I am the parent of three OUSD children (two at Crocker Highlands, one at Edna Brewer) and am writing to strongly urge the school board to REMOVE the mask mandate. Science and data reinforce that the time has come in this stage of the pandemic to allow children to return to some semblance of normalcy and we should honor that in our schools. Since the CDC now classifies Alameda County as being at the Low (Green) level for the community, and that our vaccination rates in Oakland and across Alameda County are so high - it's time to remove masks. Thank you for inviting public comment on this important issue!
I would like to strongly urge the school board to REMOVE MASK MANDATES for children at play outdoors. Our children have become attached to their masks as a vehicle of retreat - to hide behind - not for the purpose of any so-called safety measure. There never was sound scientific evidence indicating that outdoor masking was a worthwhile safety measure in the first place and now that vaccines are widely available and the transmission rates are low it's time to get rid of the mandates.
Further, with the widespread availability of N-95 and KN95 masks, families who are still concerned for their own safety can opt to wear protective masks if they wish.
I am a parent of two students at Thornhill Elementary and I am urging you to allow our children to have the option to go maskless at school now that the California Department of Public Health has removed requirements that children in K-12 schools and child care settings wear masks beginning 3/11. We're relieved to see the CDC now classifies Alameda County as being at the Low (Green) level for the community, and that our vaccination rates in Oakland and across Alameda County are so high. With all this data, our family supports the California Department of Public Health's lifting of the indoor mask mandate for schools, and we urge OUSD to remove its mask mandate as well. Thank you so much for inviting public comment on this topic, and listening to the community!
Please OUSD, hurry up and stop requiring masking for kids. Why do we continue to have a double standard here in Oakland and make the children suffer in ways that adults do not, when they remain at the lowest risk for covid? Just this morning I got a newsletter from the New York Times saying that interventions like masks do not make a big difference at this point and the harms outweigh the risks. THE NEW YORK TIMES. Come on Oakland, why must every step be such a fight?
Please remove the school mask mandate immediately. There is no longer any credible scientific basis for forcing our children to mask in schools, for the reasons identified by the many thoughtful comments in this thread. The pandemic may remain dangerous to willfully unvaccinated adults, particularly those with comorbidities, but it is not particularly dangerous to kids. Adults are allowed to do almost anything without masks at this point. The endless hygiene theater in Oakland and mindless focus on case counts, perpetuated by local bureaucrats, needs to stop. OUSD was a national leader in school closures, and now is one of the remaining holdouts on masking, damaging kids for two years running. Enough is enough.
I strongly urge you to follow the updated student mask guidelines adopted by California and County authorities and do away with mandatory masking by OUSD students, effective Monday March 14. National and state public health officials at every level are now uniformly aligned that masking is no longer necessary in educational settings with risk levels like those present in Oakland and every neighboring school district has adopted this approach. There is no longer any legitimate basis for requiring students to mask and bear the resulting negative academic, social emotional and mental health consequences of masking for hours a day when there is no public health reason for doing so. For those who want to continue to mask, one-way masks (which OUSD has supplied) provide ample protection. For those of us who don't want to wait another year for all the studies showing how much damage long-term masking did (just as we're seeing closing schools did), please give us a choice.
I strongly urge you to follow the updated student mask guidelines adopted by California and County authorities and do away with mandatory masking by OUSD students, effective Monday March 14. National and state public health officials at every level are now uniformly aligned that masking is no longer necessary in educational settings with risk levels like those present in Oakland and every neighboring school district has adopted this approach. There is no longer any legitimate basis for requiring students to mask and bear the resulting negative academic, social emotional and mental health consequences of masking for hours a day when there is no public health reason for doing so. For those who want to continue to mask, one-way masks (which OUSD has supplied) provide ample protection. For those of us who don't want to wait another year for all the studies showing how much damage long-term masking did (just as we're seeing closing schools did), please give us a choice.
I am a parent of an OUSD student and a pediatric ED RN. I believe OUSD needs to move forward, follow the science and recommendations from public health officials, and remove mask mandates for its students.
Please consider removing at least the outdoor mask requirement for OUSD students, if not ideally providing an off-ramp for full mask mandates indoors as well now that the public health department does not deem them necessary. As someone who works within the schools I know and agree myself it would be quite an abrupt change to go maskless all of a sudden indoors right now, but allowing children to go maskless at recess, PE, garden, and lunch all seems like a great first step, and one that Berkeley USD has been doing now for a week or two very successfully. Students who feel more comfortable in masks or who continue to have health reasons to wear one can opt to do so outside. Nervous staff who are wary of changes won’t be exposed to any new danger since the science has shown for a long time that outdoor spaces are very safe in terms of COVID transmission (and they/we can keep their masks on too if they choose).
