Dear Editor,
Re: “School plan ‘disturbing,’” Letters, Aug. 27
Thank you to the Richmond News for continuing to give a voice to the different perspectives on Richmond’s back-to-school plan. Responding to Mr. Mikulin’s letter, the current back-to-school plan is also confusing and inconsistent.
For example, although elementary students who opt-in to temporary online learning keep their spots in their schools, any high school student who opts into the Richmond Virtual School (RVS) will lose their school spots.
Furthermore, only Grade 8 and 9 students are mandated to go back to school full time (five days a week), full hours with no reduced class size whereas Grade 10, 11, and 12 students attend only half days in reduced class sizes.
For families with high school students, especially those in Grade 8 and 9, they are caught between a rock and a hard place — place their kids daily into an environment where there is no social distancing in the classroom or mandatory PPE protection, or enroll them into online learning and lose their school spots.
I agree with Mr Mikulin that we must speak up for our students who are important members of our community. While the provincial government is placing ads on TV and radio featuring Dr. Bonnie Henry telling the general public that schools will be safe in the fall, it’s parents, teachers, school administrators and staff who are the ones on the ground, here, experiencing the reality. A reality that changes as COVID numbers continue to rise.
Fun fact: as reported by media, while making the fore-mentioned TV ad, the kids acting in the ad had to be social-distanced while making the ad. Therefore, the kids in the ad had safer protocols than our students will when they return to their classrooms in the fall.
Disturbing, confusing, inconsistent. Yes, let’s speak up and keep our students, teachers and school staff safe.
Cindy Cheung
RICHMOND
