NYC 9/15/22 "Restore Normal" Rally- Daniela Jampel's moving speech
This is the fourth year that families are being denied the school community. And for what. What benefit is there by keeping unvaccinated parents – and in many cases, all parents – from fully engaging?
When I started two years ago in 2020, I was begging this City’s mayor to Keep NYC schools open. Since then we’ve learned a lot. We’ve learned that keeping kids out of a school was an unmitigated disaster. We’ve learned that kids need to be in school – not just for their educations, but also for their emotional and mental wellbeing.
School is not just about attending classes. Schools don’t need to just be “open” in that you can walk through the doors, they need to be open in that they provide a community to our children, and to their families, to allow them to explore and develop their full potential.
The most egregious rule, of course, is that unvaccinated students still are not able to participate in afterschool activities, including sports.
If Kyrie Irving can play basketball in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans, why can’t a 15 year old play football – football! Which is played OUTDOORS! – after school?
But a lot of people are going to talk about that so I’d like to focus on something else. Let’s talk about how unvaccinated parents are banned from entering school buildings. I had to show my vaccine card to register my daughter for kindergarten. Curriculum night – the opportunity that parents have to meet their children’s teachers, see the classrooms where their children spend most of their days – is now online, because otherwise unvaccinated parents cannot attend. If your child is struggling in school you cannot go into the building to meet with their teacher, their social worker, their guidance counselor. You can’t see your child in the school play or concert. You can’t come to celebrate your child’s birthday in class.
These are small things, but they are the things that made school more than a place where your child goes to learn how to read and write. These are the things that make school school, a place where you can build a community and ensure that your children are growing to their full potential.
I hate the term normal school – the things we used to just call school. Joyful school. School where you could see inside the building and the classroom, where you could create a community with other parents in your neighborhood.
This is the fourth year that families are being denied the school community. And for what. What benefit is there by keeping unvaccinated parents – and in many cases, all parents – from fully engaging in their school community? What are we gaining by treating unvaccinated parents like second class citizens?
For a Mayor and Schools Chancellor who claim to care about education, about equity, about rebuilding NYC, about providing a full and complete education to our children, this policy is a scandal. It was misguided when it was first imposed, and now it is not only misguided but also anti-science.
This needs to end. Our children and our families deserve normalcy. We are here today to demand that our Mayor LET THEM PLAY.*
You can watch Daniela’s and the other speeches on our YouTube channel.
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Yesterday, September 20, 2022, Mayor Adams suspended the vaccine mandate for DOE extracurriculars including PSAL, performances and all “high risk” activities. Unvaccinated parents are still barred from entering school buildings and public sector employees are still subject to a vaccine requirement (private sector vaccine mandate has been lifted effective 11/1/22).