Photo via NYC Mayor’s office.
By Carol Tannenhauser
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Sunday that NYC school buildings for grades 3-K, Pre-K and grades K-5 will reopen on Monday, December 7th. District 75 (special) schools at all grade levels will reopen on Thursday, December 10th.
“Upon reopening, weekly #COVID19 testing will be in effect and testing consent forms will be required for our students to return,” the mayor tweeted. “Families, you can fill out the form TODAY on your @NYCSchools account — go to mystudent.nyc.
“Finally, as we reopen, wherever possible we will move to 5-day-a-week in-person learning. We want our kids in the classroom for as much time as possible. Our families do, too. We’ll work to make it happen.”
Reopening our @NYCSchools buildings is paramount to recovering from #COVID19. Today we can announce that we plan to reopen buildings for:
• 3-K, Pre-K and grades K-5 on Monday, December 7
• District 75 schools at all grade levels on Thursday, December 10
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 29, 2020
WOW. Just WOW. Sending kids back to school 5 days week during the rise of COVID19 cases in NYC. That is such a bad move. Now, parents have to worry about kids getting affected as well as the ones in the household.
Currently, parents choose between all remote or hybrid. The new option will be all in person or all remote. In person is always socially distanced with masks. Parents have a choice what is best for their child and family.
The “five days per week in person” is misleading. It is dependent on each school’s in-person school enrollment levels and capacity. For example, my child’s school, PS 166, was already at high in person enrollment levels. Due to continued social distancing requirements, it will therefore be continuing on the pre-existing hybrid learning schedule. Schools with lower in person enrollments would be able to have students attend 5 days, but I’m guessing that most of the popular UWS public elementary schools will maintain hybrid.
According to a letter from our principal, P.S.84 will also remain split although dropping from 3 hybrid groups to 2. This means in-person learning will be 3 days one week, 2 days the next. For those of us choosing remote-learning, we remain hopeful the DOE will change their minds again for a springtime option to enter “in-person” learning as promised in September.
Parents don’t “have” a choice. They “had” a choice. They can’t change from remote to in person now. Many parents thought the hybrid schedule, often with different teachers in in person days and remote days, was too difficult for children. They chose remote for consistency and do not have thr options of choosing 5 days a week in person now.
@Anon Exactly! The choice was A or B (100% remote or hybrid). Now, shortly after the choice window closed, suddenly it is A or C. I am quite sure most would have chosen differently if they were offered full in-person vs remote.
DOE is only able to entertain the idea of full time in person because so many parents opted for fully remote. If 3 kids shared 1 seat in rotation, and now that school will go full-time in-person, then two of the 3 kids opted out 2 weeks ago. Not exactly a vote of confidence for in-person learning.
Kids are not major spreaders and many other countries have kept schools open safely. The problem for NYC is that schools will only be open for a handful of kids. DOE still refuses to allocate sufficient attention and resources to remote instruction, which is how the vast majority of students are learning this year.