Please align with every neighboring district, as suggested by the county and state guidance. Our kids deserve to be unmasked. Let's show them that we believe in science and data.
Mandated reporters, PTA, Board,
This man is now facing 5 years in prison for battery of a high school student https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLX36ReAes
Why does the Ombudsperson and Board think that Mr Barclift is different from this man or the many other school employees that are terminated on a regular basis for assaulting children? Even if OUSD only has a complaint of a past incident and his malicious intention of seeking employment at a school district, thttps://www.ipetitions.com/petition/child-predator-employed-in-the-oakland-unified, what they DO have physical undeniable proof of is TWO videos on his public youtube channel of a man assaulting another man with a 2x4 lumber beam the exact same tool he used to beat the two kids with, one of which obviously was affected so traumatically by that experience that they died from suicide twenty years later. Why has the Ombudsperson and board turned a blind eye to the evidence of those videos? They must be held accountable.
I am a physician and OUSD parent.
-All mask mandates at OUSD should be lifted immediately. The risk of Omicron to kids and vaccinated adults is similar or less than the flu. Adults and kids at increased risk from COVID can use N95 masks.
-A recent study in NY showed the benefit of vaccinating kids 5-11 was a mere 12% reduction in rates of Omicron. Add this to the miniscule risk of serious disease in kids who get Omicron, and the argument that pediatric vaccination rates are not high enough to unmask kids is nonsense.
-The claim that kids masking will prevent new variants from emerging is misguided. COVID is endemic and new variants will emerge regardless of whether our kids are forced to mask at school. The emergence of new variants is a hallmark of respiratory pathogens like the common cold and flu.
-Masking schoolchildren disrupts the human connection essential for learning and becoming a constructive member of society. Continuing to mask in schools is madness.
Please remove outdoor mask mandates for kids and align with the rest of the State, Alameda County, and surrounding school districts. OUSD has no expertise to act like their own health agency. Thanks
Please allow for masks to be optional indoors & outside. Those who want to mask are free to do do. Teachers who remain fearful can double mask, ventilate & distance.
As a parent of a TK student, I am asking the board to please remove the mask mandate outdoors for our children as soon as possible. We also need an offramp for mask removal indoors.
Please show compassion, kindness by unmasking the students. Please follow the guidance of PH rather than forging an independent path unmoored to public health policy.
Please make masking optional for students inside and outside. My son is in speech therapy, and his teacher and friends have a hard time understanding him with his mask. It is affecting his ability to learn and thrive. Thank you.
"Kids don't need to be masked. Full stop. They have minuscule risk of serious illness, death. Vulnerable children can mask while other vaccinated children can safely go without" Dr. Jeanne Noble, one of the many sensible, compassionate doctors who bring scientific evidence to counter the echo chamber of fear mongering.
Facts:
*unvaxxed child at less risk than vaxxed 70yo.
*CDC: Ages 5 -17 is 99.9% protective against risk of death, 98% protective against hospitalization
*Covid significantly lower risk to kids than drowning, homicides, suicides, cancer, car accidents, common flu, heart disease.
*infection fatality rate for ages 5 -9 less than 0.001%, about one-tenth risk of flu. A sick child faces roughly one-ten-thousandth the mortality risk of an 85yo.”
*In SF, there hasn’t been a covid death under the age of 20. Children have been the smallest share of cases
*UK, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden do not require masks for students
Please allow children and parents the choice to unmask 3/12 and align with the state and Alameda County Dept of Public Health. Children are at low risk and we are 2 years into this. Now is the time to repair the damage that has been done to our children for too long. We need to support kids as they learn to remove the fear that has been unnecessarily instilled in them for the last 2 years. Kids who have speech impediments or learning difficulties are being punished. Kids learning how to read or who are English Learners are in dire need to a normal classroom where they can see their teachers' and fellow students faces. Please let children and parents have this choice.
I am an OUSD parent and primary care physician and I oppose removing masks indoors for students. Our vaccine rates are too low. We saw very significant cases of COVID in our schools during the Omicron surge. Removing masks allows room for new variants to emerge. Children have had so much learning loss already and we can't afford to have classrooms shut down for quarantine. Please continue indoor masking to protect our most vulnerable students, teachers, and staff who may not respond to vaccines or may have not been vaccinated at all. Oakland cannot necessarily be compared to other districts as our vaccination rate may not be similar.
