Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s new guidelines for schools when it comes to when people should be quarantined was met with sharp criticism by some Park Hill school district staff and teachers.
The guidelines were announced last Thursday, Nov. 12, during a press conference that was aired on Facebook. The new guidelines differ from the guidelines put out by the national Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The CDC guidelines say that if a person is exposed to someone who tests positive for COVID-19 they must quarantine. Parson’s guidelines say this if a person was wearing a mask there is no need to quarantine.
“This morning our state endured a disturbing press conference by Gov. Parson,” Park Hill NEA president Dr. Jill Owens told the Park Hill school board at a meeting held later that evening. “His callous comments and alarming new COVID-19 guidelines are destined to create a hazardous work environment for our employees. His insistence on treating education professionals as mere statistics will produce grave consequences for some or all of us.”
Owens told board members that Parson is treating teachers like numbers and not real humans.
“We are so much more than just teachers,” Owens said. “We’re daughters and sons, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and lifelong friends. I hope you truly understand what each piece of data truly represents.”
Owens said the Park Hill school district has a reputation for treating its people well. Owens told board members to not lose sight of the consequences of damaging that reputation.
“There is no place that we can go to get our reputation back once it is gone, so please choose wisely,” Owens said.
Owens said up until now Park Hill’s mitigation efforts have kept kids in school but that could soon change with the recent explosion in positive COVID-19 cases. However, at least one teacher took issue with the way the board has handled the situation as it gets worse.
Kindergarten teacher and parent, Lindsey Pickett, wrote a letter to the board expressing her frustrations. Pickett said she appreciates the district keeping teachers informed but also said the district needed to stop living in a fantasy world.
“There are no numbers justifying this experiment,” Pickett wrote. “I’m not sure how much longer you can morally end district emails with keeping our Park Hill students safe and staff safe remains a top priority. At what point does the district come to the logical realization that what we are doing is wreckless and dangerous?”
Pickett said if the district were being responsible there would be no in-person learning.
“Without committing to firm criteria based on science, Platte County and the Park Hill School District have continued to brazenly face this pandemic against the most common sense,” Pickett said.
Superintendent Dr. Jeanette Cowherd backed up what her teachers were saying. Cowherd said she had a presentation ready to go about the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the district but the governor’s announcement threw that idea to the back burner. Cowherd said she wasn’t inclined to make any changes to what the school district currently does. As of press time the district still had made no changes.
“I’m very confident of what we have been doing in the district,” Cowherd said. “With COVID-19 a week seems like a month and a month seems like a year and we keep getting changes. I was frankly a little disappointed we did not get any heads-up warning this was coming.”
Cowherd said the Kansas City Health Department notified the district it would not be following the governor’s recommendations. Furthermore, Cowherd said she’s heard from other organizations saying the same thing.
“We need to understand this is a major health issue we’re dealing with,” Cowherd said.