articles/resources/sample letters
SAMPLE LETTER to send to BOE
Dear Board Members and Administrators, I am concerned with our present mandates that are sacrificing my child’s health and education. Since Governor Murphy has proclaimed that there is a change in the science and has lifted the mask mandates, I strongly urge our district to implement this change by lifting all mandates. The contact tracing, masking, and the quarantining of healthy children, takes valuable time away from the primary responsibility of educating our students. These mandates are detrimental to the psychological, physical, developmental, and educational needs of our children. I implore the board of education to return the ESSER funds and refuse acceptance of any new round of funding, which is tied to keeping these mandates in place. This has negatively affected two years of my child’s education. I am counting on you to show true leadership and return our children to a normal school environment where learning and development are the primary focus. I look forward to working with you in this endeavor to bring academic achievement back to the forefront of education.
Sincerely,(your name) ARTICLES: How Masking and Impacts 1. Surgeon general warns of youth mental health crisis amid COVID-19 Audrey Conklin | Fox News Published December 7Early data show emergency room visits for suicide attempts among adolescent girls rose by 51% during COVID-19U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Tuesday Dec 7,2021 issued a new Surgeon General’s Advisory, warning of a growing youth mental health crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic.Early estimates for 2020 show more than 6,600 suicide deaths among U.S. youth ages 10 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.https://www.foxnews.com/health/surgeon-general-warns-youth-mental-health-crisis-covid 2. Mathgoddess. Published August 21, 2021 Youth Despair PandemicNone of the Risk, All of the BurdenCOVID-19 deaths are incredibly rare among children. The CDC keeps a provisional list of deaths and updates frequently. At the time I am writing this 8/20/2021, there are 420 children (0-18) in the US who died from COVID-19 out of the 75 million children living in the US. That's about 0.00056 %. While it is tragic, it is still rare. Even more rare than child deaths from drowning in residential pools.Robert Redfield former CDC director remarked that there has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools. We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID-19. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose.Children are not at any particular risk for death or long term damage from COVID-19 but think about the long term mental health impact on your child when you tell them to cover their mouth to prevent their breath from killing someone. That is a heavy burden to place on such tiny shoulders. It’s time to let these kids live a normal life, for their own mental health.https://mathgoddess.substack.com/p/youth-despair-pandemic
3. Alex Hammer Dailymail.Com Published: 16:54 EST, 26 November 2021 | Updated: 16:09 EST, 16 December 2021 COVID rules are blamed for 23% dive in young children's development: Disturbing study shows scores in three key cognitive tests slumped between 2018 and 2021, with face mask rules among possible culprits• Face masks and other social distancing measures may in fact impede on children's development, a new study executed by Brown University has found• The probe analyzed the cognitive development of the youngsters through infancy, childhood, and adolescence• In the study, researchers first analyzed 1,070 assessments administered on 605 kids prior to March 2020, when COVID lockdowns and masking began• A further 154 assessments from 118 kids administered between March 2020 and June 2021, during the height of the pandemic, were then carried out • Thirty-nine children born in 2018 and 2019 were analyzed over the course of the pandemic, into 2021.• The report found that there was a 23 per cent drop in scores measuring kids' intelligence quotients since the start of the pandemic• The study also found similar dips in the same span in regards to developing children's ability to communicate, both verbally and though subtle facial cues https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10247315/Face-masks-harm-childrens-development-Study-blames-significantly-reduced-development.html
4. John Tierney Eye on the news Published April 20, 2021, Covid-19 Education The Social OrderMuch to Forgive Adults have failed children in foisting unnecessary, harmful Covid-19 restrictions on them. “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul,” Nelson Mandela famously said, “than the way in which it treats its children.”When the pandemic began, the lack of knowledge about Covid-19 justified this behavior. That excuse has vanished. It became clear long ago that the virus is less dangerous to children than the flu, and that keeping schools open poses minimal risk of spreading infections. Yet despite this evidence—and despite the widespread availability of vaccines to teachers and other adults—many schools have yet to reopen full-time, and others are still making students as miserable as possible.The mask mandates are especially cruel to young children. Adults are supposed to ease their fears, to reassure them that monsters aren’t hiding under the bed. Instead, we’re frightening them into believing they’re being stalked by invisible menaces lurking in the air. A year of mask-wearing will scar some of them psychologically—and maybe physically, too, according to a team of Italian professors of plastic surgery, who warn that the prolonged pressure from the elastic straps could leave young children with permanently protruding ears. By hiding teachers’ lips and muffling their speech, mask-wearing makes it harder for young children to develop linguistic skills and prevents children with hearing impairments from lip reading. Unable to rely on facial cues, teachers and students of all ages are more likely to misinterpret one other, a particularly acute problem for children on the autism spectrum. How are children supposed to develop social skills when they can’t see one another’s faces, sit