Dear Governor Baker, Secretary Peyser, Commissioner Riley, Katherine Craven, James Morton, and the Board of Secondary and Elementary Education,

I write to you again from my perspective as a Curley K-8 parent. 

We, the Curley community, stand behind Dr. Casselius’ and Dr. Ojikutu’s decision to learn remotely until Monday, November 22. We appreciate all that they are negotiating amidst a pandemic that continues to surprise us. We ask you to count all 7 days of remote learning as part of our 180 days.

Please consider our particular situation in Jamaica Plain. No one knows why the Curley had such a huge rise in cases. We are a community with high vaccination rates and strict adherence to mask-wearing. Many children haven’t been to an indoor playdate since the pandemic began. Is this rise in cases a harbinger of things to come? Could the virus be shifting, becoming more contagious? Are masks no longer as effective as they once were?

I don’t know; I’m not sure any of us do. However, I value and trust  our city’s public health commission’s guidance. Quarantine is an effective tool to stop this spread. I understand everyone’s ability to quarantine varies greatly but our community is one that can collaboratively generate creative solutions, rather than potentially put our community’s health in jeopardy. While we are the largest school in JP, there are so many others and our children intermingle in neighborhoods and have siblings in other schools. If Boston Public Schools had not taken rapid action, we easily could have seen rapid massive spread to many other schools.

You may disagree with how BPS has handled this latest situation, but many factors are out of our district’s control. The size of the school (1,000+ students and staff), the limited availability of rapid PCR test results, the difficulty for all families to access such tests, the challenges for some of our high needs special education students to physically take a COVID test, all prevent a rapid re-opening. Perhaps soon, we can resource schools and districts effectively to meet the changing face of this pandemic. 

In our new Massachusetts civics standards, you prioritize critical thinking and “preparing students...to become thoughtful and active participants in a democratic society and a complex world.” These times are indeed complex. The way our wonderful Curley educators have pivoted to provide high-quality remote instruction once again certainly models their own civic dispositions; capacity for listening and respecting others, being able to acknowledge complexity, and ability to make thoughtful, culturally responsive decisions. 

We love and trust our educators to deliver effective remote instruction for all 7 days of this closure. Please honor their hard work by acknowledging they have successfully provided high-quality education in these most difficult circumstances.