Monday Bulletin: Crowds Flock to Park, Public Schools Debate Fall Plans, Rents Could Rise 3.5%
Photo by Judy Marcovitch in Central Park near 59th.
April 27, 2020 Weather: Partly cloudy, with a high of 51 degrees.
Notices:
Our calendar is full of events you can enjoy from home.
News:
Saturday’s beautiful weather brought sun-and-fresh-air-starved New Yorkers out in droves to city parks and beaches, even though the state is still officially shut down until at least May 15th, and beaches are closed. According to CBS News, adherence to the social-distancing, six-foot rule ranged from not at all (group sports in Brooklyn) to trying their best (in Central Park.) “In Central Park, the NYPD was seen patrolling to enforce the rules. Police did not issue any summonses or make any arrests Saturday related to social distancing,” CBS reported. “But as the weather warms up and we get closer to summer, some worry that parks will only get more crowded. As one person put it, New Yorkers will not stay cooped up forever.”
The president of the city teachers union expects remote learning to be utilized in public schools in the fall, whether or not school buildings reopen. “With many Department of Education facilities at or over capacity, keeping kids and staff at least six feet apart is a logistical impossibility,” wrote the New York Post. “The union is expecting that students will alternate between remote learning and classroom instruction in order to lessen daily building population and enable distancing. ‘Until we have a vaccine or a cure the last thing we want to do is have schools become a source of recontamination,’ UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Post Friday. He also broached the subjects of COVID-19 testing before reentering school, and how to issue grades to students who have been remotely learning this school year.
With the mayor and tenant advocates calling for a rent freeze, the Rent Guidelines Board released a report at a virtual meeting on Thursday, calling for rent increases on rent-stabilized apartments, according to The Real Deal. “[The Board] estimated that rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments should fall between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent for one-year leases and 3.3 percent to 6.75 percent for two-year leases…Thursday’s report, which reflects data from April 2019 to March 2020, found that the price index of operating costs for stabilized apartments in the city increased by 3.7 percent. The report projected it will jump by 2.4 percent between now and March 2021.“
I am 100%in for flattening the curve but civilization must go on. We have had our school kids at home since mid March. They need to go back to school in September. The public and charter schools are doing a heroic job with remote learning but it will never be the real thing.
The city leadership dithered, hesitated and waited too long to close up. Now they are dithering, hesitating and frightened to make a plan to open. Leadership is more than doling our jobs to incompetent friends and family members. Lead or leave..
The plan to eliminate grades will allow the DOE to fast track its goal of having selective schools. Teachers should be very lenient about grades, but I think that grades should still be issued. In elementary schools, where there are three grading periods, the second trimester had just finished when schools were closed, so teachers can give grades on the basis of a significant body of work, and use their discretion on how to grade the rest of the year.
Without any grades, and all testing having been cancelled, the middle school and high school admissions processes next year will be pure chaos. This seems to be the goal of Carranza and the DOE, but some type of order would be a good idea.