Working together, children, students, parents, families, and communities can help slow the spread of COVID-19. We must organize our collective response to stand in #PowerNotPanic to ensure the safety and health of our communities to protect our most vulnerable people.

Today, California public health experts and the Governor of California issued a statement that social distancing is the most important step we can take to slow the spread of COVID-19. As such, the Governor has banned public gatherings of 250 or more and issued a policy on small gatherings to keep social distance to 6ft between people. Bay Area PLAN has responded to this policy update by closing our offices and redesigning our programs to be accessible remotely. We do this to encourage all members of our organization and community to do such as well. We believe that it is our shared responsibility to begin real community action to prioritize our collective public health.

Out of an abundance of caution, Bay Area PLAN urges that district Superintendents across Bay Area counties especially in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, San Mateo, and Santa Clara to follow the leadership of San Francisco Unified School District and West Contra Costa Unified School District and consider the growing need to close public schools for the next 2-3 weeks. We believe this action is critical to protect our most vulnerable people- our elders and those with underlying health conditions. Most importantly, we believe swift actions before more cases of COVID-19 are documented is the right action to ensure that students, families, staff, and teachers are able to prevent further spread.

Bay Area PLAN joins the growing movement of labor, social, civic and faith-based organizations demanding immediate, equitable public testing for COVID-19 and the necessary economic aid to communities to implement social distancing as soon as possible to slow the spread of COVID-19. We endorse the recommendations of Justice 4 Oakland Students and Bay Rising. Together, these coalition’s members represent many of our communities around the Bay Area who could be hit the hardest by COVID-19 and its impacts to jobs, housing, and education especially low-wage Black, Latino, Arabic, and Asian families, tenants and workers, as well as people who are housing-insecure, houseless, or living in crowded conditions.

We thank everyone for taking the steps to slow the spread of COVID-19 and prioritizing our collective public health.

In Unity,

PLAN Staff, Board, and Leaders