54% Of NYC Public School Students Opt For Remote Learning. Testing Finds Few Cases So Far

 

GOTHAMIST

• NYC Schools Still Missing 77,000 Devices That Students Need For Learning
• 
  

A week after the city Department of Education showed over half the entire student body had opted for remote learning, more students are following suit, according to the latest numbers.

Figures released by the DOE show that another roughly 16,000 students have abandoned in-person learning over completely learning in front of a screen for now. This brings the number of students exclusively learning at home to 541,469. Parents can have their children enrolled in remote learning at any point, while opting back into in-person learning at only occurs select times, dependent on school availability.

DOE statistics also show that 72% of Asian students have chosen to go fully remote, while 54% of Black and 53% of Hispanic students are following suit.

Ahead of the updated remote learning statistics, Mayor Bill de Blasio responded to a news report showing more low-income students are choosing to go fully remote over hybrid learning, undercutting his argument that in-person learning is better for low-income students who the kind of nurturing and support public schools offer.

"We certainly see a number of parents choosing to send their kids to school right now, and we see a number of parents holding back, waiting to see a little bit more what's going on," said de Blasio. "We, obviously – parents know there's going to be an opt-in period coming up to make a decision to come back in. There's a lot of different pieces. So, I think what many parents are doing is watching, learning, talking to other parents who have sent their kids to school, making their decisions."

Randomized COVID Testing In NYC Public Schools Finds Few Cases So Far

[Updated 3:45 p.m.] New figures from the city Department of Education’s randomized testing program show extremely low infection rates among school staffers and students who were tested.

The DOE reported that 28 of 16,298 tests performed since testing began on October 9th came back positive for COVID-19, with 20 staffers and eight students infected. The DOE says there are another 350 tests whose results remain outstanding.

The results suggest that the city’s efforts to open schools without increasing viral spread -- including a staggered schedule, socially distant classes, nightly electrostatic cleaning, and temperature checks -- may be working, so far.

Separate from the city's randomized testing program, the state's school COVID dashboard shows 198 NYC public school students have tested positive for COVID-19 since September 9th.

The city's randomized testing protocol went into effect on October 9th, several weeks after the start of in-person classes, a stipulation the United Federation of Teachers demanded as part of the city’s reopening plan. Under the plan, 10% to 20% of a school community's population will be tested monthly after submitting a consent form. Students who do not consent will have to transition to full remote learning unless they agree to do so.

Students and teachers found to be infected are expected to quarantine for 14 days. The rule also applies to students and teachers sharing the same classroom. School buildings where someone tests positive for COVID-19 are required to close for 24 hours to ensure the entire building is deep-cleaned before allowing anyone to re-enter.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered students and teachers in yellow zone schools, which have not closed, to be tested weekly instead of monthly.

Teachers at a recent protest outside Hunter College High School. PROFESSIONAL STAFF CONGRESS

Teachers At Hunter College Campus Schools Threaten Strike After Four People Test Positive For COVID-19

11:15 a.m.: A week after four people enrolled at Hunter College Campus Schools contracted COVID-19, the union representing teachers at the school known as the "Brick Prison" is demanding immediate safety improvements from CUNY after four people from the school contracted COVID-19.

The union, Professional Staff Congress -- which represents 130 Hunter teachers and 30,000 other CUNY faculty and staff -- did not rule out the possibility of a strike at a news conference on Sunday.

HCCS is a public school serving kindergarten through 12th grade students that falls under the purview of the CUNY school system. It opened for in-person learning last month following contentious negotiations -- including the threat of a strike -- over safety improvements, which included the installation of quality air filters at the Upper East Side building, an armory comprised of windowless classrooms that is currently serving only K-8th grade students.

“If these things are not addressed, we will have to go back to that strike-authorization vote," PSC president Barbara Bowen said at the news conference. For now, Bowen is once again considering taking CUNY back to court.

