Parent and educator concerns on the reopening of schools from our online survey and conference
Below is a letter we sent last week from Class Size Matters and NYC Kids PAC to Chancellor Rosa, the Board of Regents and the NY State Education Commissioner, with copies to Chancellor Carranza and other education decision makers, highlighting some of the most important concerns and ideas offered by parents, teachers and others who contributed to our online survey and our June 20 conference on the reopening of schools. Below that is a more detailed summary of the views expressed in the form of a power point.
The online survey garnered the detailed thoughts of nearly 400 parents and educators, CBO reps and concerned New Yorkers, while the conference featured ten break out groups with nearly one hundred participants. What was clear from those who responded was that while most parents want to send their kids to school in the fall, given the highly deficient nature of remote learning, there is a strong minority who would prefer to keep them at home until there is a reliable vaccine. This is both because some family have pre-existing conditions that make them more vulnerable to Covid, and because some kids do better with online learning than others. We recommended to the Regents that families and teachers should have that choice.
A top concern of most everyone was whether the schools will have the funding to provide the health and safety protections, teachers and space necessary for social distancing and smaller classes. These concerns are further reinforced by the severe budget cuts and staffing freeze that will be imposed on NYC schools next year, and the egregious lack of funding by the federal government and the state to deal with the COVID crisis.
This was made worse by the fact that Governor Cuomo hijacked the federal funds that were supposed to go to schools to deal with the pandemic to fill holes in the state budget, CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Parent and educator concerns on the reopening of schools from our online survey and conference
