By Gus Saltonstall
Cancel the morning commute.
Public school buildings will be closed on Tuesday with a deluge of snow expected to hit New York City, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday.
“We’re expecting winter weather overnight tonight which could lead to 5-8 inches of snow with locally higher amounts by the morning,” Adams wrote on social media. “As a result, all NYC Schools will be moved to remote learning.”
The snow is forecasted to start falling about 4 a.m. on Tuesday.
Remote learning means students won’t have the day off from school, and instead will be expected to attend classes virtually.
All after-school programs, adult education, and Young Adult Borough Center programs will also be closed on Tuesday.
All Catholic elementary schools in the Archdiocese of New York will also be fully closed on Tuesday, with no remote learning planned. Catholic high schools, along with private schools, operate independently and should follow instruction from their individual schools.
West Side Rag will update this story with any developments.
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Good-bye to snow holidays and all those embodied.
“Remote learning means students won’t have the day off from school, and instead will be expected to attend classes virtually.”
Which assumes, arrogantly and incorrectly, that all public school students have consistent access to a fast internet connection.
Slow down, “arrogantly and incorrectly “. I’m am a a parent of a public school student. Are you a public school parent to start with to make this statement ?
Most of public school children do have access to the internet and it doesn’t have to be “fast”. Also, regardless of the income, some internet providers already announced possible outages. So whether you are beyond poverty level or a CEO of a hedge fund, your internet may not work tomorrow.
The alternative of bussing children to school is dangerous. In the past school buses were stuck for HOURS because of the snow. The ones who take subway can also be stuck there without access to alert their parents.
So please spare us your misguided outrage.
There is no reason to bus kids to school. Elementary kids are assigned schools within a few blocks radius, so can easily walk. By the way, it would be cheaper to send all the kids who are currently being bussed to school in a taxi than pay for school bussing program.
Teacher here. It is fair to criticize this approach. How many of my students will show up tomorrow? How many will participate? Remote learning is a failed experiment. Almost everyone agrees.
This is a joke. My son’s 2nd grade schedule for tomorrow: 9:45 am morning meeting and 11:00 am Music. Where are math, science, and literature?
Maybe math, science, and literature are incorporated into music. There are a lot of ways to incorporate math into music — number of beats per measure for example. Science – why not talk about how electricity changed the creation of music – electric guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, etc. Literature and music — too easy! Pick an opera or Broadway musical and discuss what piece of literature it’s based on, what artistic license (if any) was used and why?
Right after building a snowperson.
For that you need snow, I don’t see any in Central Park
Kudos to my son’s school, Success Academy Upper West, which is closed for students tomorrow, with no remote learning. Let the kids be kids!!!
Another sign of the times , , , raising our kids to be soft. Back in the 1960;s and 1970’s, decisions on whether to close Public Schools were not discussed until snow was on the ground and a min of 4 inches. Parochial schools were tougher, a min of 6 inches. To close schools before even a flake hits the ground?? Reminds me of several years ago, when Cuomo shut down the LI Expressway in anticipation of the Blizzard that never arrived. 🙂
Funny how the post office delivered mail today, but the teachers could not be bothered to sit inside and teach! Thank you teachers’ union!
Never mind 60s and 70s. – even 80s into early 90s. The “blizzard” today was sad
Not only schools were closed. My doctor’s office (the whole practice) was closed due to “weather” (non-emergence appointment). Good thing TJ was open and empty.
I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s and in those days it was more likely that in a two parent household, the mother didn’t work outside the home so child care on a non-school day was not an issue. Nowadays, that’s not so typical and parents have to make arrangements to either stay home from work or get childcare, and those arrangements often can’t be made at the last minute.
That is true.
But at that time, most kids went to school in their neighborhoods close to home.
But the school system has changed and many more children (of all ages) are now traveling all over NYC to get to school.
Bus, subway, school bus.
Many special education students travel by school bus.
Very good point Sam.
As a teacher (not in the DOE, but a public district that is closed today) remote learning is a waste of time. DOE teachers probably had to use a large chunk of their instructional time yesterday to reteach students how to get on zoom not to mention scrambling to restructure all of their lessons because we don’t teach by just lecturing to students and especially in the elementary schools zoom is a completely inappropriate platform for most if not all of our lessons. We tried our best to make it work during Covid because we had to but I really don’t understand the argument for using it for missing one day of school during a storm. It doesn’t help working parents because zoom isn’t child care. As a parent you still need to be there to help your child get on zoom and with the youngest students they still need to be supervised anyway. So what are we really accomplishing here other than depriving the students of NYC a precious childhood memory of playing in the snow on the one day a year they could have.
It’s 2pm as I write this. I think we’re up to 0.75 inches. Predicted to last another hour. God Save our Souls.
As reported on many media platforms, the system was riddled with issues today. Repeated error and “system unavailable” messages. My son’s teacher had to set up zoom meetings using her own account and then each system had a time limit. Students would be on for 40 minutes, off for 10 and then we would get a new zoom link. UGH….