I sent this letter the Oneida City School Superintendent and School Board:
As I’m sure you know, COVID-19 (caused by the Corona virus), has been spreading around the world, with cases in four new countries yesterday. In China, where the best data is currently available, the death rate is approximately 2 percent. To put that in context, the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed more people in 1918 than all of World War I, had a death rate of slightly less than 2 percent. COVID-19 is more dangerous in some ways, because subjects are communicable before they show symptoms, promoting the disease’s spread.
While the World Health Organization said yesterday that we are not yet in a pandemic, it is clear that this is just a matter of time. Yesterday, the Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases recommended, among other things, that the public “should ask your children’s schools about school dismissals or school closures or plans for tele-school“. (That’s a direct quote, but I can’t cite it in a way that I can link to right now).
I believe strongly that the Oneida City School District needs to immediately begin preparation or review and update its plans for possible large-scale, and long term disruptions in the school schedule possibly lasting months. Unlike Dr. Messonnier’s suggestion, I don’t need to know what the District’s specific plans are right now, but I would like to know that the District has current plans that address the situation, and that you have recently reviewed and updated them to deal with a large-scale, life-threatening pandemic of the historic proportions we may be facing in the current school year.
I think I’ve heard you say that that the students, staff and faculty’s health and safety is your first priority. This issue may be the gravest threat in our lifetimes to the health, safety and lives of our students, faculty and staff.
Given the urgency of the matter, I hope that you will be able to make this an agenda item for March, and brief the Board and the public on the District’s plans for comprehensively and proactively addressing this problem.
Thank you very much for your consideration in this matter.
Best regards,
//SIGNED//
Ralph L. Kohler, Jr.