As COVID surges, Wake schools must do more. That includes expanding the Virtual Academy.

Raleigh schools

Wake County public schools has announced it will no longer allow students to transfer into the virtual academy. The district is requiring masks, but with the critical situation North Carolina is now in (a 12.8% positivity rate), that’s not enough to keep our kids safe.

At minimum, schools should require all teachers and staff to be vaccinated. People inside school buildings should be using more protective masks, such as N-95s. Schools also need to improve their ventilation systems and implement ongoing testing.

If these measures are not possible, parents should be given the option to keep their children in online learning until they have access to vaccines. The logistics of organizing online learning should not take precedence over the well-being of our children.

Adriana de Souza e Silva, Cary

Redistricting

Redistricting, that great mystery, will occur again. (Aug. 11) How is it that all those Democrats will be crammed into too few districts so a majority Democratic state will have Republicans overwhelmingly elected to the legislature? Can we please have a transparent process this time. Have public hearings at various times to let working folks attend. Let’s see how all those districts are cut into various shapes. Let there be plenty of districts where there is true competition so that fewer extreme candidates advance from the primary to compete in the general election.

Janice Woychik, Chapel Hill

NC House budget

The State Board of Elections and county election boards worked tirelessly during the last election to ensure it was free and fair.

Instead of addressing the needs of these bipartisan groups, the N.C. House budget proposal seeks to limit their ability to fairly administer elections and it provides unnecessary funding for voter photo ID, which cannot be applied in N.C. elections.

This follows a disturbing national trend of partisan politicians granting themselves the ability to intervene in elections. The League of Women Voters of Wake County opposes any legislation that attempts to weaken our election system.

We call upon N.C. legislators to remove all voting provisions from the budget. The budget bill should not be a vehicle to achieve a partisan policy agenda.

Cheryl Tung

President, League of Women Voters of Wake County

State retirees

For the economic health of our state, the legislature should give a cost-of-living retirement pension increase to all state and local government retirees.

Pension dollars go to retired workers in every county. Because they are used for basic living expenses, these dollars get spent all over the state, injecting cash into pandemic-stressed local economies.

Spread from Murphy to Manteo, state government retirees need inflation relief.

The pension program is also an important hedge against erosion of the middle class.

These public servants, me included, paid their entire careers into the pension fund, with North Carolina’s program being among the strongest in the nation and essentially fully funded. Forget these retirees now, and they will remember you at the polls in the future.

Sherri Zann Rosenthal, Durham

COVID cooperation

An Aug. 11 article said Tyson Foods is requiring workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine, including at N.C. plants. That gives one hope that conservative business leaders, as well as Democratic governors, like Gov. Roy Cooper, can cooperate to follow the science of vaccines and mask use to save our children and us from the latest surge. For me, I’ll look for Tyson chickens in the frozen food aisles, as I know the terrible toll COVID has taken among food workers.

Howard Romaine, Raleigh

Mandate vaccines

In the early 1960s, we wiped out polio by requiring schoolkids to take the new vaccine. We all lined up and ate sugar cubes soaked with the vaccine. That health crisis left us no choice. The current pandemic also leaves us no choice but to force everyone to get vaccinated. Until we do so, we will see more forms of the virus killing our loved ones.

While we’re at it, there is ample precedent for convicting people who spread deadly disease. No vaccine? No mask? You go to jail.

Charles Maness, Raleigh

This story was originally published August 12, 2021 at 1:03 PM with the headline "As COVID surges, Wake schools must do more. That includes expanding the Virtual Academy.."