Grant High School in Northeast Portland.
Michael Clapp / OPB
Grant High School students held a walkout on Tuesday to express their concerns about coronavirus safety protocols. Danny Cage is a Grant High School student and a district student council representative for the school. He joins us to talk about what the students are asking for.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. It’s been another tumultuous time for students in K-12 schools. Many are frustrated these days because they’ve had to return to distance learning. Some are in school but say that the protocols in place are not keeping them safe. That was the reason a small group of students walked out of Grant High School in Portland yesterday. Danny Cage was one of the organizers of the walkout. He’s a junior at Grant. We Atalked yesterday, I asked him how it went.
Danny Cage: It was pretty simple. It was just right before lunch, kids walking out of Grant High School and basically not returning for the next two periods after that.
Miller: How big was it?
Cage: It’s kind of hard to tell because people were leaving at different times, but I would say I saw at least 20 kids do it.
Miller: What prompted this walk out?
Cage: A couple of things, lack of COVID safety, like the recent renewal from the Oregon Health Department of COVID guidelines. And just overall feelings around COVID safety in schools.
Miller: When you say lack of COVID safety, what in particular are you thinking about?
Cage: Well a couple of things- lack of distancing within schools. Grant is a very filled school. We are actually a school that’s over capacity. It’s a school that’s only made for I think around 1,700 students and we serve over 2,000 students. So it is pretty much basically impossible to socially distance there, along with there isn’t very good contact tracing when there are outbreaks among students.
Miller: Have there been a lot of outbreaks among students or staff during this Omicron wave?
Cage: Yes, I personally have had, in the last two weeks, three different teachers out with COVID. And then along with some of the people around me who I’m friends with at school have caught COVID as well.
Miller: And you’re saying that when that’s happened, you haven’t seen contact tracing happening with staff saying, ‘it looks like X person was in this class and they were probably this close to this person…’ and that’s not being done or people aren’t being contacted?
Cage: Yes. People really aren’t being contacted. It’s usually an email that says that someone was sick with COVID and on campus and that’s pretty much it.
Miller: One of the challenges that’s present in a place like Grant, seems given, that the first thing you mentioned was just the sheer number of students in the building is, it’s hard to see, if everyone is going to be in classes, what the school can do about that. I mean, what would you like to see?
Cage: I think one thing I would like to see at the district level is again, reconsideration of a vaccine mandate. It was heavily pushed forward by students and also by the district student council. We know that it is safe. We know that it’s effective and that it minimizes COVID spreads. Another thing that kids have been requesting to see the district provide is K- and N-95 masks because they are more sufficient, especially with this new variant Omicron, to decrease the spread of COVID.
Miller: One of the posts on Instagram that I saw mentioned a health screening program. What kind of program are you calling for?
Cage: So a couple of things. The one that PPS [Portland Public Schools], or at least the one provided at Grant High School has, it’s only done every Monday. Students would like to see if it was done more frequently, because if you come to school and you need to get tested Monday, but let’s say that you’re exposed the next day after, you have to wait a whole week around if you don’t have access to testing.
Miller: This is for the spit tests that are available in some schools?
Cage: Yes.
Miller: So how much would you like to see?
Cage: I would personally like to see if we could provide testing both Monday and Friday. I think it makes more sense to have it at the beginning and the end of the week versus just once every week.
Miller: Another issue that you’ve brought up is options for students who don’t feel comfortable going to in-person classes right now. Obviously over the last few weeks, many schools around the state have simply been shut down because of staff or student sickness. So that’s an across the board response to an immediate situation. But it seems like you’re calling for something different. What options are there right now for students who don’t feel comfortable going to in person school?
Cage: There really aren’t any options at the moment for kids who don’t feel comfortable.
Miller: No options?
Cage: Yes. There really aren’t any options for students at the moment.
Miller: What would you like to see?
Cage: I think instead of going the route of kids don’t feel safe, let’s create a whole new option. I think it is a much more sufficient route for us to go. Let’s really make sure that kids feel safe in school and let’s provide more adequate resources to provide those safety mechanisms that students would feel more comfortable with.
Miller: You are advocating for a vaccine mandate. My assumption is that you’re vaccinated yourself.
Cage: Yes, I am vaccinated
Miller: As I’m sure you know, the Omicron variant is both more contagious but also less severe, more or less likely to cause severe severe illness than the Delta variant and statistically speaking, it’s highly unlikely that it’s going to make vaccinated young people very sick. Given those statistics, how do you think about risk for yourself, or for your fellow students at this point in the pandemic?
Cage: You know, we’re not seeing, at least among my generation, what we’re being told is that we’re not seeing super severe risk. The thing is that being sick for 1 to 2 weeks and feeling ill isn’t ideal. And also still the thing about a pandemic is that you can transfer onto others. You know, when I talk to students, it’s not always safety that they feel for themselves, it’s that they live with someone who’s immunocompromised and especially if you’re immunocompromised and you have multiple illnesses or disabilities, right? There are people who are still dying around those certain issues. And so I think it’s both important that you really make sure that kids not only feel safe for their own safety, but how they affect others as well.
Miller: Danny Cage, thanks very much for joining us today. I appreciate it.
Cage: Thank you for having me.
Miller: Danny Cage is a junior at Portland’s Grant High School. We talked yesterday; we hope to talk to the superintendent of Portland’s Public Schools about their broad approach to COVID safety these days, on Monday.
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