Following the release of Mayor Bill De Blasio’s school reopening plan, requests from families for remote - only learning have increased by 40,000 in just one week. As of Friday, August 14th, over 300,000 NYC students will not return to their school buildings come September.
The city’s current reopening model consists of a “weekly blended-approach,” with both in-class and online learning to reduce classroom populations and accommodate social distancing.
Yet, for families opting into fully remote classrooms, children may find themselves working with teachers from other schools. Due to “depleted teacher rosters” and smaller class sizes, districts are having difficulties properly grouping student populations.
Decisions will depend on how many teachers plan to work remotely or in their schools. Currently, around 15% of city teachers have requested medical exemptions and will seek to work from home.
Recent appeals for home-instruction reflect a nation-wide trend of districts reversing decisions regarding classroom learning this fall. Most recently, an increasing number of New Jersey schools have decided to begin their years remotely, including Newark, which has rescinded its plans to return in person.
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The pandemic and its impact on education is continually evolving, yet it persistently and acutely affects financially disadvantaged schools. Though the Lawrenceville School, a private high school in New Jersey, will provide returning students with “an app that tracks potential coronavirus symptoms, touchless sinks and a health center with pediatricians and a full time nursing staff,” many public schools are struggling to meet simple internet, technology, and protective equipment needs (Romero, 2020).
Data from the Centers for Disease Control has also consistently shown that Black and Latino families have been “disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in a widespread manner that spans the country, throughout hundreds of counties in urban, suburban and rural areas, and across all age groups” (NYTimes, 2020). Around 37 percent of new requests for online learning in NYC have come from Latino families and 20 percent from Black families (Algar, 2020).
Are you planning to have your child return to school in September or are you selecting the remote-only option? Let us know down below in the comments!
In his Updates for Families, Chancellor Carranza emphasizes that “schools will be in session and students will be learning five days per week — no matter where they are.” According to the New York Department of Education, every school building will have access to a nurse.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also declared that the state can close down any school it considers unsafe. For those studying at home, Carranza claims that “all students will receive the necessary tools for remote learning,” including access to Google Classroom and Microsoft Office, to ensure they continue to meet academic standards (for information on creating and managing these accounts, click here).
Nevertheless, many parents are concerned for the lack of consistency with online instruction and technology access after differences in lesson quality during the online transition this spring (Goldman 2020).
While some instructors held live classes via video conferences, many teachers simply uploaded assignments for students to complete asynchronously. Education activists have broadcasted the need for valuable instruction even while learning at home, but ultimately effectiveness will depend on individual teachers’ approaches.
[subscribe=20543]To ensure you and your child are prepared for a potential remote opening, review the DOE’s Remote Learning Readiness Checklist.
Are you planning to have your child return to school in September or are you selecting the remote-only option? Let us know down below in the comments!
