This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated September 24, 2021
All city Students returned to school September 13. Well, not all students. My kids, for instance, were not there, as our family had our own COVID encounter, requiring our kids to miss their first week of school in quarantine. Some parents did not send their kids into city public schools, for various reasons related to safety concerns.
Most of the city’s million-plus public school students were back and Mayor de Blasio has made clear that he has no plans to offer a remote option. Despite 80 of the county’s 100 largest school districts offering one, New York City – the nation’s largest district – is in the company of districts from states with the worst COVID figures in holding firm that remote learning will not be offered.
Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas account for the vast majority of districts not offering remote learning. They are also among the worst in the nation when it comes to COVID statistics related to children. In the year and a half from the start of the pandemic until August 5, 2021, these six states had a total of 92 children die of COVID-related illness. In the six weeks since then, they have lost 139 children to this virus. New York City should not be emulating the practices of these areas when it comes to our kids’ health.
By the end of the first week of school, the Department of Education reported that there were over 800 confirmed cases and 367 classroom closures, meaning one in four schools reported at least one COVID case and one in ten closed two or more classrooms. Of 1,239 positive PCR tests across the city on September 17, 255 were reported by the DOE COVID Situation Room. That means 20 percent of all cases that day were linked to city schools.
One Manhattan school had so many staff cases they were closed completely. When asked about it at a press conference three days later, neither the mayor, the head of Test and Trace, or the Schools Chancellor had any information.
At the same time, Mayor de Blasio announced that testing would move from bi-weekly to weekly, though the percentage of those tested would remain just ten percent and it would not be mandatory. In addition, unvaccinated students exposed to a positive student would no longer need to quarantine if they were deemed to have been masked and three feet apart.
“Michelle Alexander, who was an educator at the school, died from COVID in April of last year at the age of 29, devastating staff, parents, and children.”
The fact is, students eat lunch without masks and three feet of distance has been especially hard to maintain in schools that were already overcrowded before the pandemic. This threshold is in alignment with CDC recommendations, but when asked last month why New York City schools were going farther, de Blasio touted that it was because he felt the need for our kids to have the “gold standard.”
Councilman Mark Treyger, Chair of the City Council Education Committee, shared that he received reports that some city health officials did not agree with the mayor’s decision to weaken the quarantine policy. It is clear quarantine protocols are being watered down to keep more kids in school and avoid so many classrooms being closed, not because it is best for students’ wellbeing and certainly not a gold standard.
As the September 27 vaccine mandate for DOE staff approaches, 13 percent of teachers were still unvaccinated as of September 21 and 28,000 of the DOE’s 130,000 employees had yet to get their first shot. This presents yet another challenge for schools that already have enough to deal with and may now face staffing shortages.
P.S. 194, on the border of Sheepshead Bay and Gerritsen Beach, had many positive cases reported last week and was forced to close multiple classrooms, yet it has still been unclear if any investigation has been undertaken into a possible outbreak. Michelle Alexander, who was an educator at the school, died from COVID in April of last year at the age of 29, devastating staff, parents, and children. We owe it to all of the school communities like P.S. 194 to take every action to prioritize the health and safety of children and staff, not just to be singularly focused on keeping them all in the building.
