We need to lift the outdoor mask mandate immediately. There is no evidence that outdoor masking is protecting students from COVID. On the other hand students and teachers are suffering with no breaks from wearing mask all day. Students and teacher should be allowed to play, PE, and learn outside without masks.
PTA, mandated reporters,
Around 1988 Mr Donnie Barclift severely beat two 11,12 year old kids with a 2x4 lumber beam. One of those children later died as an adult in 2009 from a drug overdose, the same year Mr Barclift was hired by OUSD. After hired, he uploaded videos of attackers assaulting victims with a 2x4 on his public youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKWUDTgoGJU The turpitude behind Mr Barclift uploading the videos and seeking employment at OUSD are the same; he thinks children are the easiest victims and he is looking for more victims. He planned his move to the Bay Area after 2003 to find a job at a school district because he learned in 2003 that is what one of his child victims did in 2000. https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/child-predator-employed-in-the-oakland-unified. This all was reported to the Ombudsperson Mr Valenzuela but he just let Mr Barclift delete the videos. Take action and terminate Mr Barclift for evident unfitness and persistent violations.
Please lift the outdoor mask mandate for all OUSD students. Not only have the mask mandates been lifted by the governor and other school districts (including neighboring districts) there is no scientific evidence that points to outdoor transmission. Let the kids be at recess and lunch! Thank you
Outdoor mask mandates in school should be lifted immediately. We have known for over a year that COVID does not readily spread outdoors. Furthermore, masks indoors should be optional. Covid 19 is endemic. This means that it is never going away. Every human being in the world that interacts with other human beings will get covid, probably sooner rather than later. If you are a high risk individual you may wear an N95 mask. Healthy vaccinated adults are at very low risk from Omicron, and kids are even lower risk. Masks are an intervention with little or no benefit and with obvious downsides which are becoming more apparent the longer this madness drags on.
Outdoor mask mandates need to be lifted immediately, AND OUSD needs to move toward a mask-optional policy indoors and outdoors. Public health departments DO NOT advise masking outdoors. The harms of masking far outweigh the questionable benefits. We have fallen behind the rest of the state, country & world when it comes to unnecessarily masking our children. One-way masking works for those who need/want to mask. Our kids and teachers will be safe without universal masking. Case rates & hospitalizations are way down, and Omricon is as dangerous as the flu for our kids. Masks impede speech, learning, language, communication, and social emotional development. I can't stand to send my child to school one more day with a mask.
Please keep the mask mandate inside and outside. The kids have successfully navigated it so far and it's so much more important to me to keep schools open than remove masks at this point. There aren't that many weeks left in this school year and it would be good to get through it without any major COVID outbreaks within schools impacting opening and families.
PLEASE remove the outdoor mandate. My child has to run laps in the hot sun wearing a MASK. This is borderline dangerous; especially for overweight children. Please give our kids back their childhood. It is short, gone in the blink of an eye. Mask mandate is 100% causing more harm than good now, and I think we all know it.
Please allow OUSD students to unmask outdoors immediately. OUSD is an outlier, both in CA, and nationally by still requiring students to mask outdoors. While most CA districts never required masks outdoors, now even LA, SD and SF allow students to take off masks when outside. There is now ample evidence that outdoor transmission is almost impossible and children in Oakland can go maskless not only everywhere else outside but also indoors anywhere except school as well. With CDPH poised to change indoor masking next Monday, OUSD must act now to remove its unscientific outdoor mask mandate.
Masking in schools should be voluntary rather than mandatory. Masking was a necessary inconvenience early on and in short stints was fine. But to think that 2 years of masking has no impact on socialization, learning and anxiety is shortsighted. Kids are resilient but not endlessly resilient. - Dr. Joseph G. Allen
OUSD playgrounds, blacktops, fields are the only places where you see kids still masked outdoors. A place where kids are learning to socialize, make friends, learn words and language along with growing emotional intelligence at all ages. Keeping the kids masked is not only stumping all of this, it's once again putting the kids last in order to not "ruffle feathers" of some adults. San Francisco, Piedmont, Los Angeles - all have lifted the mask mandate for the kids outside- how are we any different? Do it today. Let the kids understand: how to follow science, to not allow fear override common sense, and that their well being comes first.
