As has been widely reported in the media, Albuquerque Public Schools on Wednesday, introduced a whole host of restrictions on various activities at their schools.
Here’s a list of the new rules:
- Wearing properly fitted masks outdoors as well as indoors
- Students facing one way in classrooms and the cafeteria
- Keeping students in cohorts
- No spectators at school events, including athletics, through Feb. 2
- Prohibiting large group gatherings, including assemblies
- Staggering transition times and recesses
- Closing drinking fountains (though students can still fill water bottles)
- Restricting locker use.
Needless to say, not only is the RGF not a fan of several of these measures (masking outdoors?) but at the VERY least we believe that the new APS Board should be making these policies, NOT the superintendent or any unelected bureaucrat. Board member Peggy Mueller-Aragon motioned for a vote on the new rules to be placed on the Board’s agenda at their next meeting which will be in two weeks. We will be keeping an eye on this.
So, here are RGF president’s Paul Gessing’s comments:
I was very happy to see the changes made to the board in the last election and I hope you will act quickly to wrest control over the District away from the bureaucrats.
I am the parent of three children who, up until the end of the abbreviated 2019-2020 school year, attended Chaparral Elementary on Albuquerque’s west side. We pulled our children out of APS for the 2020-2021 “virtual” school year and home schooled them because we knew that they would receive a vastly inferior education. Numerous studies have proven us correct.
Now our three kids go to a charter school OR Catholic school because APS has been completely inept in managing COVID and balancing the learning and socialization needs of children with a virus that has minimal impacts on children and has for the past two years.
The new COVID protocols at APS, adopted (so far as I can tell) without a vote of the Board, are unfair, unnecessary, and unscientific. I urge the board to take a public vote to overturn them and I urge ALL board members to vote to do so. Furthermore, in addition to overturning the new, unnecessary protocols, I urge the NEW APS board to eliminate the unnecessary mask mandate on children in the classroom.
Happy to hear someone who thinks this is crazy. What is crazier is one of my daughters teachers gave N94 mask to students in her class. I just happen to teach OSHA compliance and I am sure this teachers is not aware that these mask require a medical evaluation of the person wearing them as well as fit testing. My daughter asked me not to email this teacher but I told her DO NOT WEAR THIS MASK.
Speaking as an APS SPED teacher, I find it very telling that you criticize APS policy for keeping children and staff safe when you literally have no skin in the game. Kudos to you for homeschooling your children last year. Meanwhile, we teachers endured the hardest year of teaching, hands down, in my 26 years of teaching.
I for one am happy for the enhanced protocols. Since my multiply-impaired elementary students wear a mask 6 1/2 hours a day without complaint, I simply have no compassionate or patience with whiny adults who insist that their right to stupid personal choices during a pandemic supersedes our right to be safe.
You cite the reports that COVID has minimal impact on children. So tell me…are you saying that you’d be okay for one of YOUR children to be among those few who ARE impacted by it? I mean, you’d be fine if YOUR child contracts COVID and either dies or has long-term effects since 999,999 OTHER children have minimal impact? That the socialization needs of those other children are worth sacrificing YOUR child’s life? Is that what you’re saying?
I realize that you don’t give a damn about MY life or the lives of other educators in this state. That’s a given. You take it for granted that my Masters degree and chosen profession means that I’m expected to take a bullet for your child if some crazy person with a gun shows up on our campus. So OF COURSE you expect us educators to put ourselves in harm’s way for a silly old pandemic that’s only killed 800,000+ Americans in the last two years.
However, your willingness to sacrifice someone else’s child just so your child can go to school massless and unvaccinated seems pretty selfish.
My wife has 38 years in the classroom and in a non-union district, Moriarty – Edgewood. They have been in school and performing. Stop the whining, APS and the union are the problem. Nothing worse than sanctimonious drivel.
