COVID-19 cases in Indiana are climbing, coinciding with the planned beginning of our school year. Across our state, local school boards are faced with difficult decisions about how to educate children and serve their communities during a pandemic. Meanwhile, the Trump administration wants our schools to move into full-bore reopening and has reframed guidance from the CDC to downplay safety protocols. So far, Indiana has not issued specific metrics that could guide decisions about opening schools in person. Parents, teachers, and others are scrambling to read news reports and check coronavirus dashboards as they attempt to balance their desire to have children in school with the need to keep students, teachers, and staff safe. In this ongoing emergency, we affirm:
THEREFORE:
School is crucial to our children’s development as citizens, seekers of knowledge, and people who care for others and for their world. Childhood is brief and matters exponentially. Our state must do what is necessary to constrain this virus and bring infections steadily down so that our children, teachers, and staff can safely go back to school. Indiana Coalition for Public Education–Monroe County Indiana Coalition for Public Education Washington Township Parent Council Network Northwest Indiana Coalition for Public Education
Please contact us at [email protected] or message our Facebook page if you are a group or organization that supports schools and would like to sign on to this statement.
People often ask, how do I support public education? Here are a number of ways. Some are very current.
Local
State Write your legislators.
Sign a petition. Here is a petition to suspend standardized testing in Indiana for 2020. Vote for public education.
Federal Write your legislators.
And, of course, join us! |
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