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If a high school holds its classes primarily outdoors, should it be allowed to reopen before other New Haven high schools?
For some Sound School families, the answer is yes.
Over 100 people have signed a petition by Sound junior Anthony Cirello asking to restart in-person classes at the aquaculture-focused school.
The reasoning in the petition is that schools do not contribute to community Covid-19 spread and students’ mental health is declining at home during the pandemic-prompted remote learning.
“This situation is even more ironic at the Sound School where class sizes are small, classes are conducted outside, and students travel between classes outside every day,” Cirello wrote.
Middle schoolers returned to a hybrid of in-person and remote learning on Thursday. About half of students in the younger grades have opted to return to in-person classes since January. High schoolers are the last to return, based on research that young children are the least likely to transmit Covid-19 or become seriously ill.
When to reopen public schools has been an intense and emotional debate in New Haven, as it has been in other cities around the country. Educators got access to Covid-19 vaccines this week, under the argument that this would help speed up school reopening. Some teachers will only feel safe after getting both doses, while others are beginning to trust in the mask wearing and social distancing measures at their schools.
Open public schools have continued to see Covid-19 cases among students and staff. The district’s Covid-19 dashboard (which was last updated on Feb. 22) showed two students and four school staff members staying home from school with confirmed Covid-19 symptoms or diagnoses. Another 40 students and 10 staff members were quarantining after possible exposure to the Covid cases.
Health officials expected to see cases at schools, since New Haven is still seeing about 30 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people every day. The main question is whether students or staff are spreading the disease to one another. This was not the case in the first weeks of school reopening.
Neither the New Haven Health Department nor the New Haven Public Schools central office staff immediately returned requests for comment.
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