Please remove the outdoor mask mandate from OUSD schools immediately! Every other district in our area has announced their removal of outdoor masks or has a date set for the removal of this mandate. Outdoor masking harms kids and has not proven to further reduce the spread of Covid. I urge you to let our kids stay maskless outdoors.
There is currently no data to support outdoor masking in our children. Ousd is the only district keeping this mandate. As A health care provider I support the REMOVAL of out door masking. Optional of course.
I just returned from two days at Disneyland where thousands of people were outdoors, and nearly everyone indoors, were not wearing masks. At this time, the Los Angeles Unified School District lifted its mandate on students having to wear masks while outdoors at school. These incidents are evidence at how preposterous it is to force our students in Oakland to wear masks while outside and at school. It is time to be reasonable and begin bringing back a sense of normality to school like in Oakland. Forcing children to wear a mask at all times in the place where they spend several hours a day is nothing more than OUSD exercising power for power’s sake. It’s time the district show some respect to its students and parents say, “Enough”. Then, you can start getting even more reasonable and lift the indoor mask mandate. If Las Vegas can do it, I like to think that Oakland can, too.
Please lift OUSD's senseless outdoor mask mandate immediately and allow our students the option to be maskless outdoors. OUSD is now an island of outdoor masking, with no other district in the area and virtually no other district nationwide requiring it. It isn't surprising we are such an outlier -- there is no legitimate reason to have kids masking outdoors as it confers no meaningful health benefit while unnecessarily burdening students, particularly those with the greatest learning challenges. While adults go maskless in virtually all indoor settings throughout the Bay Area, children (many vaccinated) in our district are being forced to wear a mask almost continuously for 7+ hours a day, despite being at lowest risk of contracting or transmitting Covid. Please eliminate this requirement immediately.
Please life the outdoor mask mandate for all OUSD students. Many other public school districts (including nearby ones in Berkeley, SF and Piedmont, as well as the largest one, LA) have already done this. With widespread vaccinations and what we know about the relatively minor impact of COVID on school age children, it's time to move us back to normal and stop treating our kids and their families as nothing but disease vectors to be avoided. Its past time this be done
We need to lift the outdoor mask mandate immediately. There is no evidence that outdoor masking is protecting students from COVID. On the other hand students and teachers are suffering with no breaks from wearing mask all day. Students and teacher should be allowed to play, PE, and learn outside without masks.
PTA, mandated reporters,
Around 1988 Mr Donnie Barclift severely beat two 11,12 year old kids with a 2x4 lumber beam. One of those children later died as an adult in 2009 from a drug overdose, the same year Mr Barclift was hired by OUSD. After hired, he uploaded videos of attackers assaulting victims with a 2x4 on his public youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKWUDTgoGJU The turpitude behind Mr Barclift uploading the videos and seeking employment at OUSD are the same; he thinks children are the easiest victims and he is looking for more victims. He planned his move to the Bay Area after 2003 to find a job at a school district because he learned in 2003 that is what one of his child victims did in 2000. https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/child-predator-employed-in-the-oakland-unified. This all was reported to the Ombudsperson Mr Valenzuela but he just let Mr Barclift delete the videos. Take action and terminate Mr Barclift for evident unfitness and persistent violations.
Please lift the outdoor mask mandate for all OUSD students. Not only have the mask mandates been lifted by the governor and other school districts (including neighboring districts) there is no scientific evidence that points to outdoor transmission. Let the kids be at recess and lunch! Thank you
Outdoor mask mandates in school should be lifted immediately. We have known for over a year that COVID does not readily spread outdoors. Furthermore, masks indoors should be optional. Covid 19 is endemic. This means that it is never going away. Every human being in the world that interacts with other human beings will get covid, probably sooner rather than later. If you are a high risk individual you may wear an N95 mask. Healthy vaccinated adults are at very low risk from Omicron, and kids are even lower risk. Masks are an intervention with little or no benefit and with obvious downsides which are becoming more apparent the longer this madness drags on.
Please allow OUSD students to unmask outdoors. Lift the mandate, masks can be optional.
Outdoor mask mandates need to be lifted immediately, AND OUSD needs to move toward a mask-optional policy indoors and outdoors. Public health departments DO NOT advise masking outdoors. The harms of masking far outweigh the questionable benefits. We have fallen behind the rest of the state, country & world when it comes to unnecessarily masking our children. One-way masking works for those who need/want to mask. Our kids and teachers will be safe without universal masking. Case rates & hospitalizations are way down, and Omricon is as dangerous as the flu for our kids. Masks impede speech, learning, language, communication, and social emotional development. I can't stand to send my child to school one more day with a mask.
