Dear Editor,
As parents, students, teachers and guardians, we have been extremely anxious to have our kids back to full-time face-to-face learning, yet we’re being restricted again to 50 percent learning.
We are wondering why.
Why are we back to hybrid learning?
Does this mean instead of doing 100 percent damage, they are only doing 50 percent damage now?
What is the reason that we are at hybrid learning but other schools, such as daycare and preschool, have already been granted 100 percent permission for full-time face-to-face learning?
My question is: What has changed for the little ones that didn’t change for primary and secondary school-aged kids?
How are permissions granted?
We are simply asking for normalcy. The stress of hybrid learning has not only taken a toll on the children but on the teachers as well.
Let us try for full-time face-to-face learning.
Give us the option. If we have all our procedures and policies and everything in place, why not let us try to resume back to 100 percent normalcy?
Why?
In the worst case, there is major outbreak of COVID — which is highly unlikely since all the data shows that is not the case then we just go back to hybrid.
But we’ll never know if they don’t let us try.
Restaurants (at least the ones I’ve been to recently) aren’t taking temperature upon entry. Staff aren’t wearing masks. Tables aren’t spaced out.
So, what’s the difference? We are aware that no other establishment is at half capacity and feel unsatisfactory that only our kids are suffering behind the screens while everything is wide open.
There’s absolutely no valid reason. Approve the schools at their full capacity which have been open the whole last year.
Now more than ever, the kids deserve their chance at learning to their full capacity in the classroom because they need to go over skills and concepts they have missed over the past two years. Some schools on the Family Islands, such as on Abaco, haven’t opened at all since Hurricane Dorian (2019). The learning gap in unimaginable.
Protocols in schools are in place 100 percent of the time; why can’t students be in school 100 percent of the time?
We hope that our kids will be back to full time on Monday, February 7, 2022.
If our approval for face-to-face is learning is denied, please note that our team of parents, students, teachers and guardians have decided to demonstrate on February 5, 2022, at 10 meeting at Straw Market.
Thank you.
With immense hope,
Laureen Singh
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