Letter of Support: COVID Safety in Boston Public Schools
The below is a letter sent by MAC on November 15, 2021 to Boston Public Schools Superintendent Brenda Cassellius in support of recommendations made by BPS Families for COVID Safety (FamCOSa) for additional COVID protections for students.
November 15, 2021
Dr. Brenda Cassellius
Boston Public Schools
2300 Washington St
Boston MA 02119
Dear Dr. Cassellius:
In the face of troubling news regarding COVID-19 outbreaks in multiple BPS schools, parents have organized to advocate for stronger COVID protections at District schools. Members of the organization BPS Families for COVID Safety (FamCOSa) have shared their perspective on COVID safety with our organization. FamCOSa represents families at more than 15 schools and partners with other stakeholder groups including teachers, staff, and public health professionals. We write to support FamCOSa’s call for additional COVID protections and to urge you to take immediate action to respond to family concerns. Massachusetts Advocates for Children (MAC) strongly believes that every student should have access to a safe learning environment that does not pose a health risk to themselves or their family.
The public health concern behind the request for additional safety measures is obvious. We agree with FamCOSa that the protection of BPS students returning to school is also an important economic and racial equity issue.
As temperatures drop and students are forced to spend more time inside, the risk of infection at school increases, even as more students are vaccinated. The recent closure of the Curley K-8 School and significant outbreaks at other District schools only dramatize this trend and lend urgency to the need for measures to protect the health of all students, educators, and school staff.
Why do we consider COVID safety in BPS schools to be an equity issue? Your District serves large numbers of students of color, students with disabilities, English learners, and other students who have faced historical racism and disinvestment in Boston’s public schools. Not coincidentally, these same groups of students and their families faced some of the greatest challenges from both COVID-19 and the COVID-related school closures that echoed and amplified existing disparities. Unsafe schools reinforce educational inequities among marginalized students. All students need a supportive and equitable return to school after COVID closures, but pre-existing and COVID-related inequities make it our special collective responsibility to provide students from historically disadvantaged groups a supportive and equitable return to school. If we deny students every reasonable protection from COVID at school, we not only endanger their health, but we risk again denying them their previous right to an education.
Responding to parental concerns around COVID safety will by no means resolve all inequities in the BPS, but such a response could help prevent the further deepening of both pandemic-related disparities and historical inequities.
The families represented by FamCOSa have made several specific suggestions, such as immediate improvements in ventilation, including cafeteria ventilation. At this time, crowded and poorly ventilated school cafeterias are dangerous spaces in any school building. In addition, the families have asked for BPS to support consistent implementation of pooled testing as a way of staying on top of new cases and potential exposures, and to institute more careful tracing of the contacts of students testing positive for the virus. BPS must also ensure that reliable contact tracing is available in every BPS school. Finally, they seek more transparency and efficiency in BPS communications regarding the COVID situation in District schools, and ask that this communication be carried out in a way that is sensitive to the cultural and linguistic diversity of BPS families. Multilingual communication is essential. These are common sense measures that can help keep families safe and prevent the kind of large-scale disruption of in-person education that your students simply cannot afford.
BPS consistently reaffirms its commitment to authentic parent engagement, but that engagement most often occurs on the District’s terms. The families of FamCOSa have given you the opportunity to engage with them on their terms, regarding these critical public health and equity issues. We hope you will respond to that engagement promptly and favorably.
Kevin Murray
Executive Director
Jakira Rogers
Program Lead, Racial Equity and Access Program