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De Blasio Unveils Partial In-Person Learning Model For 2020-2021 School Year
By
Sophia Chang
Published Jul 8, 2020
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By
Sophia Chang
Published Jul 8, 2020
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New York City public schools will operate on a "blended learning" model that includes part-time in-person instruction this coming school year while the COVID-19 pandemic continues, assuming a plan put forth by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza is ultimately approved by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
“New York City students will be learning five days a week, whether it's in person, or at home," Carranza said at a news briefing on Wednesday. "Here's what will be different: Students will return in September in either a blended learning model or a fully remote learning model, if they so choose. Blended learning means students will be taught on site in school for part of the week, and will attend school remotely on the other days of the week.”
“This blended model is the kind of split-schedule model (and) is what we can do under current conditions,” de Blasio said. “And then let's hope and pray science helps us out with a vaccine, with a cure, or treatment.”
But following de Blasio's announcement, Cuomo told reporters that the state has set a July 31st deadline for school districts to submit plans for possibly reopening in the fall, and the state will make district-by-district decisions by August 7th on schools reopening in September.
Under de Blasio's proposal, each of New York City’s 1,606 public schools would be charged with implementing one of two models: one with the school population divided into two cohorts, or another option with the population divided into three cohorts.
The first model provides in-person learning for each of the two cohorts five days out of every two weeks. The second option provides in-person learning for each of the three cohorts five days out of every three weeks. The rest of the time, students will be enrolled in remote education.
NYC Mayor's Office
NYC Mayor's Office
“This is meant to give parents some semblance of predictability, for planning purposes,” Carranza said. The city Department of Education’s plan comes after surveying more than 400,000 families, de Blasio said: "75% of our parents said they want their kids back in the school buildings getting the very best education.”
But the DOE’s current plan for the city's 1.1 million public school students raised immediate questions of how working parents will handle remote education for their kids if they are not able to work from home, or if multiple siblings have different cohort schedules. The plan also did not mention what teachers with children of their own will do to work with the new schedule. There was no mention of testing protocols or what the DOE plans to do if any student, teacher, or staff member engaged in in-person learning tests positive for COVID-19.
Here’s what we know so far:
Health And Safety
While on campus, students and teachers will be asked to wear masks and remain six feet apart, Carranza said. “So we will be educating students. As I mentioned before we've done this already in our RECs ... where students are wearing their masks. They understand it's a matter of public safety," Carranza said. “We are not talking about punishing kids. We want to make sure it's an educationally sound approach, and it's gonna be a lot of encouragement.”
The DOE and the city’s School Construction Authority are also seeking alternative classroom space to accommodate as many students as possible. “The use of large spaces for classes -- for example, cafeterias, auditoriums, gymnasiums, in some cases, enclosed outdoor spaces,” Carranza said. “We are working with our School Construction Authority, our community partners to identify non-DOE space that could possibly be used as well.”
School facilities will be “deep cleaned on a nightly basis with electrostatic disinfectant sprayers and HVAC systems are being upgraded as we speak to ensure better ventilation in all of our schools,” Carranza said.
These upgrades need to happen against the backdrop of nearly $642 million in budget cuts from the DOE next year. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump threatened on Wednesday to cut off federal aid to schools unless they fully reopen this fall and said he opposed school reopening guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as being too costly.
The administrators of schools that are co-located -- including charter schools -- will need to work out on an individual basis their scheduling needs: “It’s important that we're supporting the principals as they're working through some of these details. For example, one-way hallways. How do you determine which hallway, and which way is it going, in which way is it coming back?” Carranza said. "A lot of those little details will really happen at the school site level but our direction is going to be that safety is universal for everyone.”
Remote Learning Options
Families that opt out of in-person learning completely can enroll in full-time remote learning at any point during the school year, Carranza said. Each school quarter, remote-learning families will have the option to enroll in-person learning.
Carranza said teachers and staff who do not want -- or will not be able -- to teach in-person instruction can teach the remote learning curriculum. “We are also launching in the coming weeks a portal where... all of our staff can apply for an accommodation, based on any underlying medical conditions that they may have that may make it difficult for in-person learning,” he said. "It's important to understand that someone that applies for an accommodation is still working. So when it gets to the question of 'then who is going to be conducting the remote learning,' there will be a modicum of our staff members that will be working from home.”