NYC Public And Private Schools In "Hotspot" ZIP Codes Will Go Remote On Tuesday

 

GOTHAMIST

A family walks in Borough Park on October 4, 2020 KATHY WILLENS/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK

Public and private schools in Brooklyn and Queens ZIP codes with high COVID-19 positivity rates will shut down in-person learning and move to 100% remote learning, starting on Tuesday. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the decision on Monday, a day after Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed the move to mitigate the spiking spread of the coronavirus in those neighborhoods.

The mayor had requested state approval to close schools in nine ZIP codes in Brooklyn and Queens, which would include 100 public schools and 200 private schools, in addition to closing non-essential businesses on Tuesday. Cuomo said on Monday that he spoke to de Blasio, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Teachers' Federation, before his press conference to discuss the decision."I would not going to or recommend any NYC family send their child to a school" in those areas, he said.

Under de Blasio's proposal, the schools would go all-remote for at least two weeks in the following neighborhoods where positivity rates range from 3% to over 8%: Borough Park (11219), Gravesend (11223), Midwood (11230), Bensonhurst (11204), Flatlands (11210), Gerritsen Beach/Homecrest/Sheepshead Bay (11229) in Brooklyn; and Far Rockaway (11691), Kew Gardens (11415), Kew Gardens Hills (11367) in Queens.

The map above shows where Mayor de Blasio recommends shutdowns of schools and all non-essential businesses, or partial shutdowns of high-risk activities like indoor dining, gyms, and pools.

Outside PS 217 in Midwood—which would close under the mayor’s plan—on Monday morning, some parents said they hadn’t heard the news. Others called it whiplash inducing. 

“My view is that the cause for the potential closure is not within the schools, it’s within surrounding areas,” said Zach Bernstein. “I think it should be looked at more thoughtfully because it has an enormous impact on the students, to be going back and forth between different models, and it’s not the schools themselves that are causing the issue.” 

PS 217 in Midwood JESSICA GOULD / WNYC

Another parent, Miriam Coleman, said she’s glad officials are making decisions based on the rising case numbers. “I’m relieved that they are being responsive to it and they’re making that decision for us,” she said. “But all the indecision around it has been so frustrating.”

Other parents wondered about the effectiveness of the move given that so many students and staff commute in and out of the communities for school or jobs. Tazin Azad, a parent leader in the same Midwood zip code, has been advocating for fully remote learning across the system, and especially in the areas where cases are rising. “There’s no boundaries in how this virus operates,” she said, noting the geographic lines dividing ZIP code can’t contain COVID-19. 

Cuomo did allow that more schools might be added because some students in the hotspot schools could attend schools outside the nine ZIP codes. As for why he decided the schools should be closed on Tuesday, and not Wednesday as de Blasio had recommended, the governor said that Stringer, Johnson, and Mulgrew agreed schools should be closed as soon as possible. De Blasio had proposed Wednesday in order to give children another day of in-person learning.

When asked if the issue stemmed from compliance issues at yeshivas in the Orthodox community, de Blasio said this morning on CNN, "I think it is bigger issue across these nine ZIP codes that really have a wide range, diverse range of New Yorkers in them. We have to get people into the basic practice of wearing masks, socially distancing, really following the rules that have worked... I know we can do it in these nine ZIP codes, but I think this is something where people have to remember, again, those rules work and we have to be devoted to them."

Parents are quitting their jobs to keep up with their kids’ online schooling, which will slow the recovery.

“According to research that Brevan Howard Asset Management recently shared with its investors, about 4.3 million U.S. workers could find themselves staying home unless they find other child-care arrangements. If those parents are counted among the unemployed, it would boost the unemployment rate by 2.6 percentage points,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “That would be a sharper increase than occurred in both the 1990-91 and 2001 recessions, though smaller than what occurred in the 2007-09 downturn, the researchers said. A recent analysis by Barclays economist Jonathan Millar and colleagues found that the closures of all schools from September to December 2020 would result in a reduction of U.S. gross domestic product in 2020 on the order of between 0.4% and 0.8%. That compares with an inflation-adjusted GDP decline of 0.1% in 1991 and a slight increase in 2001.” 

This article has been updated to reflect that it's unclear how many schools will be closed.

