DC Parents React To Sending Their Kids Back To School
Two parents in downtown Tenleytown standing two blocks apart on a Friday morning face two different realities when it comes to sending their children to school in Washington D.C.
In less than a month thousands of K-12 students across the district will be entering the classroom for the first time this school year, along with a variant that doctors have only known about for a month, the Omicron B.A. 5 variant.
Megan Oden, a mother of a 2-year-old and 5-year-old. And Kenneth Covington, a father of a 16-year-old and 18-year-old, are both parents in D.C.
Oden lives in one of the wealthiest areas, Northwest D.C. While Covington lives in one of the poorest areas, the 7th Ward.
Oden’s children go to private school, while Covington’s children go to a public charter school.
COVID-19 has affected the two communities differently, according to the parents.
Oden said for the most part her children have been in school since the start of COVID-19, and never got the virus.
Covington said the opposite: his 16-year-old daughter got COVID-19 twice last school year even while following all the vaccine guidelines at the time.
Covington doesn’t think it’s safe for the students to come back to school.
“The kids [are] sick, the teachers sick. I think they should stay home,” Covington said.
Oden said the opposite. She said her kid’s school is taking all the right precautions.
“As long as the protocols are still in place I’m fully confident sending my kids back,” Oden said.
The reality is the new strain of COVID-19 has shown signs of being resistant to the vaccine, according to UC Davis health website.
Just last week double boosted President Joe Biden had the new variant of COVID-19, the White House reported.
Also, last week the district now requires all students 12 years and older to be vaccinated in order to attend class in the fall, according to abcnews.
Another precaution D.C. public schools are taking to control the rise of COVID-19 in the classroom is sending out at-home COVID-19 tests for students in mid-August in preparation for the start of the school year at the end of August.
Schools are now required to report if the school has 25 or more positive cases tied to a single event, according to the office of the State Superintendent of Education.
Parents are now once again faced with the tough decision of whether it is safe to send their children back into the classroom, and it may completely depend on where they go to school.
