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NYC Schools Still Missing 77,000 Devices That Students Need For Learning
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David Cruz
Published Oct 16, 2020
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Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office
By
David Cruz
Published Oct 16, 2020
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New York City Public Schools are still lacking 77,000 learning devices like tablets and laptops, nearly a month after classes began, and fewer than 15% of students attending schools in person have consented to getting randomly tested for COVID-19.
These details on the rocky reopening of public schools across the five boroughs came from a long-awaited City Council hearing held by the Education and Health committees on Friday. It was the first such hearing that Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza testified at since schools reopened on a staggered basis beginning on September 21st. Councilmember Mark Treyger, chair of the education committee, was forced to delay the hearing that was originally scheduled on September 29th, the day middle school children were returning to school.
"How many requests are you in receipt of as of this moment for devices and internet as of today?" Treyger asked Department of Education deputy chief operating officer Lauren Siciliano.
"As of this moment we have about 77,000 requests, but again we then go and verify the need for the school so it's a constant evolving number," Siciliano replied.
Data released by the DOE on Thursday showed that schools comprised of more Black and Hispanic students had low student engagement during the spring when they transitioned completely to remote learning. In some cases, the devices are the only way for children to learn given that more than half of the city's one million public school students have opted for remote learning only.
"We engage with the school and to better understand which is a device that is needed in the hands of a student, which is a device that has been requested to replenish supply, and it's not uniform across the entire DOE," said Carranza.
Treyger pointed out that Mayor Bill de Blasio had been saying for weeks that every student who needed a device had gotten one.
"The fact that thousands of our kids, particularly from under-resourced communities still don't have a device is unacceptable and shameful. And I want to lay the fault squarely with the mayor and his office for being in denial about the severity of this issue," he said.
Carranza insisted during the hearing that the DOE has gone to unprecedented lengths to reopen the country's largest school system, including instituting social distancing protocols, constantly cleaning classrooms, and hiring some 400 nurses to meet a demand. The DOE recently announced that 100,000 iPads will be ordered, supplementing the inventory of 350,000 devices already in the DOE's supply. The DOE will also be ordering Apple external keyboards for students to better use an iPad.
Yet the DOE's answers to some of the councilmembers' questions were vague or incomplete.
Education officials couldn't provide percentages of students receiving virtual learning while inside school buildings, the number of teachers needed to ensure proper staffing levels, and the number of homeless students who are engaged in remote learning. Councilmembers also requested a district breakdown of the number of slots available under the city's Learning Bridges daycare program. While 30,000 slots have been filled, education officials were unable to answer how many slots have been filled for its most recent round of slots.
Carranza did reveal that the randomized testing protocol for public schools is showing a low rate of participation, with just 72,000 of 476,369 in-person students consenting to the program. That translates to 15% of students taking part in the randomized program. Students who do not participate in the program will be forced to be taught remotely. Carranza, was unable to provide the number of students who explicitly chose not to participate in the program.
Randomized testing, however, is just one part of the arsenal in combating COVID-19, according to Dr. Jay Varma, the Health Department's deputy commissioner for disease control.
"I am not concerned that during this current rollout that we don't have a very high level of consents, because I view our testing program as providing us a snapshot into the effectiveness of our prevention measures, but not really the full picture," said Varma.
Carranza said that more than 3,200 people in school communities have been tested within the so-called yellow zones, the area of concern instituted by the Cuomo administration that surround an orange and red zone. About 3,100 tests have been received with four of those cases turning out to be positive.
With worries of a second wave engulfing New York City, the question over whether the school system will completely shut down was raised by Bronx Councilmember Andrew Cohen. Varma stood confident that the school system will remain open so long as it abides by COVID-19 guidelines.
"I can't even find other places around the world that are doing as many interventions as we're doing," said Varma. "The only places that would be vastly superior jobs are those that have basically eliminated coronavirus from their countries. So that includes mainland China, New Zealand, Vietnam, places like that. In the absence of that, all the interventions that we're making are really the most critical that we possibly can and I have quite a lot of confidence that if we can maintain good adherence to those measures, and let's keep good adherence those measures that we can continue in-person learning throughout the year."
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schools reopening
David Cruz
David is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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