Mountain View Whisman School District in California recently presented its 2020-2021 back-to-school plan to parents. Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that children are at very low risk of contracting the Wuhan virus, extremely low risk of dying from it, and highly unlikely to transmit it to adults, Mountain View isn’t permitting students to return for a normal school year this fall.
Like many other local school officials, the superintendent sent parents a choice: They can either keep their kids home for continued online schooling through Mountain View or send their kids back to school only two days each week — with masks and six-foot social distancing — while doing school from home the other three days.
After receiving Mountain View’s back-to-school email to parents, a parent sent this response. The Federalist has verified the parent’s identity and residence in Mountain View.
Dear Elected Officials and School Leaders of Mountain View,
I’m reaching out to extend a huge thanks to the City of Mountain View, County of Santa Clara, and State of California for only asking our children to return to school for zero or two days per week for the entire school year of 2020-21.
As a dual-working family that expects to have our incomes cut in half after one of us has to tell a boss we’re only able to work either zero or three days per week next year in the midst of a global recession, we’re extremely thankful that you figured out how to require only one of us to lose our job, rather than both of us.
Of course, there’s no hard feelings because we understand that as our duly elected representatives and the people hired by them, you are obviously powerless to make alternative choices, like those made by the leaders of Florida, Texas, Australia, and France, who have all decided to reopen their schools completely next year.
As loving parents, we take great comfort knowing that the financial sacrifice our family will be forced to make will help prevent massive numbers of children from having mild, cold-like symptoms for a few days from the coronavirus, which they most likely contracted from their parents in the first place, according to most of the scientific literature available.
We also understand that this decision had nothing to do with the letter sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom yesterday by the California Teachers Association arguing against reopening schools, despite the fact that no such letter has ever been sent to the governor during previous seasons of the flu, a disease that has killed far more children than COVID-19 has. Despite their actions to the contrary, we know that teachers only have our children’s best interests at heart.
As long-time citizens of Mountain View, we’re grateful to know that our tax dollars will help to pay for the full salaries of administrators and teachers next year, despite the fact that their workloads will have been reduced by more than 50 percent. Since one of us anticipates being unemployed in August anyway, we’d be happy to do the other 50 percent of the work that teachers and administrators are unable to do remotely.
Finally, we can’t help but feel selfish for wanting our children to go to school to learn things while we work to put a roof over their heads, and we hope you’ll forgive us for immediately researching how we can move out of Mountain View and California as quickly as possible in order to achieve these selfish goals.
Honestly, we probably don’t deserve to be a part of this community anyway. After all, only two of our three children were even born here to begin with, and less than 90 percent of our closest friends live here. Surely we’ll be able to rebuild a community of friends that has been painstakingly assembled over many years of play dates at Eagle Park, brunches at Crepevine, and walks down Castro Street. In the unlikely event we’re still living here during the elections in November, we’ll be sure not to forget all that you’ve done for our family.
Once again, our sincere thanks for all your hard work to find creative new ways to make the Bay Area one of the least hospitable places to raise a family in the entire country. We honestly thought it would be nearly impossible for you guys to top having to pay over $1 million for a tiny, two-bedroom condo and we definitely thought it would be unthinkable to find ourselves agreeing with Donald Trump for the first time in four years about reopening schools, but somehow you guys found a way to make it all happen.
Thank you, and well done!
Sincerely,
A Mountain View Parent
