Campus community reacts to UMich ending COVID-19 classroom notifications

LSA senior Catherine Hadley, vice president of the Student Parent Advisory Board, said she thinks student parents, of whom there are more than 700 on campus, were left out of the decision to end COVID-19 classroom notifications. 

“It lies on the administration making smart public health measures and doing things like bringing back the program for notifications, and bringing back a smarter system that lets us know more of what we’re doing,” Hadley said. “What (the University is) asking student parents to do is pay out of pocket to take rapid tests every time they go on campus because I don’t really know any other way to make sure that I’m not exposing my children to COVID, and that’s a huge expense for student parents.”

Hadley, who has two children who are not yet old enough to be vaccinated, said the classroom notifications were particularly important for student parents who may be going home to unvaccinated children after class.

“I feel like I’m being told, ‘Oh, we’re totally fine to go back and everyone is vaccinated and so, you know, it’ll be okay,’ but for my family, it’s not,” Hadley said. “If it’s between my children’s health or school I’m always going to pick my children’s health, but it’s really unfortunate that I’m being forced to make that decision.”