A group of 61+ 144 physicians and scientists sent the following letter to the City of Newton
January 7, 2021
Dear City Councilors, School Committee Members, Mayor Fuller, and Commissioner Youngblood:
We, the undersigned, are a group of physicians and scientists who are Newton residents with specialties including infectious disease, pediatrics, pulmonology, emergency medicine, psychiatry and occupational medicine. Many of us are also NPS parents.
We have two messages to communicate to you: First, we are here to offer our help. Second, we believe in-person learning is critical to the health of Newton’s children and can be safely employed with the appropriate mitigation measures.
Our first message to you is that we are a multi-disciplinary group, committed to helping navigate the complexities of school reopening, if granted the opportunity. We each have diverse areas of expertise and bring unique insight into the considerations of safe public education in this pandemic. We would like to help the City interpret emerging data and adapt to the rapidly evolving pandemic landscape.
We recognize the difficulties the City faces in addressing public health and public education needs. Achieving a balance – protecting both the safety of our community and the social, emotional, and academic development of our children, requires a depth of medical and scientific expertise
.Our second message is the importance of in-person schooling, and our belief that it can be done safely. We firmly believe that in-person schooling is necessary for the overall well-being of our children and that in-person learning can be achieved safely during this pandemic with appropriate risk mitigation efforts – safe for students, safe for educators, safe for staff, and safe for the community at-large. We say this based on our collective experiences and based on real-world evidence that has emerged over the past 9 months.
Decisions regarding school re-openings have legitimately focused on the risk of COVID transmission. However, we cannot view that priority in isolation without considering the academic and social-emotional health of our children, accompanied by a meaningful increase in cases of depression and anxiety among children unable to regularly attend school. This is so important as the longer depression persists in a child or adolescent, the more likely that depression will recur more severely, and for longer duration, in the future. Getting kids back with teachers and friends, in person, is critical to their mental health. It is critical to their future livelihoods as studies show correlation between lost years of school and achievement as adults.
We recognize that the process of fully reopening schools will be challenging and complex. As such, we believe it is imperative that Newton begin planning in earnest to achieve a return to normal in-person learning by the Fall with increased opportunities for in-person learning this Spring. Specifically, the City will need to develop and communicate clear, actionable strategies relating to:
1.Data-driven benchmarks to guide re-opening
2.Return to a single-cohort, in-person model
3.COVID testing of teachers, staff and potentially students
4.Educational programs and guidance for vaccine distribution for eligible individuals
Newton is not alone in facing these challenges, yet where Newton was once seen as a leader in education models, it has fallen behind many surrounding districts with regard to addressing the COVID pandemic. We can learn from districts that are ahead of us, synthesizing both what has worked well and what has not, and we can leverage private, state, and federal guidance where it exists.
We anticipate an improving pandemic landscape as we move through 2021 with the deployment of vaccines. Vaccinations of educators and staff will further specifically mitigate the risk of in-person schooling and support re-opening – but education around the efficacy and safety of these vaccines will be paramount at the local level.
Vaccinations aside, there is much that can be done now to safely increase the amount of time our students are in school. Newton’s HVAC testing and improvements in school buildings are meaningful contributions, and the recent piloting of viral testing for school staff can develop into an effective screening program.
We ask the City to create a COVID / school reopening taskforce, bringing together scientific and medical experts, educators, parents, and City officials. The explicit purpose of this task force would be to follow the best available scientific and medical evidence to safely maintain and further expand in-person learning. This will help the community navigate re-opening, ensuring consistent, transparent communication to rebuild trust.
We stand ready to help Newton employ science to navigate our way through this pandemic and the process of reopening our schools. The time has come to create a COVID / school reopening taskforce. Please recognize the urgency to act now, as it will take months of hard work to enable a return to data-driven in-person learning by September.
Thank you.
Respectfully,
I don’t have a Facebook account but please post it on Newton Parents, Newton community, Newton civic action group and any other Facebook group you can think of, this is so important!
This letter is extraordinary in the degree to which a group of expert Newton parents have called upon the City to take an action, to create a COVID/school reopening task force, while also volunteering their time and energy to assist with such a body. That such a step is timely (indeed, past timely) is indisputable. The degree to which the City is behind on such matters was made evident in this week’s Program and Services Committee meeting of the City Council.