I am the parent of three OUSD children (two at Crocker Highlands, one at Edna Brewer) and am writing to strongly urge the school board to REMOVE the mask mandate. Science and data reinforce that the time has come in this stage of the pandemic to allow children to return to some semblance of normalcy and we should honor that in our schools. Since the CDC now classifies Alameda County as being at the Low (Green) level for the community, and that our vaccination rates in Oakland and across Alameda County are so high - it's time to remove masks. Thank you for inviting public comment on this important issue!
I would like to strongly urge the school board to REMOVE MASK MANDATES for children at play outdoors. Our children have become attached to their masks as a vehicle of retreat - to hide behind - not for the purpose of any so-called safety measure. There never was sound scientific evidence indicating that outdoor masking was a worthwhile safety measure in the first place and now that vaccines are widely available and the transmission rates are low it's time to get rid of the mandates.
Further, with the widespread availability of N-95 and KN95 masks, families who are still concerned for their own safety can opt to wear protective masks if they wish.
I am a parent of two students at Thornhill Elementary and I am urging you to allow our children to have the option to go maskless at school now that the California Department of Public Health has removed requirements that children in K-12 schools and child care settings wear masks beginning 3/11. We're relieved to see the CDC now classifies Alameda County as being at the Low (Green) level for the community, and that our vaccination rates in Oakland and across Alameda County are so high. With all this data, our family supports the California Department of Public Health's lifting of the indoor mask mandate for schools, and we urge OUSD to remove its mask mandate as well. Thank you so much for inviting public comment on this topic, and listening to the community!
Please OUSD, hurry up and stop requiring masking for kids. Why do we continue to have a double standard here in Oakland and make the children suffer in ways that adults do not, when they remain at the lowest risk for covid? Just this morning I got a newsletter from the New York Times saying that interventions like masks do not make a big difference at this point and the harms outweigh the risks. THE NEW YORK TIMES. Come on Oakland, why must every step be such a fight?
Please remove the school mask mandate immediately. There is no longer any credible scientific basis for forcing our children to mask in schools, for the reasons identified by the many thoughtful comments in this thread. The pandemic may remain dangerous to willfully unvaccinated adults, particularly those with comorbidities, but it is not particularly dangerous to kids. Adults are allowed to do almost anything without masks at this point. The endless hygiene theater in Oakland and mindless focus on case counts, perpetuated by local bureaucrats, needs to stop. OUSD was a national leader in school closures, and now is one of the remaining holdouts on masking, damaging kids for two years running. Enough is enough.
I strongly urge you to follow the updated student mask guidelines adopted by California and County authorities and do away with mandatory masking by OUSD students, effective Monday March 14. National and state public health officials at every level are now uniformly aligned that masking is no longer necessary in educational settings with risk levels like those present in Oakland and every neighboring school district has adopted this approach. There is no longer any legitimate basis for requiring students to mask and bear the resulting negative academic, social emotional and mental health consequences of masking for hours a day when there is no public health reason for doing so. For those who want to continue to mask, one-way masks (which OUSD has supplied) provide ample protection. For those of us who don't want to wait another year for all the studies showing how much damage long-term masking did (just as we're seeing closing schools did), please give us a choice.
I strongly urge you to follow the updated student mask guidelines adopted by California and County authorities and do away with mandatory masking by OUSD students, effective Monday March 14. National and state public health officials at every level are now uniformly aligned that masking is no longer necessary in educational settings with risk levels like those present in Oakland and every neighboring school district has adopted this approach. There is no longer any legitimate basis for requiring students to mask and bear the resulting negative academic, social emotional and mental health consequences of masking for hours a day when there is no public health reason for doing so. For those who want to continue to mask, one-way masks (which OUSD has supplied) provide ample protection. For those of us who don't want to wait another year for all the studies showing how much damage long-term masking did (just as we're seeing closing schools did), please give us a choice.
I am a parent of an OUSD student and a pediatric ED RN. I believe OUSD needs to move forward, follow the science and recommendations from public health officials, and remove mask mandates for its students.
Please consider removing at least the outdoor mask requirement for OUSD students, if not ideally providing an off-ramp for full mask mandates indoors as well now that the public health department does not deem them necessary. As someone who works within the schools I know and agree myself it would be quite an abrupt change to go maskless all of a sudden indoors right now, but allowing children to go maskless at recess, PE, garden, and lunch all seems like a great first step, and one that Berkeley USD has been doing now for a week or two very successfully. Students who feel more comfortable in masks or who continue to have health reasons to wear one can opt to do so outside. Nervous staff who are wary of changes won’t be exposed to any new danger since the science has shown for a long time that outdoor spaces are very safe in terms of COVID transmission (and they/we can keep their masks on too if they choose).
