How to get your school to protect your child from Covid 19

Template letter for school inclusion

We know many in our community are devastated by the removal of Covid 19 protections. We have been asked to provide a script for parents to send to their ECE centres, schools, kura, and high schools.

Feel free to share this template with friends and family who are supportive of your tamariki and believe their lives matter. As a community we are strong and no government can take away our ability to stand up and show up for each other.

Feel free to cut and paste from the email below, and to share your own story.

Kia ora [Board of Trustees, Principal]

We/I are/am writing to ask you to consider reinstating a seven-day isolation period of Tamariki and teachers, teacher aids, and support staff at our school.

While the mandatory seven-day self-isolation requirement for Covid-19 has been removed by the government, we as a learning community have the opportunity to show leadership, manaaki and whanaungatanga.

We can set a strong expectation that students, teachers, parents visiting the school, all stay home for at least seven days if they have a positive Covid 19 test. By doing this we will be modelling inclusion for our medically fragile, immune compromised and disabled students, their parents, and school staff.

Newborn babies to nine year-olds make up the largest age group hospitalised with covid of anyone under 60 in Aotearoa. Our children, even if they are not medically fragile or disabled are at great risk of Covid 19 infection and reinfection.

We are deep in winter, have waning vaccine immunity and continuing evolution of variants, as well as limited use of masks, and little progress on cleaning indoor air. Therefore, it is crucial that we show leadership to protect children, their families and school staff.

Research has evidenced that Covid infection has devastating long term effects – including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, brain damage, and more. Our immune systems are damaged, reducing our ability to fight serious infections, and Covid can persist in our bodies for at least two years.

All these effects occur after symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, in children and in adults of all ages. Every time we get infected our chances of serious long-term effects are increased. After reinfection we stand a 20% chance of long-term impacts.

While current Covid-19 levels are low in Aotearoa, they are rising rapidly in some areas. And worldwide evolution of variants, coupled with short term immunity, means that we will continue to experience unacceptable levels of Covid in our communities.

In other countries that have dropped isolation periods, long term sickness levels have skyrocketed to an all-time high, e.g., 2.55 million in the UK. Excess deaths have remained significantly higher – 13% above the five-year average in England.

Tamariki are still dying from Covid 19.

Without mandatory seven-day isolation over the most infectious period, we will face more deaths and more disabling from long Covid. We know the virus spreads rapidly in schools. Our children will face higher levels of illness and school absence; teacher shortages will increase. We know schools will drive high levels of community infection.

Most of all, our disabled and medically fragile tamariki have a right to an education in a safe environment. It is not safe for schools to allow Covid positive students and teachers and support staff into the classroom. The Bill of Rights Act protects disabled people from discrimination by government and state officials in all areas of life, including education.

Schools are required to be inclusive under the Education and Training Act 2020 (the Act). The right to an inclusive education is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCROC), and reinforced by the New Zealand Disability Strategy.

This is our school’s chance to commit to inclusion and protection of our community.

We hope you will reinstate the expectation that all students, teachers, and support staff isolate for seven days if they are Covid positive. And parents who are Covid positive do not visit the school during their seven days post positive test.

Ngā mihi,

[your name]