Franklin County school district won’t comply with Thanksgiving order

By Guy Page

The Franklin West Supervisory Union, covering Fairfax, Fletcher, and Georgia, will not comply with the Scott administration’s directive to, if necessary, question schoolchildren Monday about whether they spent their Thanksgiving with people outside of their immediate family.

Julie Conrad, principal

Expressing concern for a heightened Covid-19 outbreak due to violating multi-household gathering restrictions, the Scott administration Tuesday directed schools to, on Monday, ask parents and if necessary students to tell them if they violated the restrictions. Students who spent time with non-immediate family members will be sent home for remote learning for at least a week. Gov. Phil Scott urged parents to make these questions unnecessary by complying with regulations or, if non-compliant, to proactively keep the child out of school for a week, and then have him/her tested for Covid-19.

“The Governor’s order, and the subsequent guidance from the Agency of Education, potentially thrust our young children into adult conversations and decisions, which is not appropriate,” Georgia Elementary School principals Julie Conrad and Steve Emery wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to parents. “It also potentially sets up situations where being dishonest could take precedence over our working together to meet every student and family’s individual needs, and that is not a practice that is in keeping with the character we encourage in our students and each other.”

Reporters for WVPR and WCAX yesterday alluded to school districts around Vermont planning to not comply. To date, FWSU is the only non-compliant school district known to Vermont Daily. Readers are invited to email links of other non-compliant districts.

The full letter to FWSU parents is printed below.

From: JULIE A CONRAD <jconrad@fwsu.org>
Date: November 25, 2020 at 3:17:15
Subject: GEMS Family Letter: Health Update

November 25, 2020

Dear Georgia Families,

As always, thank you for your patience and understanding as we receive, process, and implement new health and safety requirements according to guidance.

We are writing to let you know that the FWSU administrative team has made the decision not to add a question about multi-family gatherings to our routine health screenings of students. The Governor’s order, and the subsequent guidance from the Agency of Education, potentially thrust our young children into adult conversations and decisions, which is not appropriate. It also potentially sets up situations where being dishonest could take precedence over our working together to meet every student and family’s individual needs, and that is not a practice that is in keeping with the character we encourage in our students and each other.

While we will not ask students questions about their attendance at multi-household gatherings, if we have reason to believe that this is the case, someone from the school will call you to check-in. In these cases, common sense must prevail and we will evaluate individual circumstances based on the current guidance and any information you provide. We recognize that each family’s circumstances are unique.

This decision reflects our hope and trust that families will do the right thing in following the health and safety guidelines. As we see cases of COVID-19 increase locally, regionally, and nationally, it remains all of our responsibility to do our due diligence to protect ourselves, our families, our schools, and communities.

Thank you again for your patience and your understanding that we are all doing the best we can to navigate this ever-changing world.

Regards,

Julie Conrad and Steve Emery
Georgia Elementary Middle School Principals

Jim Tager
FWSU Superintendent

Image courtesy of Gemsvt.org

9 thoughts on “Franklin County school district won’t comply with Thanksgiving order

  1. Although I do not like the fact that this letter stated that the school will call the students home if they suspect multi-household gatherings, I feel very encouraged by their response and want to stand with them. I am going to call my representatives and let them know that I agree with the Franklin County School district’s decision. Like the letter states this mandate encourages children to lie and thrusts children into adult conversations and decision making.

  2. The schools did not start this – but may share a bit of the blame
    Our “Republican” Governor issued the order – to force little kids to Rat Out their negligent parents
    for letting Nanny and Grandpa share this very most family event

    Hoorah for this one rural school district leadership, who stopped this horror!

  3. This is too open-ended. It should be off-limits period. Children need to be taught that personal questions from adults are *always* unacceptable and adults who attempt to gain trust should be reported to parents – this is esp important bc of the prevalence of child molesters in our society. One daughter told me that a female gym teacher peered into the showers? Teachers who molest children or and question is off limits. suspected are simply moved from school to school

    • Correction: Teachers who molest or suspected are moved from school to school.

      Our kids need to know personal questioning from adults is always off limits

  4. What qualifications or legal rights do these people have to do “Health Screenings” in the first place?
    Did anyone vote on the schools taking on this role of practicing some kind of medicine on our kids?

    They are there to teach and are totally overstepping their Rights- and Laws for that matter.

    WE THE PEOPLE need to take the reins again, this wagon is running out of control now.

    • Where did Inclusion go?

      I personally witnessed some kids with serious issues, like displays of very violent behavior in my kids classes.
      When I spoke up about how these kids had issues that were above and beyond what should be expected to be dealt with in a regular public school classrooms, I was given a lecture about Inclusion. About how these kids with all these serious issues had every Right to be there.. and I just needed to get over it (and live in fear for the kids being hurt.)
      NOW, look at what we see.
      We’ve gone from being told to accept the kids that might throw chairs on occasion to kids being sent home for 2 weeks because they have a runny nose.

      The Lunatics are running the asylum.
      Take your kids out of these schools and Homeschool.

    • They cannot legally do “health screenings” – think abt it Laura those? w/health care industry training are aware of the law – so possibly a trained hc professional is doing it? If not hopefully someone puts the kibosh on!

      A school nurse moved off campus and attempted to get house parents to give kids meds etc so she would not have to go back to campus when school not in session to give meds – they refused bc of legal issues including multiple ppl having custody of meds.

  5. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” W.S.

    Re: “While we will not ask students questions about their attendance at multi-household gatherings, if we have reason to believe that this is the case, someone from the school will call you to check-in.”

    Clearly, the ‘pushback’ to Scott’s mandate has alarmed this school district – and rightfully so. But beware the contrived alternative. What, for example, would give administrators and teachers ‘reason to believe’ a student attended a ‘multi-household gathering’? Are teachers going to ‘guilt’ students while, ostensibly, having conversations about what the kids did over the holiday? What other interrogation techniques might they use? What other topics will they question?

    This totalitarian public-school monopoly is acting as every totalitarian oligarchy has throughout our history. It’s no paradox that we have a government mandated monopoly, forcing children to attend it, forcing citizens to fund it through taxes, in order for it to assert its control – not only over parents but over society as a whole.

    If anything, at least the Scott mandate was obvious in its sentiment. This alternative is even more insidious.

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