Parent Calls For Protest At School Administrative Offices

A parent in the 1,000-member strong Facebook Group Safety First Reopening Schools has called for a protest early on Wednesday morning at the administrative offices of Oconee County Schools.

The purpose of the protest is to get the school system to postpone the date by which parents have to select either the in-person or distance/digital learning option from Wednesday to July 20 and to get the system to require students who attend classes in-person to wear masks.

Christian Sanchez, who issued the call for the protest to the Facebook group on Monday, said she also wants the school system to answer a long list of questions about the Aug. 5 opening of the county’s schools.

Safety First Reopening Schools first emerged into the public on July 6 when it sent a letter to members of the Board of Education and School Superintendent Jason Branch asking them to respond to a list of questions and delay the decision date to July 20.

Andrea Wellnitz, who organized the group, said on Monday that the landing page Safety First Reopening Schools now has three subgroups.

The first of these groups, using the name Safety First Reopening Schools, shares information about COVID-19 and about how schools can and should reopen. It has 909 members.

The second group is called Safety First Remote Learning and is designed to help parents who are opting to keep their children out of school because of the pandemic. This group has 133 members.

The final group, Safety First Special Needs Group, is to help parents of children with special educational needs. The Special Needs Group has 25 members.

For more on the story, with a video of an interview with Wellnitz and another member of the Facebook group, please go to Oconee County Observations.