I think that your prospective is dangerous Especially as teacher. Never did the RGF present insinuate that they don’t “don’t give a damn” and for you to make these assumptions is ignorant. Just because someone doesn’t have the same opinion or outlook on thing your going attack their character? The vast majority of those who’ve passed with Covid had multiple core morbidities and just because they passed away with Covid doesn’t mean that’s what he died from. Our kids and our youth are safe. Yes they make it the virus but the chances of having adverse effects is slim to none. The vaccine is far more dangerous. As well as these mandates. How many people do you personally know That the sole purpose of them dying was from Covid not any other comorbidities that they’ve had prior to this? I personally don’t know any. I have had Covid and I didn’t know I had it and I know countless others that have had Covid and have recovered fully. But on the other hand I know 11 of my personal friends and family that Committed suicide because of all of these retarded mandates and isolation. Do their lives not matter? What about all of the people that have passed away because of fentanyl and are open borders and earth president feeling to do his job? Did their lives not matter? Or how about all of the kids that Are coming over the border Without their parents an Have no records of where they are to make sure that they’re safe? This pandemic is going to end and our children are still going to be paying the prices of all of this trauma that they’re enduring. Growing up in a state of fear is extremely bad for your health And mental well-being. For those individuals who are at high risk they should take the proper precaution. We all have the freedom to do so.
if I was able to homeschool my son I most definitely would not because I’m afraid of him getting Covid. But because He’s getting forced to wear a stupid mask that doesn’t do a damn thing. I worked around radiation and other hazardous waste in materials and I understand how PPE works. None of these kids are benefiting from wearing a mask. I think that is child abuse for them to be muzzled. If you want to live in fear by all means go ahead. But Don’t forget to think About all of the people that have died because of Covid. Not because they were sick but because their livelihoods were taken from them with the stupid mandates. The people that have left this world out of desperation and heartbreak. And the future lives that are going to be lost because of this emotional distress that everyone is under.
What a sad example of what apparently passes for reasoning among some in the the educator profession. Cynda’s argument can be distilled to “policy choice ‘A’ may prevent some amount of harm to someone I care about therefore it must be implemented without regard to costs that I don’t think and/or care about.”
Using her argument:
– She would implement a driving ban because of how she would FEEL if it were HER child who is one of the nearly 1.35 million people who die in car accidents.
– She would ban medical treatment because of how she would FEEL if it were HER child who was one of the 250,000 annual deaths by medical errors.
– She would eradicate all the bees in the world because of how she would FEEL if it were HER child who was one of the 62 annual deaths by bee stings.
If thinking at all:
– She would ban masking and lockdowns because of how she would FEEL if it were HER child who was one of the 31% increase in the proportion of mental health-related ER visits for 12 to 17 year olds during the pandemic.
Oh wait. She’s feeling, not thinking.
The only real solution to COVID in the classroom AND the learning issues of our State is to end the government monopoly on education and make the money flow to/through the family. I would definitely choose a mask-free school for my kids and I think MOST parents and students would do the same. My kids definitely would. But, even at charter or most private schools we have no choice.
And don’t get me started on the academic shortcomings that necessitate much more robust forms of choice. I’m not saying teachers aren’t trying, but a government monopoly is destined for failure.
Study after study has shown that the effects on kids due to the RESPONSE to Covid, (lockdowns/masks/forced vaccines), is causing a much greater detriment and death than Covid itself. Kids committing suicide, drug overdoses, lower IQ’s, mental effects due to everyone covering their faces and on and on.
We never took these drastic measures to save 1 life for the flu or RSV. If you want to protect every life, you better lock yourself in your home and never come out, because kids are literally more at risk of dying in a car accident than from Covid19. Yes, every life matters but these mandates are NOT scientific. CLOTH masks do nothing, according to the CDC! Social distancing has proven that it does not reduce spread. Vaccines do not prevent spread or infection against the Omicron variant.
If you’re going to tout that you care so much about the kids’ lives then follow the actual Science and do what’s best for them.
CDC.gov Deaths in Children as of 01/12/2022
0-17 years of age:
ALL deaths involving Covid19 – 710
Deaths from ALL causes – 67,439
Death rate compared to ALL Covid19 deaths – 0.00085%
Total Covid19 deaths of all ages – 834,954
This poor teacher has been brainwashed as well as half the country in believing the propaganda. Follow the real science Cynda. Watch some truthful news. Do your research. The poor children have been the ones to suffer the most with the horrific restrictions placed on them by the wealthy elite liars. You need to do your HOMEWORK!
That teacher missed her calling! She should have saved her money on the Masters Degree and instead gone to a drama school. This is a perfect example of a democrat at its finest and this state is riddled with them! At this point in time, New Mexico seems to be doomed! Thank God my children are all grown and gone.