Makarand Bidwai, a parent in the Princeton area, in this petition addressed to Gov. Phil Murphy, Acting Department of Education Commissioner Angelica Allen-McMillan, and cc’d to members of the New Jersey State Legislature, protests Murphy’s mandate that all students must participate in in-person schooling amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. He demands Murphy reverse the only in-person school mandate and encourages parents to join him in this act of civil disobedience by keeping children home in protest to and to build a groundswell of grassroots support that may force Murphy’s attention to this issue of stressed-out parents.

IN CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MY CHILD / CHILDREN WILL STAY AWAY FROM THEIR PUBLIC IN–PERSON SCHOOL — NOTICE TO NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR PHIL MURPHY 

Whereas, a coronavirus has caused a pandemic that instituted a State of Emergency in New Jersey per an Executive Order in 2020 MAR; 

Whereas, a coronavirus has caused a pandemic that instituted a State of Public Health Emergency in New Jersey per an Executive Order in 2020 MAR; 

Whereas, a series of coronavirus related executive orders were issued from 2020 MAR and ongoing as of this month as the coronavirus infections evolved in their seriousness and fatalities throughout this period and ongoing, on–the–rise infections; 

Whereas, a combination of one or more orders transitioned in–person, traditional schooling to fully online, virtual, e–learning experience for thousands upon thousands of pupils in the state, neatly and nearly overnight; 

Whereas, the reason for such a seismic shift was the need for isolation of human beings that acts as “vectors” in propagation of a deadly coronavirus; 

Whereas, this seismic shift has been felt with in most other realms of human endeavors be it in business or in hobby; 

Whereas, those unfortunate to have been infected have either passed away, or being cured imperfectly in many instances due to “long coronavirus’s” impact that results in severe disability that may last a lifetime of debilitating conditions; 

Whereas, the global nature of the problems prevents a particular New Jersey specific response, mitigation, or cure; 

Whereas, the wide availability of various vaccine candidates have made us to believe that we as humanity can tame the coronavirus one day, some day yet to dawn;  

Whereas, this is a natural regression process wherein, we may go one step forward, two–three steps backwards at times; 

Whereas, this regression may accede to one step backward, two–three steps forward as we evolve a human response to an invisible enemy; 

Whereas, one of the executive orders mandates that the well–worth and the well–working virtual option was suddenly eliminated without a scientific rationale; 

Whereas, this has sent parents into a tailspin as not knowing how to rectify a decree of this magnitude that most certainly shall hurt those pupils who absolutely need in–person by imposing on those other pupils who are more comfortable with the virtual schooling more so since the Delta variant is highly transmissible and infecting children heavily; 

Whereas, the undersigned fully respects that from an engineering perspective, a weakened mechanical system must not be over–loaded and over–stressed or it will cease to function, even breakdown creating an implosion / a havoc / a chaos as the “entropy” of the schools will not stay the same but increase with in–person only mandate; 

Whereas, “entropy” is a measure of disorder / dysfunction and in Physics it either stays the same or increases which ditto applies to the societal entropy of a full in–person school that will be cataclysmic failure to curb and increase the spread of this coronavirus; 

Whereas, the catchphrase “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is neither true today, and nor shall be true tomorrow as the vaccines are fading in efficacy and it is a pandemic for the haves and the have–nots in terms of vaccines; 

Whereas, the size of the world’s population requires months and years before most of our humanity gets vaccinated as presently between one fourth and one third of the world’s population is fully vaccinated, although more doses and boosters are in the offing as the virus is quite ahead of the human’s disjointed response to a moving target; 

Whereas, a pandemic anywhere, is a pandemic everywhere with many moving parts, and 

Whereas, several scientific mitigation measures exists, the best and the foremost is isolation that creates a firewall between retransmission of the coronavirus mutants. 

Wherefore, finding no rational in thrusting hundreds of innocent pupils in a school building that will instantly convert into petri dishes for the coronavirus to flourish we the parents find such executive order appalling, dictatorial, and oppressive; 

Wherefore, the concept that pupils can put a mask for six–seven hours at a stretch, remove it while eating swiftly and wearing back again, to mitigate the spread of coronavirus is a ridiculous burden on the young ones that no sane parent will tolerate; 

Wherefore, it is resolved by one or more parents in New Jersey thus, that the only option they’ve left is an open defiance of the mandate as in Civil Disobedience of an unworkable mandate until such time that the Governor comes to a grip of the reality, away from whatever else is his calculus in this year 2021 that has removed him from a focus on what hurts vs a focus on what helps in diminishing the pandemic, 

and

Wherefore, vicariously, the Governor is fully responsible for an inadvertent violation of the New Jersey’s compulsory education law for pupils aged six thru sixteen, and not the individual parents protesting his in–person only school mandate for the 2021-2022 academic pandemic year. This petition is protected by the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. 

The originating email is the proper signatory of this Civil Disobedience petition. Each school day that individual parents protest this email will follow as a reminder. 

I’M STANDING MY OWN GANDHIAN GROUND WITH THIS DEMOCRATIC PROTEST