Hello everyone. My name is Celine Qin. I am here today organizing with our local youth at The Reclamation Project @ City of Elk Grove (a youth-run solidarity organization committed to delivering community care throughout the Sacramento area - more info). I am the director of TRP @ CEG and a student at Franklin High School in the Elk Grove Unified School District. 

Going to school every day, I have experienced and witnessed countless instances of institutional irresponsibility of EGUSD to care for its students during this severe pandemic. I am certainly not the only one with this story. Students in EGUSD and families have expressed feelings of unsafety and even fear for their lives being in Elk Grove campuses at their current state. We DEMAND a change. This is our petition urging Elk Grove Unified School District to establish stronger mandates and caretaking action amidst the rapid Omicron surge.

OUR STUDENTS DO NOT FEEL SAFE IN THEIR LEARNING ENVIRONMENT. The Elk Grove Unified School District is the largest school district in Northern California. Our high schools have THOUSANDS of students attending classes every day while being put in uncomfortable and hazardous situations. The Omicron variant has been running rampant throughout the state, and Elk Grove is a COVID hotspot with some of the HIGHEST infection rates in Sacramento county. 

Significantly large portions of our classmates are out absent, providing EVIDENCE (if not enough already) that we are under severe circumstances. Despite so many people getting sick, the precautions taken by our schools are CONSTANTLY lacking. I am angered by the negligence of EGUSD to be further involved in ensuring fundamental student safety. In school walkways, tons of people are crowded neck and neck, many of whom are not wearing masks properly. At lunch, tables are placed tightly next to each other and both indoor and outdoor dining serve as large spreaders of COVID with people interacting/eating without masks in such close proximity. In addition, most students do not have the proper KN95/N95 masks needed to effectively protect against the Omicron variant (cloth masks are almost completely ineffective in preventing the Omicron and regular surgical masks are weak - source).

The rapid spread of Omicron throughout our district campuses puts students' lives at risk. Particularly for many students of low-income families, students with disabilities and chronic illnesses, and students of color, accessing to proper care and essential needs is not a tangible privilege. By doing nothing, EGUSD continues to throw its marginalized students, and all students, under the bus.

- We demand EGUSD to mandate all students to wear N95s or KN95s (or stronger masks of the sort) on school grounds to properly prevent the spread of Omicron. 

- We demand EGUSD to frequently provide its students with packages of N95s or KN95s (or stronger masks of the sort).

- We demand EGUSD to require its students to wear masks both indoors and outdoors (as much as possible with obvious exceptions applied - such as stepping outside to breathe, eating or drinking at lunch, or other instances besides lunch where a mask is off for no longer than a minute).

- We demand that EGUSD schools distance all lunch tables, move or establish dining areas to outside quads, and implement better lunch structuring overall. 

- We demand that EGUSD schools mandate classroom wipedowns after each use and require students to sanitize before entering a class.

- We demand that EGUSD schools require a proof of full vaccination from each of its students who wish to attend before they enter large gatherings such as sports games, rallies, or school dances.

-We demand that EGUSD schools mandate and provide weekly on-site testing sessions for all of its students.

SIGN THIS PETITION NOW TO URGE EGUSD TO IMPLEMENT THESE CRUCIAL CHANGES. THESE ARE THE BARE MINIMUM. OUR YOUTH NEED TO BE PROTECTED.