The City has been quick to act in the past when matters of urgency arose (e.g., from a review of police functions and priorities to the possibility of saving open space at Webster Woods.) They even found the time to quickly create a citizens advisory committee on a less time-sensitive issue like the City seal. Now, where the ability of 12,000 students to go back to normal schooling is at issue, there is a clearly defined need and urgency.
It seems all the debate about testing, classroom spacing, ventilation/air quality is taking place without any real scientific and medical input. We still see educators in social media and in community forums saying that they are not satisfied with these issues, yet we don’t know what the NTA’s actual ask is (or what science it is based upon). NPS just defers to HHS, yet it’s fair to say we don’t have great transparency from HHS who they are relying upon, and how these decisions are being made. Meanwhile, as these physicians point out, there is a real consequence to all of this in terms of our kids’ health. As parents, all we see is the parties seemingly just talk past one another.
The reality is that these are complex issues that require input from the medical and scientific community to navigate. It would be inexcusable for the City not to take the advice of our local experts. This is the path to get our kids back in school. Let’s not waste any more time. Thank you to all these physicians and scientists for their time and energy.
On January 6, I signed on during the program and services meeting to listen to the update from Commissioner of Health and Human Services regarding the safety within our schools and the steps that need to be taken to open our schools to the fullest extent possible while also maintaining community safety. To say I was disappointed in the preparedness and the sense of urgency by HHS would be a complete understatement. I believe now more than ever that the City needs to utilize the members from our community with expertise in both medicine and science to help guide our public health policies to get the city’s children back to school. This is a crisis in our city and the lack of ownership and transparency in this process is troubling. It is time to right this ship.
This is the answer Newton has needed since this all began. A COVID Advisory Task Force should have been formed in the summer. There is a safe way to get the kids back to in person learning and we need a plan! There isn’t transparency around who is making decisions and where those decision makers are getting their information from. The time is now to start utilizing our amazing residents to guide our way back to safe in person learning.
The state’s new surveillance testing program for schools announced today by Gov. Baker is a great step forward. Newton must sign up to participate – deadline January 15th. Please contact mayor Fuller and your local city councilor and school committee representatives to demand action!
We still need to address social distancing (data suggests 3’ is fine for elementary school kids with masks!) and we need to get vaccines rolled out to teachers and staff ASAP.
Let’s get our schools open – with a robust, transparent plan from city officials. Newton should be a leader on all education issues in this state – not a dinosaur slowpoke bureaucratic behemoth.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bostonglobe.com/2021/01/08/metro/baker-says-coronavirus-pool-testing-will-be-made-available-all-schools-mass/%3foutputType=amp
https://ethics.harvard.edu/news/schools-and-path-zero
This is a clear call to action by this group of doctors. I thank them for their advocacy on behalf of all children in our community. For the life of me, I do not understand why the City is not being more pro-active to engage the experts we have in our midst and who are clearly vested but also who have first-hand expertise in a landscape that is rapidly evolving.
There is so much in our world and in this pandemic that cannot be solved by any one of us. And yet, the Mayor of this City does have the resources and the ready expertise to solve one of the most urgent issues, delivering a first-class Newton education to our children, safely.
I listened last Wed (Jan 6) to a very long City Council meeting in which Commissioner Deborah Youngblood shared the status of the Health and Human Services guidance and protocols for schools. It was disheartening to say the least.
You can find the meeting on NewTV here, the health/schools discussion is about 1:23 into the meeting. https://newtv.org/recent-video/107-committee-meetings-and-public-hearings/6577-programs-and-services-committee-january-6-2020
It is apparent that there is a lack of coordination between the various city departments. There does not appear to be any integrated plan between Health and Human Services, Public Facilities or the School Dept and decisions are not owned by anyone. No one is really talking to the teachers about their safety concerns either.
There appears to be zero coordination between the ventilation work being done by Commissioner Morse and the health department guidance. If there were, we would have clear protocols for specific situations, such as “is the airflow in a cafeteria sufficient for students to take off masks while eating and if not, what is the health guidance for alternatives, such as eat outside in this instance etc.”
Neighboring towns, like Watertown, are using their weekly testing of teachers, staff and students, as datapoints to determine that they can INCREASE in-person classroom time with confidence. Newton meanwhile has its limited monthly testing plan which experts dismiss as meaningless.
