At the 11/09/2020 Board of Education meeting, board member Barry O’Connell gave a 7 minute speech presenting his views about the pandemic, AASD’s response to the pandemic, and parents’ response to AASD’s pandemic response. As Deb Truyman pointed out, it seemed fairly preachy, but he felt strongly about it and said he wanted to get it off his chest so I am happy to transcribe it and disseminate it.
I will say, I find it inaccurate for people to claim that closing schools is about “student” safety. Statistically speaking, for people under 20, coronavirus is less dangerous than influenza. Looking only at student needs and not factoring in any other concerns, there is really no reason schools shouldn’t be open. As far as I can tell, the reason that AASD and other schools throughout the state and country are closed is not out of concern for student safety but out of concern for the safety of teachers and staff members as well as for the broader non-school community.
Those are reasonable considerations, but I would like to see more clarity about what is going on right now. Students would be as safe as usual attending school; however, the school board and administration have opted not to open school not out of concern for students but out of concern for staff and the wider Appleton community. Given the situation, one could argue that’s a reasonable trade-off, but I’m a little sick of people stating their choices are for the safety of the kids when they’re actually for the safety of the non-student population. I’d prefer for there to be more accuracy in this ongoing discussion/debate.
Having said that, here’s Barry’s speech and Deb Truyman’s response….
Barry: “I’d like to step back a bit from the Plus question, but first of all, thank all the parents who sent us emails on both sides of this decision. The description of the effects on you and your family have resonated. The educational decisions we’ve had to make regarding this pandemic have been informed by what you’ve sent us. They’ve been difficult to read at times. But I’d also like to point out that that no one on this board believes that in-person learning isn’t the best alternative for kids, and we’d all like to see it happen and we agonize by how much–about how much time our kids are having to spend outside of school. But please don’t accuse this board or this leadership team members of being heartless and clueless. We do our homework and care about kids. Some letters wonder what selfish motive of unpaid volunteer board members must have to not open schools, when the truth is that simply what we want is to do the best for the kids that we serve, and there is no hidden motive–at least I’m not making any money selling Chromebooks to anybody. We really care about the kids and we’re trying to make the best decision. We know many of you are focused on co-curricular activities–I get it. Over my career and family life I’ve attended thousands of highschool activities. They’re wonderful events; they’re important events. We get it, but they have to be safe. Please remember that we didn’t create this pandemic that is killing many Americans and disrupting all of our lives. Number one. And research indicates also now that up to 1/3 of people who have survived Covid have long-term health effects. It is a dangerous illness and when we first shifted from the hybrid model to the all virtual model, it was unforeseen as noted earlier. We were planning to do the hybrid model, and we shifted because of numbers in the community. It was a time when the department of health services in WI and the CDC at the national level were creating metrics to make such decisions, and we were clearly about the metric that respected us to be virtual. Our burden rate of over 150 cases at that time per 100,000 [his audio cuts out momentarily]. At all times we hoped that our community rates would decrease and that science would establish that students did not get infected easily, did not get seriously ill, and did not transmit to each other or to their teachers and their families. Well, now our community cases are over 1000 per 100,000. That’s about 7 or 8 times what it was when we made the initial decision. It’s among the worst in our country, and even in the world. Our hospitals are experiencing increased loads, and the CDC just published research that was done in Marshfield WI, Nashville, TN, that establishes that kids of all ages transmit to each other, their friends, and their families. The one positive is that young people generally experience mild or no symptoms. And that’s actually another risk factor for transmission because we don’t know that they’re carrying the illness. So we have been sent and read many studies and articles that argue schools should be open, and almost all of these articles and research studies that you’ve sent us, when you read through the entire research piece as i have done–they all talk about community spread being a prerequisite for implementing the mitigation strategies that they think can be done safely. And the guidelines created by Harvard that Menasha is using, the CDC and our WI DHS include that requirement. And it’s not something that we are making up. I’d just like to quote one piece…the American Association Academy of Pediatrics. This is their statement on November 2nd–and this has been a group that has been quoted by many of the emails that have been sent to us. ‘Since this guidance was first released there have been several other documents released by the CDC and prevention council, National Association of School Nurses, and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. All of these documents are consistent regarding the importance of considering the decree to which SARS-COVID is circulating in a community in making school reopening decisions. In many places in the United States at the present time, opening schools to in-person learning is likely not feasible because of widespread community transmission and high levels of positivity in testing. Even in these communities, though, in-person learning should still be the goal and may be feasible as the epidemiology improves. Countries that have been able to successfully open schools have had low rates of community Covid circulation. The Netherlands right now, for example, is reopening their schools–or keeping their schools open–but because they’ve had a spike in cases they’ve closed their bars, their restaurants, and their public events. And they did that in order to keep their schools open. And so that’s one of those European countries that we admire, and yet we’re not willing to do the work sometimes to do that, and I’m not blaming parents, I’m not blaming community. It’s just part of the equation, and we are making choices. So, while we may disagree about the recommendation and the outcome here, please realize that we take this very seriously. We pay attention. We don’t sleep during school board meetings. [Note: this is a reference to accusations from some viewers that Leah Olson fell asleep during the previous board meeting.] We study the issues and research, and we want what we all want–a return to normal. And we need to do it together. And so I just needed to say that, and get it off my chest because I think it is kind of a backdrop of all our discussions. I know parents want kids in school, and I do too. But it is not safe. We have spread, and it’s very difficult at this point to even be able to ascertain how much is coming from our kids and through our kids back into the community. Tracing kids is hard because they don’t show symptoms. So having said that, I’ve said enough. Thank you for listening.”
Deb Truymann: “I’m going to say Barry, until you’ve walked in the shoes you truly cannot understand how these parents are doing. They–that sounded like a ‘preach’ to me. I don’t think they need to hear preaching right now, and I just want to remind everyone that 11 of the 14 districts around here are still successfully holding school. We have data for that and I asked last time and I didn’t get an answer why we’re not looking to that.”
Barry: “Deb, I would like to point out that in Brown County right now, there are only three school districts offering in-person according to the Post Crescent article.”
Deb: “And I would like to point out that Dr. Reis’ son plays soccer for the north eastern Wisconsin Lutheran and there’s a picture of him playing in a tournament in Wrightstown. And he’s the doctor–he’s the famous doctor on WBAY news. So you can um…yeah, there are both sides to the story, but walk in these parents’ shoes and you’ll understand a lot better. I want to do what’s right to. It makes me nervous to argue this, because I think ‘What if I’m wrong?’ but there’s so much more, like you said in your–when we were having our other meeting. Um, math and reading are important, but kids need more. Well, they can get their math and reading–the i-Ready scores look good–but they need more. So that’s why I’m–that’s why I say what I do. That’s my rant. Thank you.”
Barry: “I think we’re gonna disagree, Deb. I respect you though.”
You can watch the whole thing here (it starts around the 6:38 mark): https://youtu.be/X7hcw7YSLsM
Be the first to reply