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Letter to the Editor: Thank You Chelsea School Board

Dear Editor:

I wanted to publicly thank Chelsea District School Board Members for the great care you have taken with our children and our community, especially over these past two years.

As a parent of two children in the district (my spouse and I are also graduates of the district), I know our community has a well-earned reputation for amazing schools. In my opinion, this includes not only academic excellence, but also caring for the physical and mental well-being of our children.

I want to thank you specifically for your consideration of our transgender youth. I am a mental health therapist with 20+ years of experience and have worked with many transgender youth and adults. I have seen first-hand the detrimental impact on mental health that can occur when support is withheld.

We also know statistically that rates of attempted suicide for those in the transgender community are significantly higher than average (per American Academy of Pediatrics study “Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behavior” done in 2018 by Toomey, Syvertsen, & Shramko: overall rate of attempts among adolescents is 14%, rate increases to 50.8% among transmale adolescents, 41.8% for non-binary, and 29.9% for transfemale adolescents).

In addition, the UCLA Williams Institute School of Law “2015 Transgender Survey” indicates that 98% of respondents who had experienced four or more acts of discrimination and violence in the past year thought about suicide that year. 51% of them attempted suicide that year. Given Chelsea’s commitment to reducing suicidality of our youth, I would hope these statistics continue to influence our policy of supporting and protecting our transgender youth.

I also want to thank you for the impact of your evidence-based protocols with masking requirements. Your community input surveys were thoughtful and helped us each share our voice. Your well laid-out and well communicated plan at the beginning of each year (including what numbers would be used to indicate masking can be reduced) was very helpful in providing consistency and safety. I saw how neighboring communities who did not have well-defined plans had to quickly return to masking upon upticks in COVID numbers, causing confusion and frustration among their population.

Your diligence in following our scientific community’s recommendations helped us feel safe sending our children to school; it also helped our immuno-compromised neighbors feel safer in town. In addition, it allowed us to feel safe when the masking requirements were lifted, as we knew you were following the numbers and the research-backed recommendations.

Thank you to each staff person, to the board, and to the administration of our CSD. You have made this multi-generational Chelsea family very proud and very grateful.

Sincerely,
Catherine Kattula-Klink, LMSW, ACSW
Chelsea

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