Some parents in Erie County want new leadership at the county's health department.

What You Need To Know

  • WNY Students First wants Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz to demand the resignation of Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein
  • Parents in the group accuse Dr. Burstein of not caring about protecting the health and wellbeing of children in Erie County 
  • Spokesperson for the county executive says Poloncarz will not call for Dr. Burstein's resignation 
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"WNY Students First is calling on Mr. Poloncarz to demand the resignation of Dr. Gale Burstein for not fulfilling her obligation to protect the health and wellbeing of children in Erie County,” Tarja Parssinen, a parent advocate with WNY Students First, said.

Parents with WNY Students First held a virtual press conference Monday afternoon to speak out in opposition to Erie County health department policies regarding the education of students during the pandemic.

"Not only are the ECDOH policies directly harming school-aged children, they're doing absolutely nothing to slow the spread of COVID-19," said Parssinen.

The group is accusing the department of health of:

  • Not following science
  • Not providing transparency regarding in-school transmission
  • Misinforming the public about the safety of schools
  • Ignoring the growing mental health crisis among the youngest citizens
  • Not following NYSDOH guidance and continually overreaching on schools
  • Officials continuing to benefit financially from the pandemic 
  • Not fulfilling the obligation to protect the health and wellbeing of children in the community 

"They go against the science, they go against the medical recommendations,” Parssinen, who has children in Clarence schools, said.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Rich, who has children in Williamsville schools, considers mental health a big concern.

"The worry is that if the students don't recover in some way by the end of June, over the summer, what is going to happen to those already struggling students with regards to mental health," Rich said.

Spectrum News reached out to the health department for comment and a spokesperson says the department does not direct school operations and policies and state guidance. She added the ECDOH has not closed schools, rather it's made recommendations to a few schools they shift to remote learning for a 10-day period. 

Another part of the statement reads:

"ECDOH follows the NYSDOH standards for contact tracing and identification of close contacts.  A close contact is an individual who has been within 6 feet of a positive Covid case while that case was infectious for 10 minutes or more. Also under New York State standards, our contact tracers can consider other factors, such as duration of exposure, proximity, and presence of symptoms when determining close contacts. For Erie County schools that have used a 3 foot spacing for students during this academic year, our practice has been, in the course of a case investigation, to quarantine an entire classroom when a student or staff member has been present while infectious because of the transmission dynamics of closely spaced or crowded classrooms."

The press secretary for Mark Poloncarz tells Spectrum News the county executive will not be asking for Dr. Burstein’s resignation.