Seattle students planning sickout over COVID-19 precautions in schools

Students from Seattle Public Schools organized a sickout this week as they demanded more COVID-19 safety protocols. 

After the second week of classes following winter break, the schools closed due to staffing shortages. Now, some students from Franklin High School say they will not go to school when classes resume in-person on Tuesday if the system does not provide N95 masks in addition to offering weekly testing, vaccines and booster shots at school, according to The Seattle Times. 

“We understand this [school closures] could have been prevented if the district took necessary precautions,” Natalya McConnell, a sophomore at Franklin High School, said to the Times. “When our school has the most cases out of the entire school district we know we needed to go remote (sooner).”

Both parents and teachers have said that the district failed to prepare for the potential need to shift to remote learning amid an uptick in COVID-19 infections.

Meanwhile, the school district has said it would shift to remote learning for 10 days if student absences neared 50 percent at elementary schools, or if 10 percent of students and staff members test positive for COVID-19, the Times reported.

If a quarter of Seattle’s 106 schools are using remote instruction, then the district would consider going entirely remote, the newspaper added. 

“Because of the highly transmissible nature of COVID now, our community is in a fluid situation, so changes could be necessitated at any given time,” Superintendent Brent Jones, who determines when schools go remote, said in an email to the Times.

“There is increased focus by school leaders and district leaders on finding solutions to staffing challenges at several schools. We are in a position to pivot as necessary in order to continue to prioritize the health and safety of our students and staff,” he also said.

The Hill has reached out to Seattle Public Schools for comment.