together, or play together?Since UNICEF and WHO issued that guidance in August, the evidence emerging from schools shows that masks and most other restrictions are unnecessary for children of any age. Swedish economists at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala conducted the most rigorous and comprehensive study. During last spring’s outbreak, Sweden in effect undertook a nationwide controlled experiment by switching its senior high schools to online instruction while keeping younger students in classrooms with few Covid restrictions. Class sizes for the younger students were not reduced, and students who had been in contact with an infected person were allowed to stay in school (instead of being quarantined at home, as the CDC in the United States recommends). Neither teachers nor students were encouraged to wear masks—in fact, health authorities discouraged the wearing of masks, and few Swedes of any age wore them last year.asking-children-unnecessary-and-harmful PERSONAL LETTER from a Parent A letter written by a parent from another district regarding her experience concerning her autistic child being masked.My son has autism and needs to see faces to understand, comprehend and communicate as part of his learning and ability to keep up with the world around him. Being masked for the last three years has meant that last year for the entire school year, my second grade son believed that his teacher did not like him because he was unable to see and comprehend her whole face which he needs as part of his neurological comprehension. He believes that his peers at school no longer find him fun or funny because he cannot see their smiles. My child used to love school. Now he hates it. Please do not tell me that this is a reflection of “parental resistance”. You have no clue what you are saying. Try speaking to a pediatric neurologist or an autism specialist. My son has been harmed so permanently, the damage will never be undone. I started my fight against school masking because no one else was fighting for my child. My other son, age 5 at the start of the pandemic, was licking the inside of his mask - exactly as one would expect a 5 year old to do. He developed deep, bleeding sores in his lips and inside his cheeks from masking as a result. At one point, he had 8 bleeding open sores in his mouth and lost 10% of his body weight in 4 days because he was unable to eat. He wanted baby oranges, his favorite food, and until the day I die, I will remember the screaming from my child as the acidic orange seeped into the open sores in his mouth. No doctor would write a medical exemption for either of my children. I know the reasons why but I will be suspended by Fraudbook if I put it in writing. Maybe the “boatload of kids” in your family did fine, but there are tens of thousands of kids who did not and every single study out there demonstrates the extreme damage that masking has caused children in terms of developmental, emotional, social and speech delays. I took on the unmask challenge because no one cared about my kids and what was happening to them. Not the principal, not their teachers, not the superintendent, not the board of education, not the legislature, no one. I decided filing a lawsuit against the state and the Governor was the only recourse for my kids. No one was looking out for my children. I am a mom, first and foremost. My kids are my everything. I have not judged any other parent for their choices to mask their kids, vaccinate their kids or not, go on play dates or not, eat indoors, have birthday parties, etc. But the amount of judgment that has been passed on me by people in this town is truly outrageous.
Sincerely,(your name) ARTICLES: How Masking and Impacts 1. Surgeon general warns of youth mental health crisis amid COVID-19 Audrey Conklin | Fox News Published December 7Early data show emergency room visits for suicide attempts among adolescent girls rose by 51% during COVID-19U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy on Tuesday Dec 7,2021 issued a new Surgeon General’s Advisory, warning of a growing youth mental health crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic.Early estimates for 2020 show more than 6,600 suicide deaths among U.S. youth ages 10 to 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.https://www.foxnews.com/health/surgeon-general-warns-youth-mental-health-crisis-covid 2. Mathgoddess. Published August 21, 2021 Youth Despair PandemicNone of the Risk, All of the BurdenCOVID-19 deaths are incredibly rare among children. The CDC keeps a provisional list of deaths and updates frequently. At the time I am writing this 8/20/2021, there are 420 children (0-18) in the US who died from COVID-19 out of the 75 million children living in the US. That's about 0.00056 %. While it is tragic, it is still rare. Even more rare than child deaths from drowning in residential pools.Robert Redfield former CDC director remarked that there has been another cost that we’ve seen, particularly in high schools. We’re seeing, sadly, far greater suicides now than we are deaths from COVID-19. We’re seeing far greater deaths from drug overdose.Children are not at any particular risk for death or long term damage from COVID-19 but think about the long term mental health impact on your child when you tell them to cover their mouth to prevent their breath from killing someone. That is a heavy burden to place on such tiny shoulders. It’s time to let these kids live a normal life, for their own mental health.https://mathgoddess.substack.com/p/youth-despair-pandemic
