In last night’s agenda, I spoke during  Memorial Adjournemt to elevate all the lives we have lost due to #COVID19. Our Board has been dealing with the impacts of the virus for almost a year, yet has never acknowledged the tragic loss of life the virus has caused in our communities.

I wanted to take some time to post facts (and their sources) I shared during the meeting. (Because I’m an educator through and through.)

In SF residents have had over 30K reported cases of the disease and 293 deaths. In California residents have had over 3.23M cases and 38K deaths. And in the US, Americans have had over 25.5M cases and 425K deaths nationwide.

We use Memorial Adjournment to acknowledge students, family members, and staff who have died to celebrate the impact their lives have had on our SFUSD community.

As a Board, we have never acknowledged the loss of life related to COVID because the numbers are so large. There are too many names to even consider listing all the names of important community members we have lost this past  year.

Many folks use wars to put numbers like these in perspective. The Civil War was the US war that resulted in the most lost of life topping 750K. World War II is just over half that at 407K. This chart below is old. We have already surpassed this number at  425K.

All other wars, excluding the Civil War and WWII resulted in 291K lives lost. Do you remember when Dr. Fauci predicted 200K as one of his worst-case scenarios?

Last Tuesday, I lost my cousin Reggie Brown to Covid and he will leave a gaping hole in my family that will never be replaced. These numbers are so large, but each one reflects not only a life lost and the tens, hundreds, and sometimes thousands of lives who will feel the impact of that loss.

Sending love to all those in the SFUSD community who have lost someone due to this terrible disease. With a new administration, we have much to be hopeful for but we are not out of the woods. Please do your part to stay safe. We must do everything we can to return to school together.