Schools and coronavirus: listen to the experts
Today, Governor Cuomo held a press conference where he announced that all gatherings with more than 500 people in the state would be banned from now on, and any gathering under 500 would have to cut their legal occupancy level in half, in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Yet schools and public transit will be exempt from these directives.
When asked why schools are exempted, Cuomo’s Secretary Melissa De Rosa responded that there’s no reason to close schools that have classes of forty students at most. Yet with class sizes as large as they are, and classrooms as small as in most city schools, the person-to-person density is so extreme that the recommendation of “social distancing” of staying six feet apart will be impossible. See the photos above.
Today, the Archdiocese of NY announced it would be closing all its elementary schools (which include Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island, but not Brooklyn and Queens.) The Governor of Ohio ordered all schools in the state--public, private, charter--closed for at least three weeks, starting next week, even though only five people in the entire state have tested positive for coronavirus, compared to 328 confirmed cases in New York state, and 98 infected in NYC. The governors of Maryland, Kentucky and New Mexico have followed suit, with only 13 and 8 and 5 confirmed cases respectively.
When Gov. DeWine of Ohio was asked about the possibility kids would miss the state testing, he said, “If we can’t have testing this year, we will not have testing this year. The world will not come to an end.” The US Department of Education also issued guidance tonight that waivers from mandated state testing would be considered for those districts where schools were closed due to the epidemic.
Yet both Cuomo and De Blasio seem adamant that they won’t close the public school system – and even at schools where students or staff have tested positive, they would close those individual schools for only a day, and then consider whether to extend that period. See this article, about two schools sharing a building in the South Bronx which were closed for one day after the report of an infected student, which de Blasio called a “pinpoint” approach. The DOE has even apparently refused to close a school in Park Slope, even temporarily, where a parent tested positive after having gathered with other parents and school staff a week ago at an open school night before knowing he was infected.
At his press conference today, the Mayor said “We will fight tooth and nail to protect our schools – its where children are safe” and it allows parents to go to work. Yet does keeping schools open really “protect” them, or keep children and their families safe?
A reporter asked what parents who have medically fragile conditions keep their children at a distance. The Commission of the NYC Health Department Oxiris Barbot said no, CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Schools and coronavirus: listen to the experts