Please align with every neighboring district, as suggested by the county and state guidance. Our kids deserve to be unmasked. Let's show them that we believe in science and data.
Mandated reporters, PTA, Board,
This man is now facing 5 years in prison for battery of a high school student https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLX36ReAes
Why does the Ombudsperson and Board think that Mr Barclift is different from this man or the many other school employees that are terminated on a regular basis for assaulting children? Even if OUSD only has a complaint of a past incident and his malicious intention of seeking employment at a school district, thttps://www.ipetitions.com/petition/child-predator-employed-in-the-oakland-unified, what they DO have physical undeniable proof of is TWO videos on his public youtube channel of a man assaulting another man with a 2x4 lumber beam the exact same tool he used to beat the two kids with, one of which obviously was affected so traumatically by that experience that they died from suicide twenty years later. Why has the Ombudsperson and board turned a blind eye to the evidence of those videos? They must be held accountable.
I am a physician and OUSD parent.
-All mask mandates at OUSD should be lifted immediately. The risk of Omicron to kids and vaccinated adults is similar or less than the flu. Adults and kids at increased risk from COVID can use N95 masks.
-A recent study in NY showed the benefit of vaccinating kids 5-11 was a mere 12% reduction in rates of Omicron. Add this to the miniscule risk of serious disease in kids who get Omicron, and the argument that pediatric vaccination rates are not high enough to unmask kids is nonsense.
-The claim that kids masking will prevent new variants from emerging is misguided. COVID is endemic and new variants will emerge regardless of whether our kids are forced to mask at school. The emergence of new variants is a hallmark of respiratory pathogens like the common cold and flu.
-Masking schoolchildren disrupts the human connection essential for learning and becoming a constructive member of society. Continuing to mask in schools is madness.
Please remove outdoor mask mandates for kids and align with the rest of the State, Alameda County, and surrounding school districts. OUSD has no expertise to act like their own health agency. Thanks
Please allow for masks to be optional indoors & outside. Those who want to mask are free to do do. Teachers who remain fearful can double mask, ventilate & distance.
As a parent of a TK student, I am asking the board to please remove the mask mandate outdoors for our children as soon as possible. We also need an offramp for mask removal indoors.
Please show compassion, kindness by unmasking the students. Please follow the guidance of PH rather than forging an independent path unmoored to public health policy.
Please make masking optional for students inside and outside. My son is in speech therapy, and his teacher and friends have a hard time understanding him with his mask. It is affecting his ability to learn and thrive. Thank you.
"Kids don't need to be masked. Full stop. They have minuscule risk of serious illness, death. Vulnerable children can mask while other vaccinated children can safely go without" Dr. Jeanne Noble, one of the many sensible, compassionate doctors who bring scientific evidence to counter the echo chamber of fear mongering.
Facts:
*unvaxxed child at less risk than vaxxed 70yo.
*CDC: Ages 5 -17 is 99.9% protective against risk of death, 98% protective against hospitalization
*Covid significantly lower risk to kids than drowning, homicides, suicides, cancer, car accidents, common flu, heart disease.
*infection fatality rate for ages 5 -9 less than 0.001%, about one-tenth risk of flu. A sick child faces roughly one-ten-thousandth the mortality risk of an 85yo.”
*In SF, there hasn’t been a covid death under the age of 20. Children have been the smallest share of cases
*UK, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden do not require masks for students
Please allow children and parents the choice to unmask 3/12 and align with the state and Alameda County Dept of Public Health. Children are at low risk and we are 2 years into this. Now is the time to repair the damage that has been done to our children for too long. We need to support kids as they learn to remove the fear that has been unnecessarily instilled in them for the last 2 years. Kids who have speech impediments or learning difficulties are being punished. Kids learning how to read or who are English Learners are in dire need to a normal classroom where they can see their teachers' and fellow students faces. Please let children and parents have this choice.
I am an OUSD parent and primary care physician and I oppose removing masks indoors for students. Our vaccine rates are too low. We saw very significant cases of COVID in our schools during the Omicron surge. Removing masks allows room for new variants to emerge. Children have had so much learning loss already and we can't afford to have classrooms shut down for quarantine. Please continue indoor masking to protect our most vulnerable students, teachers, and staff who may not respond to vaccines or may have not been vaccinated at all. Oakland cannot necessarily be compared to other districts as our vaccination rate may not be similar.