This letter shows that there is a way forward based in science. Please, Mayor Fuller, don’t sit back and say now we will wait for the vaccine, please make a plan that addresses the pillars of safety and do what it takes to bring your team together for a best-in-class plan that we all can trust to return our kids to school safely. Newton should be leading the country in our back-to-school plans but unfortunately it feels as if we are trailing. Establishing a science based, medical advisory board would be one step to turn this around.
I don’t see any epidemiologists or other faculty from schools of public health on that list of signers. I know both Harvard and BU public health experts live in Newton. What do they think? I’d especially like to know what Joseph Allen, expert on healthy buildings, would have to say if he first had a chance to visit the school buildings (I don’t know if he lives in Newton or not).
Meredith – Joe Allen participated in the comment period at Wednesday evening’s Programs & Services meeting. The NPS discussion starts around the 1:15 mark. I believe he lives in Brookline (to answer your question).
Thank you for posting this letter. It is certainly a valuable warning sign of some kind.
Has anyone released a study on the mental health affects of distance leaning (and reduced social interaction) on kids
Is definitely real but unsure what kind of long-term mental damage its causing to 100% of children (vs the 1% which may get covid)
For those who don’t have young children, it’s hard to understand the concerns. Children from less supportive homes (or dual working parents) are probably more mentally challenged with reduced social interaction
Has anyone released a study on the mental health affects of distance leaning (and reduced social interaction) on kids?
There are many articles available. We will not have an understanding of the “long term impact” any time soon. Here is just a sample:
Disruptions to daily life during the pandemic, anxiety about contracting Covid-19 and social isolation are all taking a toll on children’s mental health, a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids-health/covid-stress-taking-toll-children-s-mental-
health-cdc-finds-n1247540
The Coronavirus Seems to Spare Most Kids From Illness, but Its Effect on Their Mental Health Is Deepening
https://time.com/5870478/children-mental-health-coronavirus/
Children’s Hospitals Grapple With Wave of Mental Illness
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210106/childrens-hospitals-grapple-with-wave-of-mental-illness#1
Teens in Covid Isolation: ‘I Felt Like I Was Suffocating’
Remote learning, lockdowns and pandemic uncertainty have increased anxiety and depression among adolescents, and heightened concerns about their mental health.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/health/covid-teenagers-mental-health.html
The current ventilation in the Newton schools meet AHSRAE 62.1 for 100% Occupancy. CFMs are met and even exceeded, in addition air exchanges are at 5-6 per hour. This is on the high end of Joe Allen’s recommendation of 4-6. I encourage anyone who has doubts about the current ventilation of our schools to read the current dashboards posted. If you also have any doubt on Joe Allen’s stance on not only Newton returning to school, but his own children, I encourage you to listen to the City Council meeting from this week (link posted in another post) where he spoke and also his many, many posts about this subject.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/11/12/three-feet-social-distancing-schools-coronavirus/
https://covidpathforward.com/authors-experts/joseph-allen/
For my hybrid elementary aged kid, this year has been so frustrating. For one thing, there’s a massive equity issue. There seems to be this expectation that kids have a quiet workspace in their home with a parent nearby to help. So it’s inhospitable for kids with working parents, kids in out of school time programs, kids whose parents don’t speak English, or large families. I’ve been asked to assist with daytime school work but I have a job. I don’t blame the teachers for exacerbating these inequities, they’ve been dealt an impossible hand.
Further, the in person days are a joke. In the afternoons when my kid comes home, he’s done with his school work by 2 pm. This includes time for getting home and eating lunch. And he is NOT a fast worker.
It feels like a lost year.
Honestly, so tired of the social justice warriors teachers.
They are looking for teachers in Worcester by the way, go check.
To see so many experts in our community step up and offer free and qualified assistance to the community is overwhelming and gratifying.
To date, there are at least 5 Infectious Disease physicians from multiple hospitals who have signed (and others I’ve heard are interested in signing on), plus multiple other specialists who care for and run COVID wards, including pulmonologists and hospitalists, experts in testing and laboratory medicine and others who have kept countless people alive by providing intimate care via high risk procedures. Their collective efforts have kept many in our community alive at the doctors own personal risk. These doctors have learned what is required to keep themselves and the community safe through ongoing exposure, training, and by availing themselves of the most recent medical literature and in some cases actively writing it.
