Group Plans 'Walkout' In Downingtown Over 3-Ft School Distancing

DOWNINGTOWN, PA — A community group in Downingtown Area School District is planning a walkout next week in response to updated county health department guidance and district policy allowing for reduced social distancing in classrooms.

The group is calling on parents and others with a stake in school safety to walk out, asking parents who don't agree with the new guidance to keep their kids home, not log them in, on March 3.

The group, DASD Community for Metrics, Safety and Stable Learning Environment, is organizing the walkout and asking parents who are concerned about moving to a 3-feet distancing standard to show their concern by keeping kids home.

"The school district and county officials are playing with our lives and that of our children. The CDC states that 6 feet apart is a requirement at substantial and high levels of COVID, and that is with other mitigation measures, like testing, (or) no sports. Some local officials think they are smarter than the CDC, and that 3 feet is OK," the walkout organizers wrote on their social media invite "to demand COVID safety."

The post for the walkout said, "If you believe Downingtown Area School District should be following CDC guidelines, show them. Give your kids a mental health day next week and don't send them in. Don't log them in. Mark them absent. Give feedback back to the district in the only way they will notice: empty desks staring them right in the face."

Tara Haarlander, one of the organizers, said the event will also serve as a reminder to DASD administration that if parents do not feel safe sending kids to school, charter school is an option.

"Because every empty spot represents more than $11,000 which (DASD) could lose to a charter school if they continue down this path. $23,000 if that spot belongs to a special needs child.
Our choices are being taken away. We will no longer have a safe in-person option. It will be 3 feet or sit at home. Don't let this happen," the event posting states.

The walkout is driven by the recent relaxing of COVID-19 guidance from the Chester County Health Department. The county made 3 feet of social distancing the bare minimum in schools, a move that will allow schools to move out of the hybrid instruction that needs more space to keep students 6 feet apart. Read about the guidance update here.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is still "advising" 6 feet of distance in schools as well as mitigation measures still to include face masks, handwashing, cleaning facilities, and contact tracing.

The walkout event is a response to the county's new guidance being seemingly more relaxed than the CDC's. Haarlander wrote Chester County's commissioners and the health department this week saying the new guidance "has us very confused, especially after the CDC guidelines were so clearly stated and it would have been much easier to simply follow them. The wording of this letter is very unclear and in some places quite contrary to the CDC."

DASD Community for Metrics, Safety and Stable Learning Environment has teachers as members, not just parents, Haarlander said. On Feb. 22 she sent out an anonymous survey to teachers about their sense of job safety. By the next day, she'd received 35 teacher responses.

"We have teachers coming to us all the time, but they won't put their name to it," she explained.

Asked to rate how safe they at their jobs, on a scale of 1-5 — the safest being 5 — teacher ratings went from 3.4 if working under a 6-feet distancing standard, to 1.8 if working at 3-feet distancing, Haarlander reported, based on the first day's survey responses.

She also shared some to the comments teachers provided in the survey. Haarlander said one teacher wrote, "I feel like I am constantly choosing between my family's health and safety or coming into the building. It feels like the teachers have had no say in what happens, and yet the overarching opinion is that we 'don't want to do our job' or are only working part-time, when we are trying everything possible to make the best of a bad situation and support our students. I'm not sure the district is ready to safely handle an influx of students in person."

Teachers expressed concerns about testing and distancing enforcement in schools and the lack of data on asymptomatic students, according to Haarland.

Haarlander said another teacher commented, "I feel the district does not care about teacher safety. With the variants of the virus on the rise, they are now inviting MORE students into our building. With no vaccinations in sight for teachers yet, we are being asked to comply with increasing numbers of students in the buildings."

"Many teachers themselves work in their rooms with their masks off. The administration here does not think that is a problem. Students wear masks half slipping from their noses. Again, administration has refused to consider the CDC's latest recommendation that two masks be worn for full effectiveness," another teacher was reported commenting.

"I largely feel unheard, uncared for, at great personal risk, and am thoroughly exhausted with trying to keep up with the work and keep the stress level down enough so I can survive and function. Sadly, my creativity has been thwarted because of all of this," Haarlander reported another teacher commented in the survey.

The group's letter to the commissioners said, "We have also begun consulting with lawyers and OSHA to find out if not following CDC guidelines forces teachers to work in an unsafe work environment; once teachers are forced to teach at anything less than six feet, any deaths of any relations of teachers will have the potential to be traced back to those teachers having to work in a place with inadequate social distancing policies. Downingtown and Chester County’s reputations are on the line here and this needs to be fixed.

"We've lost so much trust in the school district's ability to manage this, we're honestly considering charter options. As parents, we don't trust the district anymore. Financially we know that could be devastating for the district but they just haven't done their job this year," Haarlander said.

Chris Lilienthal, Assistant Director of Communications for the PA State Education Association said the association would not comment on the planned walkout event.

In response to the updated guidelines from the health department, the association on Monday said, "PSEA members in Chester and Delaware counties are very concerned about the Chester Health Department’s loosening of social distancing guidelines. It will inevitably lead to overcrowded classrooms that will put students, staff, and their families at greater risk and increase the likelihood that they will spread the virus to others."

PSEA added to that statement, "Six feet of social distancing is the norm in retail establishments, restaurants, and other businesses. It’s completely unacceptable that these rules won’t apply to Chester and Delaware schools, where students can now sit at desks within 3 feet of each other for up to an hour at a time."

DASD Community for Metrics, Safety and Stable Learning Environment said its primary areas of concern are as follows:

• Allowing “no less than three feet” while still in high levels of COVID (defined by the CDC as “substantial”, where six feet should be “Non-negotiable”)
• There is no mention of athletics or extracurriculars, which has been shown to be a major issue and is also mentioned by the CDC as a mitigation measure
• There is mention of implementing testing, but the parameters are very unclear. As you can see from the screenshot below, there are still people who think that testing should not be a prerequisite for sending their kids in, regardless of the distance. So while we appreciate you putting language in regarding testing, we are not confident it will have the intended impact. If there is a legal way to make this happen, this is great, but you may have just created another fight for yourself.

Downingtown Area School District's COVID-19 Safety Plan can be found here.

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