The remote learning curriculum, which has been criticized by some students for lack of interaction with their teachers, is also going to include more live instruction, Carranza said, though he did not specify for how long.
“Obviously we don't want students or adults sitting in front of a computer screen for hours, eight hours a day. So again it's not only the live instruction portion of the question, but it's also the health and safety portion of the question, and the social emotional learning part," he said. "But we have heard parent voices and we are already implementing that this summer for summer school."
Meanwhile, the DOE is identifying more employees who could be enlisted to help teach: “We are in the process of right now identifying every single person in the DOE that is not currently in a classroom as a teacher, but has an underlying pedagogical credential and identifying the critical work that we're doing, because some of those people might end up in classrooms,” Carranza said.
Resources For Students And Specialized Education Programs
Carranza said “social emotional learning and trauma-informed care” will be woven into instruction in this extraordinary year for New York City’s students.
“It is important to make space for these experiences in the new normal and recognize that our new normal is not what any of us have been used to teachers, staff, students must all have time to and the support they need to re-acclimate to school and adapt to these necessary changes,” he said. “So social emotional learning and trauma informed care will be integrated into school programming throughout the school year, and all schools will prioritize mental health support.”
For students with Individualized Education Programs and students who are English Language Learners, “in person services will be offered to students with IEPs who opt to receive them to the greatest extent possible, and multilingual learners will receive an instructional program that ensures continued progress in language development, and the areas of knowledge.”
Some students with disabilities will be enrolled in in-person instruction full-time if possible, while District 75 students will have their own scheduling options to choose from, according to Chalkbeat.
What Some Teachers Think Of The DOE Plan
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the UFT teacher’s union, sent out a terse statement immediately after the announcement: “Re-opening our schools will be a complex and difficult process, but we are not going to be careless with our students, their families, and our educators.”
Liat Olenick of the MORE-UFT caucus of the union said the DOE plan sounds unrealistic about cleaning standards -- schools aren't going to be able to keep up with the cleaning protocols and the "budget cuts have severely limited our ability to respond to this."
Olenick also said the plan needed more input from parents and teachers especially about remote learning -- "for one thing, they should survey teachers and parents in-depth about remote learning: what worked, and didn't, and also they should seriously consider outdoor learning,” she said.
"School buildings should open when the city really has the pandemic under control, not before," Olenick added.
Kate Guttwilig, a fourth grade public school teacher in Hell’s Kitchen, said the blended learning plan means she’s going to end up with a classroom of students that she barely knows. “I do believe that in-person instruction is essential, especially if I have a brand new class of 30 students that I don't know; how will I get to know them online?,” she said.
Dan Bannon, who teaches at the Bronx Leadership Academy II in Mott Haven, said vulnerable communities in the borough will be placed at greater risk with the DOE's plan. He noted the borough's high rate of diabetes, a common co-morbidity linked to those with a higher chance of getting infected with coronavirus.
"Is that under consideration: how are we helping protect these communities, not just pushing kids into school?" Bannon said. "I understand the importance of our parents having to go back to work and that's one aspect of it. I understand the importance of having our students in the building. I miss our students, I miss teaching, I miss being in the classroom desperately. But is it worth my life for my family's life for my students life or their family's lives to get us back into some sense of normalcy?"
What’s Next?
The DOE will release schedule options and budgets to school principals Wednesday, and principals are expected to hold parent info meetings in July to discuss individual school plans.
Notable dates provided by the DOE and the Governor's office:
July 15th: Parent portal opens for families to sign up for fully remote instruction
July 16th: First virtual Family Information Session
July 31st: Deadline for school districts to submit reopening plans to the state
August 7th: Deadline for families to opt for fully-remote instruction and staff to submit medical accommodation
August 7th: Deadline for the state to make district-by-district decisions on schools reopening in September
With David Cruz and Annie Todd
Tagged
new york city
reopening
schools reopening
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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