PLEASE OPEN OUR SCHOOLS

Att: School administrators,

While we’ve been following the letter of the law with all social distancing and safety precautions, it’s time to categorize our children as essential, still in the first phase of the city’s reopening! 

When we first faced this epidemic, we supported the closing of our school buildings. Now, when the government has found it safe to open essential businesses, we are demanding that schools reopen, although it comes as an act of defiance against the local ruling. We are not doing this as an act of rebellion but as an act of moral and parental obligation.

Our children don’t have the luxury of virtual classrooms, because our religion 

We’re writing this letter with the utmost respect, appreciation, and recognition regarding the last 64 days of mandatory quarantine. What you’ve done for our children means the world, but it’s time we acknowledge the nearly impossible feat of tech-free distant learning.

As parents, we supported your initiative to shut school buildings in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

As parents, we kept our children in, our protocols safe and our prayers constant.

As parents, we watched rowdiness turn to distress, often bordering on mental health hazards.

As parents, we tried to home school our children, despite shorter attention spans and no virtual screens.

As parents, we juggled essential community and medical work, while caring for our large families.

Safety first!

We know that Judaism takes life in the highest regard. In fact, we’re commanded to do anything to save even just one life! Safety will always come before all else. 

Yet, while our unified community efforts resulted in the complete halt of newly diagnosed COVID patients and our essential businesses opened, our children are still denied the basics of education and religious studies. Children are safer in a controlled, frequently sanitized school environment, than with neighbors on our streets.

As the parent body that’s been supporting and funding your institution, especially during the last 3 months, we demand that our children be allowed to resume safe in-school learning. 

Not created equal.

Essential is a very broad word, yet religious freedom has always been the very cornerstone of our democracy. In our schools, prayers are an essential part of our education and religious requirements. Our faith is about purity and doesn’t allow the use of technology and screen time. Thus, we’re watching our children waste away, even with the most acute efforts on behalf of their teachers. No Zoom means no school. No Facetime means distant learning can’t work! In that regard, our schools and that of public school initiatives are not created equal.

A respectful union.

This is not an act of rebellion or defiance. It’s just a plea to you, our educators, and privately paid faculty members, to take action. The past 3 months meant many of us lost our livelihoods and had to put up a strong facade for our children’s sake, while teaching 6-8-10 children at a time, from our cramped Brooklyn homes. The facade is crumbling and the situation is quickly turning from bad to worse.

We are mothers and fathers, but also

ESSENTIAL WORKERS 

BREADWINNERS 

FIRST RESPONDERS 

We can’t deny our children their basic religious freedom, we can’t take them to work, and we can’t choose to put them last in the reopening phases of our society. 

As parents, we have a voice. We MUST reopen our schools for the sake of our children. If churches, shuls, and mosques are deemed essential houses of prayer, our dear children should be allowed their prayer groups and learning, too.

Respectfully yours,

COVID- parents