Beacon High School Is Half White. That’s Why Students Walked Out. More than 300 students at the selective public high school, one of New York City’s most prestigious, protested its admissions policies.

NY TIMES

Naia Timmons, a junior from Harlem, stood surrounded by classmates in the middle of the street outside Beacon High School as hail began to fall.

She shouted into a bullhorn: “I continue to recognize the privilege I had of escaping the system that many of my friends could not.” Naia identifies as black and white.

Her classmates chanted “End Jim Crow” and “Education is a right, not just for the rich and white.”

Roughly 300 students walked out of Beacon on Monday to protest its high-stakes admissions process, which they said has exacerbated segregation in the nation’s largest school system.

The protest at Beacon, one of New York City’s most selective public schools, illustrates the widening scope of the push for school integration. It has shifted away from the narrow issue of how few black and Hispanic students are admitted to the city’s eight specialized high schools, including Stuyvesant.

Beacon’s student population is about half white, a striking anomaly in a public school system that is nearly 70 percent black and Hispanic. Beacon is not a specialized high school — it has no admissions test — but its highly competitive admissions process requires students to assemble a portfolio of middle school work, admissions essays and high standardized test scores and grades. It is one of the most selective schools in New York: Last year, there were over 5,800 applications for 360 ninth-grade seats.

Beacon has a higher percentage of black and Hispanic students than Stuyvesant — about 32 percent compared to 4 percent at the specialized school — but also a higher percentage of white students, fewer Asian students and a lower percentage of students living in poverty. The school’s parent-teacher organization raised over $685,000 for the school last year, according to data released on Monday.


Earlier this fall, thousands of parents lined up outside Beacon for hours in the rain on a Tuesday afternoon, just to get a glimpse inside the school. The application deadline for the city’s public high schools is this Friday.

After Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to diversify schools failed this summer in the State Legislature — which controls admissions to the specialized schools — attention began to move to admissions policies in the high-profile schools that Mr. de Blasio actually oversees. Mr. de Blasio’s daughter, Chiara, attended Beacon.

The high school, in Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan, is now at the center of a push for large-scale desegregation that Mr. de Blasio’s administration has not endorsed.

Like A Sneak In the Night, Cuomo Played Pivotal Role in Charter School Push

 



Photo by Nathaniel Brooks

 N.Y. TIMES

It was a frigid February day in Albany, and leaders of New York City’s charter school movement were anxious. They had gone to the capital to court lawmakers, but despite a boisterous showing by parents, there seemed to be little clarity about the future of their schools.

Then, as they were preparing to head home, an intermediary called with a message: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet.

To their surprise, Mr. Cuomo offered them 45 minutes of his time, in a private conference room. He told them he shared their concern about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambivalence toward charter schools and offered to help, according to a person who attended but did not want to be identified as having compromised the privacy of the meeting.

 

In the days that followed, the governor’s interest seemed to intensify. He instructed charter advocates to organize a large rally in Albany, the person said. The advocates delivered, bringing thousands of parents and students, many of them black, Hispanic, and from low-income communities, to the capital in early March, and eclipsing a pivotal rally for Mr. de Blasio taking place at virtually the same time.

 


Mayor Bill de Blasio talked about prekindergarten at another rally that same day, with Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker. Credit Mike Groll/Associated Press 

The moment proved to be a turning point, laying the groundwork for a deal reached last weekend that gave New York City charter schools some of the most sweeping protections in the nation, including a right to space inside public buildings. And interviews with state and city officials as well as education leaders make it clear that far from being a mere cheerleader, the governor was a potent force at every turn, seizing on missteps by the mayor, a fellow Democrat, and driving legislation from start to finish.

As the governor worked to solidify support in Albany, his efforts were amplified by an aggressive public relations and lobbying effort financed by a group of charter school backers from the worlds of hedge funds and Wall Street, some of whom have also poured substantial sums into Mr. Cuomo’s campaign (he is up for re-election this fall). The push included a campaign-style advertising blitz that cost more than $5 million and attacked Mr. de Blasio for denying space to three charter schools.

