Board ignores students and staff

The Whitefish School District Board of Trustees has gone directly against the requests of its students and staff and decided to reopen the school to full capacity after Thanksgiving break, saying that “there will never be a good time so we might as well.” Most of the trustees no longer have children in the schools, so the decisions they make affect very few of them.

After a school board meeting that ended near midnight, having listened to hundreds of voiced concerns, the school board chose not to change their mind. One member went as far as to question the science behind COVID-19. The blatant disrespect for staff and students at the schools that it is their job to watch over is appalling to the more than 250 community members that signed a petition that circulated in the days before the school board met.

Students are transitioning to fully online because they can’t afford any more exposure than school already offers, which is putting children in a position to make potentially life-saving decisions for their family members and themselves.

The board of trustees deliberately put its staff and students at risk while acknowledging the risks; that is the definition of reckless endangerment. They ignored the pleas of its students and staff and completely disregarded health-care professional recommendations.

Sofia Beers, Whitefish