Secondly, many of the signees that are not as intimately involved in direct patient care have been key in other aspects such as running departments and reinventing hospital operations in ways that our City and School District can learn from. I would urge all readers to think about this as it has truly been a multi-disciplinary and collaborative effort that has allowed our hospitals to run and keep our community safe.
On top of this we should recognize that in particular many in this group of physicians are volunteering their time and expertise while they have had no breaks or allowed limited to no vacation since the pandemic began. The generosity they are displaying should be rewarded by the community and accepted by the City to help the citizens of our community, our school aged children, and of course the Faculty and Staff of the School District.
Thank you to those who say Joseph Allen has weighed in and that ventilation is now adequate. Given that sad state of ventilation in the NPS early in the school year, I’ve been very concerned about that aspect of things.
Chris Brezski – It’s very difficult to hear that anyone who’s been involved in the discussion related to the reopening of the schools say they don’t know what NTA has been asking for.
The two asks have been consistent since September – and repeated over and over again – in every local media platform, and were approved by 98-99% of Newton Public Schools teachers and staff at an NTA General Membership Meeting attended by 1500 members.
1. Surveillance testing of faculty and staff
2. Address the poor air quality in spaces where staff and students work. This has been done for now. I encourage the City of Newton to commit to maintaining the same clean air standards in the future once the pandemic is under control.
While I apologize for any perceived impatience, please know that this is probably the 25th time that I have posted this same information on various local sites.
@Jane – so is the NTA all set now given Gov. Baker’s roll out of surveillance testing for schools and Newton’s certification of the HVAC systems? Just trying to keep up – thanks!
Jane – thanks so much for clarifying this. I have been intimately following the school discussions this past summer and fall and like Chris have been unclear what the NTA needs were to increase in – person learning. This is great news. With the announcement this week of the state’s surveillance testing program for schools and the ventilation work completed I would expect we should see the amount of in person learning increase this semester.
The medical recommendations that NPS solicited over the summer to inform a safe return to school had four parts: masks, distancing, testing of asymptomatic people, and fixing the ventilation. Masks are about the only thing they got right.
When South students went to pick up their textbooks in September, the school couldn’t coordinate the distancing properly. It was supposed to take 30 min but took 3 hours, and some students had to come back another day. Then people started pushing to reduce distancing, from 6 to 3 feet.
NPS has only dealt with ventilation AFTER people returned to the buildings. The high schools were scheduled for final repairs in January.
This group of medical volunteers has repeatedly offered to work with NPS to fund and implement testing. I heard them make public offers during the comments phase of at least three different School Committee meetings. The speakers said that they had contacted NPS administrators and School Committee members repeatedly and never gotten replies. That failure by Superintendent Fleishman and SC Chair Ruth Goldman is inexcusable; they ignored the medical advice that they themselves solicited.
Given the infection rates in September and our population size, and the absence of testing, there were likely to be at least 2 deaths about the families of students and teachers. I thought those numbers too high to justify a return to school, and the numbers have only gone up with the higher infection rates and the new more contagious strain. If NPS doesn’t test asymptomatic people regularly, there will be deaths.
Remote learning does have mental health impacts, and these must be treated. But even one death in a school community would have a huge mental health impact. Keeping students, teachers, staff, and their families alive has to be most important.
NPS has done a much worse job at handling this emergency than other districts. There should be more oversight. A medical advisory board would be a good first step.
While I’m heartened that the governor is now on board with a testing program, I remain very concerned about the timing of the rollout. NPS employees have little to no control over this part of the process and frankly, I’m concerned about the timing of a state program. I would suggest parents who support a surveillance testing program contact the mayor and the school committee to let them know. To be clear, surveillance testing programs are significantly different from a monthly testing program.
Wellesley is the perfect example of what a surveillance testing program can achieve. Through their program, they were able to contact trace from the one positive case and identify what part of the building (the main office) where the virus was transmitted. Changes were made to the configuration of the office, how it was used, etc, and a larger outbreak was averted.
All this being said, staffing remains a significant problem, in part because it’s very difficult to find paraprofessionals this year. The pay is low, the risk isn’t worth it, and the system can’t function without paraprofessionals in this day and age. Very honestly, few people want these jobs this year.
