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Thank you for this article. You’ve voiced many shared concerns. It inspired me to write the following to our BOE, MSDE, Health Dept and Governor.

Good morning,

As I read this article today in the Severna Park voice https://www.severnaparkvoice.com/stories/parents-rally-against-anne-arundel-board-of-education-restrictions,36132?fbclid=IwAR1pNh7LmIc5-X7qiW_e2kKF8883qsi0gkr4kU2SdjyRKbQVcmR4FjX9D1A I was struck again by how our county students and my children personally have continued to be penalized and miss school and singled out unnecessarily by the continued quarantining and athletic testing policies of AACPS. Please reconsider your policies.

My 7th grade son is home on asymptomatic quarantine for the 2nd time in less than 2 weeks. He’s a straight A student and loves school. He hates to miss his Algebra class and loves his teacher. He will have missed 10 days total in the last 2 weeks for having the misfortune of being near a supposed positive student all the while wearing a mask. He is perfectly healthy. No symptoms. Again. Yet he could have easily been exposed to a positive person for longer recently at the local mall or barber shop or restaurant without a mask unknown to him. And continued going anywhere and everywhere including school. We would only test him or quarantine him if he developed symptoms. This makes no sense and is penalizing my child.

My 11th grade daughter is upset with me that I won’t let her get vaccinated so she doesn’t have to weekly test for sports and either be late for 1st period or late for practice in the afternoon and so she can do things her friends are doing. We don’t battle over grades or curfew or smoking or alcohol, we battle over the vaccination…and she’s not being asking for it for health reasons or any kind of fear or risk of COVID. It breaks my heart.

I am aware of vaccinated students who are testing positive and do not require weekly testing. I am also aware that the vaccinated status of student athletes in AACPS is based on the honor system; no proof of vaccination. We told that if testing days are missed dues to school closures, the prior negative test result will carry over to the following week. If there truly were a fear of COVID spread among athletes this could not possibly be effective. This testing or vaccinate policy is discriminatory and I am angry and frustrated. It is wrong and makes no sense.

I spoke with a private school parent recently and was informed that if there is a positive case in her child’s classroom, they are notified and advised to monitor their child for symptoms. No automatic quarantine.

I am an RN who takes care of acutely ill COVID patients and am unintentionally exposed almost daily at work. During these possible exposures of patients who later test positive I have only had on a level 1 surgical mask on at the time of the exposure (the same one our students wear…we only wear N95s for known positive patients or highly likely) I am in very close proximity to the unknown positive patient for longer than 15 minutes. I only receive a text making me aware that I took care of a positive patient and I am advised to monitor for symptoms. I am not quarantined, I continue to work.

Historically we have never taken our healthy children to be tested or quarantined and isolated them when they have been exposed to a classmate with a virus. Ever. Strep, flu, norovirus, common cold. They continue coming to school We as parents monitor them for symptoms and keep them home when unwell. Experts have said that asymptomatic spread of COVID is low and rare. These kids have the added layer of a mask, so why is my healthy child home again missing valuable education time? He feels penalized. As if he did something wrong.

There is no longer a state of emergency and has not been for sometime. A CDC expert has said this is no longer considered a pandemic and is now endemic…is my child going to have to continue to miss school each time a classmate has a cold virus now? I have been unable to get the data showing that these quarantine measures are effective. I would like to know how many of the asymptomatic close contact students develop symptoms or eventually test positive. Based on anecdotal data, I believe it’s very few. Public schools in our state are the only public place where these extreme unnecessary measures and policies are in place. Please reconsider your policy.

Respectfully,

Michele Rowley

Northeast Cluster