To the Board of Education for the Oshkosh Area School District

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

I am one of your students, 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. 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 over what anyone would consider an acceptable number.

Secondly, this plan to send all students back to school at once can very easily 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.

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, staff, and family members 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, and 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, but saying it is a jungle would not be far off. West may be a pretty sizable building, but there is not enough room for 750+ people in it at a time, much less 1,500+. In the current hybrid model, there is NOT ONE time during the day when I am six feet or more away from another person. It has been a while, however, I know there was not a time during normal school when I was ever more than six feet away from someone.

I realize you are considering students whose lives at home are less than ideal, but consider this, if your number one job is to ensure our safety, then why would you gamble with our families' and our lives? You have the power to make the right decision and I hope you do so.

Best regards, 

Sam Mollenhauer

By Sam Mollenhauer

Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue V

February 26th, 2021