Letters to the Editor

To the editor,

As parents to children in the Dayton Public School Systems we find it is our responsibility to notify the public of an incident that occurred at the school on Friday May 6, 2022.

Our child was sent to the office for having two or more “Covid like symptoms” and then was administered a Covid test without parental notification or consent. We were then called to come pick our child up because his test came back as positive.

We are curious, had his test came back as negative, if we would have even been notified. The school did issue an apology to us. However, they are not willing [to] claim negligence or correct their wrong doing by notifying other parents of the incident and the fact that we administered two Covid test to our child over the weekend that BOTH came back negative.

We do not want anyone’s job taken from them and we do not want to take any legal action, we just want the school to be held accountable for their mistake and for parents to know that this is something that could happen to their child.

We feel the only way this mistake is to not happen again is for the school to not be able to administer any Covid tests on children even with parental consent. These tests are being administered by school faculty, not by medical professionals, and none of the staff have been trained by medical professionals on how to correctly administer these tests.

We feel it’s important for you as parents to please talk to your children about their rights as well as your rights as their parents to make medical decisions for them. No child should have to be put in a position where they have to choose between school authority and their own family’s choices.

We would also like to make it known, especially, to any parent that has a child in the high school that we were told directly from a member of the school administration that they would assume that parents are okay with their high school children being Covid tested at school without parental consent. Personally, we feel whether you are 5 or 17, until you are 18 years of age, you are still considered a minor and need to have parental consent for any medical decisions.

Please speak up and let the school know any questions or concerns you have so something like this won’t happen again.

Charlie and Whitney Mead

Dayton, Wash.