Dear concerned parents of Whiteford Agricultural School Students:

We need to end mask mandates and other unhealthy mandates such as social distancing and close contact tracing from taking hold long-term and further disrupting our children’s education and extra-curricular activities. Regardless of Michigan's recommendations, the individual school boards in the state of Michigan can use their own judgement. The Monroe County Health Department releases guidelines, which are just that – guidelines – not enforceable. It is our sincere hope that this petition will show the Whiteford Agricultural schoolboard that parents are opposed to continuing these and other harmful Covid-19 restrictions for the 2021-2022 school year. We want to see our children flourish next year without the undergirding fear and paranoia that has accompanied them this school year due to mask restrictions, contact tracing, etc., – to many degrees unnecessarily.

When we mandate masks, contact tracing, and social distancing, we are teaching our children to be fearful and paranoid of each other. Seeing other children’s facial expressions and closely interacting with other children is a critical part of our children’s social and psychological development. The rules that remain in place that force our children to be anti-social and placed into an environment of fear are superfluous. The suicide and depression rates among children have soared due to these constraints (forcing us to examine if we are doing more to sabotage their education/development than protect them).

Our children work incredibly hard at academics and extra-curricular activities that involve sports, music, and drama, amongst other things – which are fantastic for our children’s healthy maturity into adulthood, and we are robbing them of that by forcing them (with a heavy hand) to sit out of the sports and events that they work so hard to excel at - even when they are not compromised with Covid-19!

Please sign this petition to help ensure that our Whiteford Agricultural School board makes the right decision next year and makes all Covid 19-related guidelines optional or non-existent. Make your voice heard!