This commentary is by Brian Ricca, who is the school superintendent in St. Johnsbury.
On Friday, April 2, I received my second dose of the Moderna vaccine. There was a sense of relief after my 15 minutes of waiting were done, and I walked out of the Walgreens pharmacy.
That feeling was cut short when I observed a crowd of people, between six and eight of them, emerge from a restaurant, all without masks. They did not appear to be in an age band that would have been fully vaccinated, plus the two weeks from the final dose.
The week of March 29 was more disruptive for us in St. Johnsbury than any other time since we’ve returned to school this year. Between a health department investigation, child care shortages, adults receiving the vaccine (and feeling the side effects), and just normal absences, there were three days that week when we could not open our school because we did not have enough human beings to safely be with our children.
We’ve seen some of the highest case counts in Caledonia County recently, with 194 new cases in the past 14 days. That is the third-highest 14-day count in the state, behind Chittenden and Rutland counties.
We are in a very precarious position as a state. The vaccine is literally within reach, and yet, the number of cases continues to rise. Positive cases, even if they don’t result in serious illness, or hospitalization are still incredibly impactful on communities.
Our district fell victim this week to a confluence of events, one of which by itself would have been a challenge, but with each additional hurdle, our carefully constructed plan to have our students in school crumbled.
School leaders in other districts across the state are seeing this as well. We want to have our children in school. We know this is what our families want. It is what we want as educators. And yet, in St. Johnsbury, we could not do that this past week.
Since I’m not a “real” doctor, I turn to those who have advanced training in medicine and public health for ways to guide us forward. Dr. Mark Levine, our commissioner of public health, was quoted Friday, April 2, as saying, “My optimism is for the future. The future is very near. But when it comes to the present, frankly, I am very concerned.”
In a recent commentary in VTDigger, Anne Sosin, a policy fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College, noted: “Rising case counts also threaten Vermont’s more immediate goal of returning more students to classrooms in April. Growing infection rates may not only shift the state into a higher community transmission threshold but may also make for a less stable return to classrooms.”
It feels like there’s a disconnect between what we want for our schools (students learning in-person) and policies that allow members of multiple households to gather, unmasked, in restaurants. It feels confusing to me. And the consequences matter. They did for us last week, and it put a huge burden on our families.
We are all yearning for better days. We are all hopeful to find a return to “normal,” which hopefully will mean we serve each other better than we did before this pandemic began more than a year ago. We all want to be able to travel, be with loved ones, and bask in the small joys that have been taken from us in the name of public health.
We see very promising news on the horizon for young people when it comes to a vaccine. We see the possibilities that mean we can attend outdoor events together. We see a future that looks very different from what we are experiencing and living right now.
Please continue to wear your masks. Please stay 6 feet from others. Please commit to public health. Please help us keep schools open.