The first day of school for Duval County is August 10th - A little more than a week from now. Over 130,000* students are going to schools across the county, with as many as 1,000 in each school. The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant is more transmissible than other variants of COVID-19**, and having this many students attend class at once can make the virus spread exponentially throughout the county.
According to recent analyses, the coronavirus can spread to around 2.2 people in 2 days.*** In an average-size school with 1,000 people, this means that if precautions are not used, it could take as little as 18 days for the entire population of the school to contract the disease. Additionally, most students enrolled in DCPS are in elementary or middle school, the former being greater than the latter. If most of the educands at school are children, which have been shown to have a weaker immune system than their older counterparts†, the rate of infection is higher than normal, and symptoms are worse than normal. Young adults would then have a higher likelihood of infection from the other students. In short, schools are unfortunately keeping themselves as sanctuaries for the fast-spreading Delta variant of COVID-19.
A sizable portion of DCPS students are unvaccinated, and there is no system to track vaccinations in each school so far. Vaccination itself is not proven to completely protect everyone who takes a vaccine - vaccinated individuals can spread and also be affected by the Delta variant. Furthermore, many students have underlying medical conditions that could make the coronavirus's symptoms worse. For example, about 2 in 7 DCPS students have been diagnosed with asthma‡. Keeping schools full of students can make those with such conditions acquire COVID-19 faster than others.
Online learning, on the other hand, gives no likelihood of obtaining COVID-19, and if given, will significantly reduce the number of students who choose to learn in person. UNICEF found that 63% of high school students use online tools every day, and 45% of elementary school students use digital devices every day to learn††, averaging to about a 54% reduction in face-to-face learning. This would result in a similar drop in school covid cases, making it better for everyone, whether at school or at home.
Currently, all virtual learning options for DCPS are not offered by schools. To enroll in a virtual class, you must lose admission from your school. Many people want to keep their students in a school because it keeps them with their friends, and changing schools involves time-consuming work, among other reasons. Many parents and students alike wish to have an option available like the one which was given in the 2020-2021 school year, to stay in a school, while learning virtually. This petition aims to get DCPS schools to provide this.
Signing this petition gives the freedom of choice to DCPS students and their families, flattening the curve of Delta variant cases in the most vulnerable part of the population.

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Footnotes:

* https://www.niche.com/k12/d/duval-county-public-schools-fl/

** https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/pandemic-data-initiative/news/demystifying-the-delta-variant-with-data

*** https://www.webmd.com/lung/coronavirus-transmission-overview#1 https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-how-is-it-transmitted

† https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4707740/

‡ https://dcps.duvalschools.org/site/handlers/filedownload.ashx?moduleinstanceid=53957&dataid=64900&FileName=HS%20PADB%20Report%202017.pdf

†† https://admissionsly.com/online-education-statistics/#What_is_the_Percentage_of_Students_Taking_Online_Classes