Risks and benefits in reopening NYC schools & how fewer than half of parents appear to have decided
On Friday, the NYC Department of Education posted the latest update to their reopening plan. It contained two big revisions from the one previously released: Now schools will be able apply to exempt themselves from providing in-person or blended learning to all the students whose parents opt into that choice, if they can show either of the following criteria are true:
- “The recommended models are not feasible given space, staffing, family choice and expected in-person attendance.”
- “Schools have unique programmatic needs that must be addressed, to better meet the needs of the community and the proposed exception has staff and parental support. “
In these “limited” cases, schools will be asked to explain why existing models do not meet their community’s needs and how the proposed model better responds to their ability to program their space with existing staffing.
I would guess that most of the large high schools, many of which are overcrowded and in which scheduling will be challenging to say the least, will opt into remote learning only.
Other schools may apply to give preferences to in-person learning to certain populations, such as students with disabilities, English Language Learners, or those in temporary housing. The DOE says that in any case, “ no other group of students can be prioritized in a way that is to the detriment of students with disabilities for in-person instruction. As long as all students with disabilities’ needs are met, other groups can be prioritized for in-person instruction over the general population.”
As experts have pointed out previously , it makes sense to prioritize elementary school kids, along with especially vulnerable students as listed above, for in-person learning, both because they tend to do especially poorly with remote instruction and also because younger kids have been shown to transmit the virus less effectively.
The Governor’s benchmark for safe reopening, following Johns Hopkins and others, is 5%, while the Mayor’s is a less restrictive 3%. Many public health experts and epidemiologists agree that NYC schools seem to be in the best position of any large district in the country to offer face-to-face learning, with an COVID positivity rate of only about one percent.
Our positivity rate is very low and the lowest we are likely to see until there is an effective vaccine, which could take a year or more to be developed and widely adopted. By borough, according to the state, the current positivity rates ranges from 1.3% in the Bronx, .9% in Staten Island and Brooklyn, .8% in Queens and .6% in Manhattan.
However, and this is a big however, schools should be reopened only if they can adopt rigorous safety and health protocols.
One of the biggest risks to safety right now is the poor ventilation in many NYC schools. Ventilation is a critical issue, as closed and stuffy rooms will intensify the risks of CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Risks and benefits in reopening NYC schools & how fewer than half of parents appear to have decided
