To the Oshkosh Board of Education...

To the Board of Education for the Oshkosh Area School District,

I am one of your students, I am a senior at Oshkosh West High School, and I have a number of concerns about your decision to have students return to full-time school in these unsettling times.

The first of these being that it is completely illogical in every sense of the word. We are nowhere close to herd immunity. And According to Dr. Anthony Fauci in an interview with the New York Times, he "believes that it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt" (McNeil par.7) — almost as much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak. According to CDC estimates "More Than 15% of Americans Have Had Covid-19," well under what anyone would consider an acceptable number.

Secondly, this plan to send all students going back to school at once can very easily, and from everything you have seen in the past year WILL go wrong. Not to mention that the CDC's recommendations for K-12 school districts, states, "It is also critically important to develop strategies that can be revised and adapted depending on the level of viral transmission in the school and throughout the community, as this may change rapidly. If you take a look at the data for Covid-19 daily transmissions in Winnebago county, you will find there is not what you would call predictable data...

On top of this, there are numerous, more transmittable, and more deadly variants of the Coronavirus known in the US already, and there are most likely countless others, still blurred from our view.

Many students and staff and members of their families are also more vulnerable to this virus, are you going to say "well they were considered"? No, that would be ridiculous, and essentially the same as saying they are collateral damage.

Next, I would like to make an example of my school, Oshkosh West- which is currently having a hybrid model with half of the students on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, with everyone virtual on Wednesdays. I don't know if you have been in one of your high schools on a hybrid or a normal day during passing time, saying it is a jungle would not be far off, West may be a pretty sizable building, but not with 750+ people in it at a time, and far less with 1,500+. In the current hybrid model, there is NOT ONE time during the day when I am 6 feet or more away from another person. And it has been a while, however, I know there was not a time during normal school when I was ever more than 2 feet away from someone (gym does not count - locker rooms).

I do hope you all remember December 3rd, 2019 as well as I do, how did that go, you had one (granted very brave) man guarding 1,500 students, and it took other police officers almost five minutes to arrive on the scene, how do you think that would have gone if that student actually had a handgun or Semi-Automatic Rifle.

I realize you are considering students whose family lives are less than ideal but consider this,

If your number one job is to ensure our safety, then why would you gamble with our, and our families' lives?

You have the power to make the right decision, I hope you do so, best regards,

Sam Mollenhauer.

By Sam Mollenhauer

Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue IV

February 1st, 2021