 

Eva S. Moskowitz, left, founder of Success Academy Charter Schools, led a rally Tuesday in Albany, while Mayor Bill de Blasio, who differs with her, led a separate demonstration. Credit Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times        

 

Charter school leaders had built a formidable political operation over the course of a decade, hiring top-flight lobbyists and consultants. They had an ally in former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, but Mr. de Blasio promised a sea change, saying that he would charge rent to charter schools that had large financial backing, and that he would temporarily forbid new schools from using public space.

In public, the mayor largely ignored the outcry. At his prekindergarten rally, before a smaller crowd at the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany, Mr. de Blasio spoke about the value of early education. Not far away, a much larger crowd of charter school supporters was gathered on the steps of the State Capitol. In an act that his aides later said was spontaneous, Mr. Cuomo joined the mass of parents and students.

“You are not alone,” he told the roaring crowd. “We will save charter schools.”

Charter schools — privately run, but with taxpayers paying the tuition — have become popular nationwide among Democratic and Republican leaders, as well as with tens of thousands of low-income parents who submit to kindergarten lotteries every year. They are also popular among Wall Street leaders who see charter schools, which often do not have unions to bargain with and have relative freedom from regulation, as a successful alternative to traditional public schools. But many Democrats, including the mayor, have sought to slow their spread, contending that they are taking dollars and space from other public schools. Pro-charter advocacy groups, including Families for Excellent Schools, StudentsFirstNY and the New York City Charter School Center, met regularly to plot strategy. Increasingly, they turned to state officials.

 

A lot was riding on the debate for Mr. Cuomo. A number of his largest financial backers, some of the biggest names on Wall Street, also happened to be staunch supporters of charter schools. According to campaign finance records, Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from charter school supporters, including William A. Ackman, Carl C. Icahn, Bruce Kovner and Daniel Nir.

Kenneth G. Langone, a founder of Home Depot who sits on a prominent charter school board, gave $50,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign last year. He said that when the governor asked him to lead a group of Republicans supporting his re-election, he agreed because of Mr. Cuomo’s support for charter schools.

“Every time I am with the governor, I talk to him about charter schools,” Mr. Langone said in an interview. “He gets it.”

It was not until late February, shortly before the rally on the steps of the Capitol, that a full-fledged battle broke out.

Mr. de Blasio, reviewing plans for school space, had decided to deny it to three schools run by Success Academy Charter Schools, a high-performing network founded by Eva S. Moskowitz, a former city councilwoman. While he allowed the vast majority of charter schools to continue using public space, many supporters of Ms. Moskowitz’s schools were outraged.

Daniel S. Loeb, the founder of the hedge fund Third Point and the chairman of Success Academy’s board, began leaning on Wall Street executives for donations. Later this month, he will host a fund-raiser for Success Academy at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan; tickets run as high as $100,000 a table.

The governor and his staff worked with Republicans in the State Senate and others to come up with a package of protections for charter schools in the city. He was already said to be displeased with Mr. de Blasio for rejecting his compromise offer on prekindergarten funding.

Mr. Cuomo did not mention charter schools in his State of the State address, but now, with Mr. de Blasio under assault and charter advocates behind him, he pushed for a sweeping deal.

The proposed legislation included provisions to reverse Mr. de Blasio’s decisions on school space, and it required the city to provide public classrooms to new and expanding charter schools or contribute to the cost of renting private buildings. It also suggested increasing per-pupil funding for charter schools and allowing them to operate prekindergarten programs.

At the same time, Mr. de Blasio was struggling to move beyond the controversy. He began reaching out to supporters of charter schools on Wall Street. And at the urging of Hillary Rodham Clinton, former President Bill Clinton phoned Mr. de Blasio to offer his advice.

In Albany, the forces that typically mobilized against charter schools were unusually subdued. The teachers’ unions and Sheldon Silver, the State Assembly speaker, were focused on winning more school aid, and Mr. de Blasio was in the midst of recalibrating his message, leaving little incentive for charter opponents to speak out.

-----