So, this pisses me off. Am I to understand the city has all this talent and there isn’t a citizen’s advisory committee on reopening the schools?? We’ve had the virus now for 10 months and no committee. Thats sad. Elected officials think they know more than the professionals?? Oyyy.
You are correct @Tom Sheff. Dr. Rocelle Walensky former Head of Infectious Disease at MGH and soon to be in charge of the CDC volunteered her time back in July. Countless Citizens have advocated for Mayor Fuller to create an advisory panel and she continues to resist, and just mentions consulting unnamed experts. These wold class experts could have advised her on how to make schools safer and also been used to share information with the public reducing the amount of fear that exists,
Want to be really mad watch the City Council’s Program and Services meeting starting at around 1:14:00 where they start asking Dr, Youngblood questions. It reveals a lot about how the crisis has been handled. There has been a huge lack of clarity on who ultimately is making decisions and what they are basing those decisions on. There has been a lack of ownership and urgency, Thank you to the City Councilors for trying to add that urgency. There is quite a bit wrong with the process. Going forward this needs to be figured out as we have already lost so much time. Metrics, decision makers. Also towards the end of this meeting some of the Medical Experts speak in a public comment about testing, safe environments (Harvard’s Joe Allen,,,very interesting). It is worth a listen
https://newtv.org/recent-video/107-committee-meetings-and-public-hearings/6577-programs-and-services-committee-january-6-2020
Jane Frantz – Let’s combat the false narrative of “parents versus teachers” that I believe some are content to perpetuate. Surveillance testing and air quality have been two of the NTA’s asks, but they have not been the NTA’s only asks, and I believe my comment was fair. Even now, there are still teachers expressing concern over air quality, so if you are saying that is no longer an issue (as is my understanding), I hope NTA leadership will communicate that to its members and the greater school community.
What is true of both of these issues – surveillance testing and air quality – is that they are both complex issues that likely neither you nor I, nor NTA or NPS leadership, is capable of figuring out on our own. NPS spent millions of dollars on engineering firms to do the air balance testing of the classrooms. Air quality was a legitimate concern and it has been addressed (even if should have been done sooner). Surveillance testing can mean many things – what population are you testing, and how frequently, given the specificity of the tests, to achieve your desired level of confidence? That seems something the medical community might have a better say on than you or I, so let’s utilize these experts to address the whole host of issues involved – safety of students, educators, staff and community at-large, and do so in the context of the mental health and academic, social and emotional growth of our kids.
Specific to the issue of surveillance testing, there appears to be a range of views even within the medical community. Dr. Ashish Jha’s team at the Brown School of Public Health recently recommended (not required) surveillance testing of educators and staff when community spread reaches 20 daily cases per 100k population, a threshold that Newton only recently crossed and remains slightly above. I believe some of the physicians that signed this letter would argue for more testing at lower levels of positive cases, and some not. These people are offering their time and expertise to help answer these questions specific to Newton, so let’s take advantage of that generous offer.
Educators and parents should be aligned here. Rather than quarreling over sentence fragments on social media posts, let’s work together to urge the City to adopt this taskforce (and note the physicians’ letter explicitly calls for that taskforce to include both educators and parents) and safely return students to the classroom.
https://globalepidemics.org/2020/12/18/schools-and-the-path-to-zero-strategies-for-pandemic-resilience-in-the-face-of-high-community-spread/
I agree this task force is needed. It’s disappointing that Newton has not yet taken advantage of these experts’ offers to volunteer. Perhaps this is a good issue for the Mayor to show some leadership on.
A question for those more in-tune with the thinking of the NTA, school committee, etc.: when teachers are vaccinated, what’s the hold up to returning to full-time, in-person instruction? K-12 teachers are priority #2 in the Phase 2 group, and they’re slotted for the Feb-March timeframe. So that means vaccinations (including 2nd shots) should be all done by the time April vacation week is done. I assume remote learning options remain for those families who elect remote education until the vaccine is available to the general public. So then why can’t families opting for in-person, hybrid education today return to 5 days a week education? The risk of teachers and staff getting sick is effectively off the table.
@Mary Contrary so many Newton families and teachers feel this is a lost year, but there is still time to respond to current and emerging data and capitalize on the progress the district and state have made towards making buildings safer (through air quality improvements) and making our educators and community safer (through vaccination roll-outs and in-development testing programs for staff and students). It is important to continue advocating for change NOW. The school committee and Mayor cannot demur in complacency and passivity and set their sights only on September 2021 to transition to more in-person time for elementary students.
