply concerned about the linking of opening our school buildings to the ability for our students to participate in sports. It is ironic that if our buildings are re-opened, our students may opt out of any in-person schooling but our staff is not given the same option. With students traveling to games on poorly ventilated buses and playing students in other parts of the state, our athletes risk exposure to Covid, and they are very likely to bring that exposure to our school building if they attend school in-person. I believe that our students need the opportunity to compete in their sports but linking that participation to opening our school buildings is foolhardy. I urge all of you to petition the Public Education Department and the New Mexico Activities Association to remove the stipulation that our school buildings must re-open for students to compete in sports.

I want nothing more than to turn the clock back to last February and be with my students in my classroom, but a global pandemic has made that wish impossible to grant. For the safety of our students and our staff, we must take things slowly and wait for vaccines to be administered to our staff members.

Sincerely,

Margo Batha