We ask that the Board follow LAUSD’s lead and end the outdoor mask mandate now.
Please keep the mask mandate inside and outside. The kids have successfully navigated it so far and it's so much more important to me to keep schools open than remove masks at this point. There aren't that many weeks left in this school year and it would be good to get through it without any major COVID outbreaks within schools impacting opening and families.
Removing mask mandate for school children when outdoors
PLEASE remove the outdoor mandate. My child has to run laps in the hot sun wearing a MASK. This is borderline dangerous; especially for overweight children. Please give our kids back their childhood. It is short, gone in the blink of an eye. Mask mandate is 100% causing more harm than good now, and I think we all know it.
Please allow OUSD students to unmask outdoors immediately. OUSD is an outlier, both in CA, and nationally by still requiring students to mask outdoors. While most CA districts never required masks outdoors, now even LA, SD and SF allow students to take off masks when outside. There is now ample evidence that outdoor transmission is almost impossible and children in Oakland can go maskless not only everywhere else outside but also indoors anywhere except school as well. With CDPH poised to change indoor masking next Monday, OUSD must act now to remove its unscientific outdoor mask mandate.
Please let our kids take their masks off at recess. Do not make up rules that do not follow public health! Let our kids take this one important step.
Masking in schools should be voluntary rather than mandatory. Masking was a necessary inconvenience early on and in short stints was fine. But to think that 2 years of masking has no impact on socialization, learning and anxiety is shortsighted. Kids are resilient but not endlessly resilient. - Dr. Joseph G. Allen
OUSD playgrounds, blacktops, fields are the only places where you see kids still masked outdoors. A place where kids are learning to socialize, make friends, learn words and language along with growing emotional intelligence at all ages. Keeping the kids masked is not only stumping all of this, it's once again putting the kids last in order to not "ruffle feathers" of some adults. San Francisco, Piedmont, Los Angeles - all have lifted the mask mandate for the kids outside- how are we any different? Do it today. Let the kids understand: how to follow science, to not allow fear override common sense, and that their well being comes first.
Please lift the outdoor mask mandate for all OUSD students.
Please remove the outdoor mask mandate from OUSD schools immediately! Every other district in our area has announced their removal of outdoor masks or has a date set for the removal of this mandate. Outdoor masking harms kids and has not proven to further reduce the spread of Covid. I urge you to let our kids stay maskless outdoors.
There is currently no data to support outdoor masking in our children. Ousd is the only district keeping this mandate. As A health care provider I support the REMOVAL of out door masking. Optional of course.
I just returned from two days at Disneyland where thousands of people were outdoors, and nearly everyone indoors, were not wearing masks. At this time, the Los Angeles Unified School District lifted its mandate on students having to wear masks while outdoors at school. These incidents are evidence at how preposterous it is to force our students in Oakland to wear masks while outside and at school. It is time to be reasonable and begin bringing back a sense of normality to school like in Oakland. Forcing children to wear a mask at all times in the place where they spend several hours a day is nothing more than OUSD exercising power for power’s sake. It’s time the district show some respect to its students and parents say, “Enough”. Then, you can start getting even more reasonable and lift the indoor mask mandate. If Las Vegas can do it, I like to think that Oakland can, too.
Please lift OUSD's senseless outdoor mask mandate immediately and allow our students the option to be maskless outdoors. OUSD is now an island of outdoor masking, with no other district in the area and virtually no other district nationwide requiring it. It isn't surprising we are such an outlier -- there is no legitimate reason to have kids masking outdoors as it confers no meaningful health benefit while unnecessarily burdening students, particularly those with the greatest learning challenges. While adults go maskless in virtually all indoor settings throughout the Bay Area, children (many vaccinated) in our district are being forced to wear a mask almost continuously for 7+ hours a day, despite being at lowest risk of contracting or transmitting Covid. Please eliminate this requirement immediately.
Please life the outdoor mask mandate for all OUSD students. Many other public school districts (including nearby ones in Berkeley, SF and Piedmont, as well as the largest one, LA) have already done this. With widespread vaccinations and what we know about the relatively minor impact of COVID on school age children, it's time to move us back to normal and stop treating our kids and their families as nothing but disease vectors to be avoided. Its past time this be done