@Jane, Wellesley has effectively increased in-person learning not only through surveillance testing, but also by prioritizing vulnerable young learners and nimbly adapting their hybrid model based on enrollment data. Their reopening plans began by prioritizing kindergarten students, and when they discovered first-grade enrollment was low, they expanded in-person learning for first-graders through creative staffing and spacing reallocation. They have since expanded in-person learning again, to second-graders. These changes have little to do with testing and everything to do with vision and commitment. As a parent, I will staunchly advocate for surveillance testing and for guidance from our qualified medical community residents to implement that testing. But I also advocate for creative responses from school leadership based on student enrollment shifts, staffing challenges and solutions, and emerging local and scientific data.
While the NTA has expressed with increasing clarity their needs and goals for increased in-person learning, the school committee and Mayor have not with transparency or urgency articulated the impediments they perceive to increasing the time our young children spend in school, or proposed any solutions to address these roadblocks. Instead, lack of cohesive city leadership and vision has pitted teachers against parents. Let’s work together to strengthen that leadership and vision through collaboration and advocacy.
This is a fantastic campaign and long overdue.
Put simply, all students need to be back in school as normal this fall. This should be the base case for any plan. Failure to execute this plan should result in resignations and firings. This is the most important task Newton has ever had to accomplish. The amount of experience and talent in our city is essentially unmatched anywhere on the planet.
We can do this and we must do this.
Chris –
Of course the vast majority of teachers and parents are aligned and we aren’t in any way at odds. And yes, individual teachers have expressed a range of “concerns”. I have my own set of concerns, but my personal concerns have nothing to do with what NTA is advocating for, which has been consistent throughout the fall and into the winter as a result of a vote taken at a well attended General Membership Meeting.
As for the ventilation systems, teachers returned to buildings where the air quality issues had not been addressed and just last week, one school received notice that the work on the ventilation systems had just been completed.
In addition to the two major items, NTA advocates for situations that segments of the membership may be dealing with – teachers who cannot social distance due to their job description, planning time which is basically nonexistent at this point, etc. These concerns are in a different category from the two items that 98-99% of members voted for.
I did not mean to quarrel with you. If you’d repeated the same information (not opinion, not individual teacher’s concerns, but information) in every local social media platform and five months later, you read someone say they did not know the information, then I suspect that you may feel frustrated too. You were the recipient of five months of frustration and certainly didn’t deserve it. I do believe that once this debacle is over, it would helpful if NTA explained how it functions within the context of the larger school system. I do believe that we are in agreement on the larger issues.
Brookline Public Schools have a “COVID-19 Infection Control
Brookline Panel 4” led by an epidemiologist that meets every Friday. Here is a sample report shared with parents — https://www.brookline.k12.ma.us/…/2020-10-23%20Meghan…
The difference between that and what we get here in Newton is staggering.
Yes, as Melissa Brown said, ” NPS has only dealt with ventilation AFTER people returned to the buildings. The high schools were scheduled for final repairs in January,” ONLY after NTA kept insisting and insisting these were down correctly by proper personnel (not just NPS staff). I was on one of the first SC meetings in the fall where NPS said the HVACs had all been inspected. This just wasn’t true.
Grateful we had NTA fighting for safety issue because HHS is definitely NOT.
Here is the full link I referred to:
https://www.brookline.k12.ma.us/cms/lib/MA01907509/Centricity/Domain/62/2020-10-23%20Meghan%20Baker%20Presentation%20Slides.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1n62RhH8OgMUHsmTLQSWqaHBCW8_rjOvC65zVL0mBgfrvSfn1_6P6hK2w
Most of us seem to be vigorously agreeing with the point Chris and Jane and others have made here: “Educators and parents should be aligned . . . Let’s work together to urge the City to adopt this task force (and note the physicians’ letter explicitly calls for that task force to include both educators and parents) and safely return students to the classroom.”
Not one person on this forum (or, as far as I know, among the City Councilors) has expressed disagreement with the thrust of the parent-doctors’ letter. The ball is clearly in the court of City officials.