3. Alex Hammer Dailymail.Com Published: 16:54 EST, 26 November 2021 | Updated: 16:09 EST, 16 December 2021 COVID rules are blamed for 23% dive in young children's development: Disturbing study shows scores in three key cognitive tests slumped between 2018 and 2021, with face mask rules among possible culprits• Face masks and other social distancing measures may in fact impede on children's development, a new study executed by Brown University has found• The probe analyzed the cognitive development of the youngsters through infancy, childhood, and adolescence• In the study, researchers first analyzed 1,070 assessments administered on 605 kids prior to March 2020, when COVID lockdowns and masking began• A further 154 assessments from 118 kids administered between March 2020 and June 2021, during the height of the pandemic, were then carried out • Thirty-nine children born in 2018 and 2019 were analyzed over the course of the pandemic, into 2021.• The report found that there was a 23 per cent drop in scores measuring kids' intelligence quotients since the start of the pandemic• The study also found similar dips in the same span in regards to developing children's ability to communicate, both verbally and though subtle facial cues https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10247315/Face-masks-harm-childrens-development-Study-blames-significantly-reduced-development.html
4. John Tierney Eye on the news Published April 20, 2021, Covid-19 Education The Social OrderMuch to Forgive Adults have failed children in foisting unnecessary, harmful Covid-19 restrictions on them. “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul,” Nelson Mandela famously said, “than the way in which it treats its children.”When the pandemic began, the lack of knowledge about Covid-19 justified this behavior. That excuse has vanished. It became clear long ago that the virus is less dangerous to children than the flu, and that keeping schools open poses minimal risk of spreading infections. Yet despite this evidence—and despite the widespread availability of vaccines to teachers and other adults—many schools have yet to reopen full-time, and others are still making students as miserable as possible.The mask mandates are especially cruel to young children. Adults are supposed to ease their fears, to reassure them that monsters aren’t hiding under the bed. Instead, we’re frightening them into believing they’re being stalked by invisible menaces lurking in the air. A year of mask-wearing will scar some of them psychologically—and maybe physically, too, according to a team of Italian professors of plastic surgery, who warn that the prolonged pressure from the elastic straps could leave young children with permanently protruding ears. By hiding teachers’ lips and muffling their speech, mask-wearing makes it harder for young children to develop linguistic skills and prevents children with hearing impairments from lip reading. Unable to rely on facial cues, teachers and students of all ages are more likely to misinterpret one other, a particularly acute problem for children on the autism spectrum. How are children supposed to develop social skills when they can’t see one another’s faces, sit together, or play together?Since UNICEF and WHO issued that guidance in August, the evidence emerging from schools shows that masks and most other restrictions are unnecessary for children of any age. Swedish economists at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala conducted the most rigorous and comprehensive study. During last spring’s outbreak, Sweden in effect undertook a nationwide controlled experiment by switching its senior high schools to online instruction while keeping younger students in classrooms with few Covid restrictions. Class sizes for the younger students were not reduced, and students who had been in contact with an infected person were allowed to stay in school (instead of being quarantined at home, as the CDC in the United States recommends). Neither teachers nor students were encouraged to wear masks—in fact, health authorities discouraged the wearing of masks, and few Swedes of any age wore them last year.asking-children-unnecessary-and-harmful PERSONAL LETTER from a Parent A letter written by a parent from another district regarding her experience concerning her autistic child being masked.My son has autism and needs to see faces to understand, comprehend and communicate as part of his learning and ability to keep up with the world around him. Being masked for the last three years has meant that last year for the entire school year, my second grade son believed that his teacher did not like him because he was unable to see and comprehend her whole face which he needs as part of his neurological comprehension. He believes that his peers at school no longer find him fun or funny because he cannot see their smiles. My child used to love school. Now he hates it. Please do not tell me that this is a reflection of “parental resistance”. You have no clue what you are saying. Try speaking to a pediatric neurologist or an autism specialist. My son has been harmed so permanently, the damage will never be undone. I started my fight against school masking because no one else was fighting for my child. My other son, age 5 at the start of the pandemic, was licking the inside of his mask - exactly as one would expect a 5 year old to do. He developed deep, bleeding sores in his lips and inside his cheeks from masking as a result. At one point, he had 8 bleeding open sores in his mouth and lost 10% of his body weight in 4 days because he was unable to eat. He wanted baby oranges, his favorite food, and until the day I die, I will remember the screaming from my child as the acidic orange seeped into the open sores in his mouth. No doctor would write a medical exemption for either of my children. I know the reasons why but I will be suspended by Fraudbook if I put it in writing. Maybe the “boatload of kids” in your family did fine, but there are tens of thousands of kids who did not and every single study out there demonstrates the extreme damage that masking has caused children in terms of developmental, emotional, social and speech delays. I took on the unmask challenge because no one cared about my kids and what was happening to them. Not the principal, not their teachers, not the superintendent, not the board of education, not the legislature, no one. I decided filing a lawsuit against the state and the Governor was the only recourse for my kids. No one was looking out for my children. I am a mom, first and foremost. My kids are my everything. I have not judged any other parent for their choices to mask their kids, vaccinate their kids or not, go on play dates or not, eat indoors, have birthday parties, etc. But the amount of judgment that has been passed on me by people in this town is truly outrageous.