More Questions than Answers as Schools Reopen
In New York City, where there’s an array of contradictory policies, it doesn’t seem like officials are actually serious about eradicating the virus.
BY JAKE JACOBS
Last school year, with the pandemic raging in New York City, my school’s in-person attendance, capped at half capacity, fluctuated from only about 15 to 25 percent until Spring, when it averaged about 35 to 40 percent, despite continuous coaxing by Mayor Bill de Blasio for parents to send kids back in. This was before the more contagious Delta variant became dominant across the city.
This year, New York City schools are preparing to reopen September 13 while the Delta variant throws much of the previous guidance up in the air. But unanswered questions are causing angst among teachers and parents alike.
The COVID-19 positivity rate was around one percent on May 24, when de Blasio made an early commitment to full in-person classes on a five day schedule for the 2021-22 school year. That rate has since jumped to almost four percent; nationally, children make up over 14 percent of cases as the United States approaches 100,000 new infections per day.
As calls for a remote option grew louder, at the end of July, the New York City Department of Education began mulling a remote option for medically fragile students or those with immunocompromised relatives. But, confusingly, on August 4, the city chancellor said remote learning would be an option “only for emergencies.” This was then contradicted by de Blasio, who stated that “the plan is to have all our kids back.”
Some 64 percent of large school systems across the country—including Chicago, Hawaii, Houston, Miami, Cleveland, Des Moines, Iowa, and Washington, D.C.—have announced different versions of remote learning. Corporate virtual schools are also proliferating in states like North Carolina, and some charter school networks are proposing all-virtual academies.
A guidance memo published on July 29 by the New York State Education Department stated that they were “anxious to receive health and safety guidance” from the governor, health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and county departments of health.
The following Monday, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who previously relished the spotlight of national COVID-19 briefings, abdicated his crucial decision-making role, leaving the health and safety headaches to local districts. Because Cuomo resigned after a report documented his sexual harassment, the State Education Department doubled down by insisting that the New York State Department of Health provide guidance to schools so they can develop local policies. So far, they have not.
Teachers, myself included, know we may be asked to teach in-person and remotely simultaneously, again, with no planning time or resources provided. New York City parents even marched to demand a remote option, and the United Federation of Teachers—the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers—also disagreed with the mayor, echoing the national union’s support of a remote option for parents nationwide.
Though teachers have had priority access to vaccinations in New York City since January, the numbers who remain unvaccinated are disputed. MSNBC claimed only 40 percent of the city’s education workforce was vaccinated, while New York officials pegged the number at 60 percent.
Among parents there remains sharp disagreement, while teachers continue to question specific procedures for full resumption of in-person learning. Other parents, including almost 50 percent of Black parents, have preferred to keep their kids remote or hybrid. In my building, it was higher among all students.
This poses a lot of unanswered questions: Shouldn’t teachers be working now on improvements to remote learning? Will all students have devices? Will a new reduced-cost broadband plan for households on public assistance solve last year’s rampant wifi problems? Will the inevitable sniffles, coughs, and sneezes result in large swaths of students (and staff) being sent home?
We have seen no announced updates to school closure or contact tracing policies, though it would seem necessary as the Delta variant is 1,000 times more replicable in the body, making it far more transmissible than previous strains. At present, New York City district’s policy does not require teachers or students exposed to the virus in a classroom to quarantine if they are fully vaccinated, which runs counter to CDC data suggesting vaccinated people can transmit the virus as much as unvaccinated people.
The spread of cases may make remote learning inevitable this year, as one case on the first day of school could potentially mean a whole classroom quarantined seven to fourteen days, or until a negative test is documented.
After the school year began on August 3 in Gwinnett County, Georgia, more than 253 cases were confirmed after three days of school. Similar stories are playing out across other Georgia counties, but even bigger mass quarantines hit Hillsborough County, where 2.7 percent of students and over 300 staff members were quarantined and across the state of Mississippi, about 5% of students quarantined after the first week.
This brings up the battle royale over masking. Many experts recommend better masks in light of the Delta variant, such as N95 or KN95 masks. (Utah, for example, is planning to make KN95s available to all students.) On the other side, some parents, and at least three states are crusading against any masking. (In New York City, de Blasio is requiring masks in schools, but it’s up to schools and individual classroom teachers to enforce the policy.)
Recognizing the need for fresh air replenishment—especially in the thousands of classrooms with no mechanical ventilation—the United Federation of Teachers announced that cafeterias will probably be “breezy” this year. They also said schools could achieve adequate air exchange, when it gets too cold to keep windows open, by putting air purifiers into classrooms. (The cost-ineffective air purifier in my classroom last year was simply too noisy to use at the highest two settings, yet the policy for the upcoming year is to deploy two such purifiers, with power cords laying across the floor.)
These temporary half-measures underscore the vast scope of the ventilation problem. About half of U.S. schools have inadequate and often unhealthy ventilation systems. The CDC estimated 14 million school days per year are lost due to asthma flare-ups exacerbated by poor indoor air quality. With over 36,000 schools in similar need of upgrades or repairs, it’s evident a national solution is sorely needed.
Other issues remain unresolved. Will breakfast and snacks still be provided in-classroom if 6 feet cannot be maintained? Will students rotate rooms or will teachers rotate? How will traffic in hallways be managed? Will there be limits on bathroom use? And will regulations consider the frequent close contact between students before and after school? Will there be self-quarantine or testing required after travel? How will rules be enforced?
Also unanswered: will students go back to pencil and paper, with handouts, books, and other supplies touched and shared? Will gyms go back to full capacity indoors? Will there be close-contact sports like basketball?
Daily cleaning protocol is supposed to remain in place, but last year the rules often didn’t match the reality. Will we at last keep soap and hand towels stocked at all times? Will twice the PPE be provided and replenished?
Then, what about all the emergency funding allocated for academic recovery? The much-anticipated funding to reduce class size was severely cut, from a proposed $250 million down to $18 million. The pilot will only put about 140 teachers into 72, or just 4 percent, of schools.
This coming school year, it seems, will be filled with twists and turns and contradictions—from classrooms overcrowded with kids who are supposed to remain three feet apart, to sagging masks, to dueling factions politicizing the health crisis to pass other regulations, as was the case in this Colorado district, banning masking and Critical Race Theory, in the same board meeting.
New York City is gambling that fully opening schools will not cause the mass spread of Delta and lead to yet another lockdown but rather that there will only be a manageable smattering of cases and rolling quarantines. But it’s frontline workers and low-income families of color who face the greatest risk and school disruption if the mayor has guessed wrong.
With child hospitalizations hitting all time highs and experts suggesting the new threshold for herd immunity is now 80 percent, I question what New York’s goal is this year. As we work through all these policy details, are we actually serious about eradicating the virus, or by “living with it” are we simply prolonging it?