Newton Highlands Mom-it doesn’t make sense to me. This city has an advisory committee on everything, how do they not have an advisory committee on the most important issue Newton will ever face. I am shocked.
Mayor Fuller seems to be a very cautious, thoughtful person. I’m taken back she has yet to tap into the biggest commodity we have in the city and thats the constituents. She can’t possibly think she knows better than those people. All this time I assumed she was getting advice from an advisory committee. There must be some people she talks to, though. I’m still shocked at this news.
Just saw a memo from 16 City Councillors to the Mayor, School Committee, and other City official. Excerpts:
Public Health Parameters for a Safe Return to School
Our goal must be to return all of our children to as much in-person learning as possible this year. Last spring, we closed the schools and ultimately decided that in-person learning was not possible at that time. But now that we have been learning about, and living with COVID-19, for almost a full year, the goal must evolve. We have learned how to mitigate against in-school transmission and we, and school districts across the country, including right here in Massachusetts, have seen successful in-person learning without wide in- school virus transmission. We urge you to work with the advisory committee, NPS staff, parents and others to dramatically increase the opportunities for in-person learning as soon as possible.
Establish an Expert Advisory Committee
As councilors have been consistently requesting, we believe that the city needs to assemble an expert advisory committee now to help guide decision-making in our health department and our public schools. Many of our peer communities, including Brookline, Milton, Salem, and Wellesley, have formed an advisory group of scientists, physicians and other public health experts to work with their health departments and school systems in addressing the many issues posed by COVID-19. Newton residents and others with similar expertise – indeed, some of the foremost experts in the nation, if not the world – have offered to serve our city in a similar capacity for free. We must avail ourselves of this assistance.
Expanded Testing for Teachers and Staff
The science is clear: testing is a critical component of any public health response and a safe return to schools on a broader scale. Two key goals in any testing regimen should be: (a) rapid turn-around-time of results for symptomatic individuals; and (b) early detection and surveillance for outbreak prevention.
While we are pleased that we are beginning some testing of teachers and staff, we are concerned that it is not frequent enough and too difficult to administer. We have been advised that this program is only scheduled to run for two months (January and February) and requires teachers and staff to travel to the Ed Center to be tested under the supervision of senior school department personnel.
Recently, a group of physician/scientist parents in our community wrote to the city’s elected officials urging increased frequency of the testing. We urge the Administration and the School Committee to work with the expert advisory committee to implement the optimal testing program as soon as possible.
Planning for next year
Now is the time to plan for next year, including considering a variety of options depending on the availability of vaccines and other measures. But regardless of what options we develop, we cannot wait. As members of the City Council, we will support the necessary financial resources for full in-person learning for next year.
We remain ready, willing and able to assist you in any and all of these efforts.
Thank you for posting the letter Paul. FYI it was signed by Krintzman, Laredo, Noel, Grossman, Malakie, Kalis, Markiewicz, Norton, Leary, Baker, Greenberg, Wright, Ryan, Bowman and Danberg. The only additional request that I have to the mayor is that she appoint a point person to deal with restoration of in-person instruction the way early on in the pandemic she hired retired Fire Chief Bruce Proia to be the point person on covid response. What we saw last week, with our HHS Commissioner giving vague or non-answers, and saying school re-opening questions were not her area–and this is after our school officials have told us that health-related questions are not their area–is a management and communication break down. It makes me extremely nervous about what the rollout for the vaccine itself will look like. If we don’t have the expertise let’s get it – both in the form of an expert advisory committee, but also in terms of someone full-time, on the ground, with management and logistics expertise.
The original letter had 60+ physicians and scientists as signatories. The number is now 113.
A lot of talent in this city
And volunteering to help, Tom!
Paul, are you pushing for this to happen? If so, you need anything from me??
Many people are trying to move this along,Tom, including Chris Brezski and other parents. But note this statement from School Committee Chair Ruth Goldman in today’s Tab, “I don’t think we need an outside expert panel.” I think there are more chapters to come in this story, though, so stay tuned.
I don’t think it should be up to SC chair, it should be on the Mayor…what does she think??
It really doesn’t make sense that they have not taken advantage of these experts many of whom have been offering to help since July. Parents have been pleading with the Mayor for months to put together this expert panel. It is infuriating that she uses consultants on everything else but on one of our most important resources she resists.
Maybe the panel can do a special show on newtv and get their message out anyhow.