蜜桃影视

Averting a potential teacher strike, New York City will postpone the reopening of school for its 1.1 million students,聽from Sept. 10 to Sept. 21, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.

The delay was the culmination of a month of increasingly heated exchanges between the United Federation of Teachers and the mayor over how to safely reopen the nation鈥檚 largest school district. Two weeks ago, UFT President Michael Mulgrew issued a school reopening checklist, which included a mandate that staff and students get tested for COVID-19. He threatened legal action or a strike if stipulations weren鈥檛 met, and UFT leadership inched toward this week.

Tuesday鈥檚 compromise still leaves New York as the only big city school district in the country planning to return to in-person learning, only under a new timetable. Teachers without medical exemptions will show up at school buildings on Sept. 8 to start preparing for hybrid learning. From the 16th through the 20th, they鈥檒l check in with students about devices, Wi-Fi access and scheduling in what has been described as a kind of orientation. On the 21st, families who have opted into blended learning will start sending their kids to school, and remote instruction will begin for students doing distance-only learning. There is also a new, mandatory testing plan for schools: Every month, a randomly selected 10 to 20 percent of students and staff will get tested for COVID-19.

鈥淭he decision on whether to reopen a school building to students will be based on the UFT鈥檚 50-item safety plan,鈥� Mulgrew told UFT members in an email sent Tuesday. 鈥淪chool buildings or rooms that do not meet safety standards will remain closed.鈥�

Families and teachers interviewed by 蜜桃影视 said that while they found the announcement encouraging, they had a number of outstanding questions. Most doubted whether the added week and a half would be enough for the district鈥檚 roughly 1,800 schools to safely reopen on time.

Farah Despeignes, a former teacher and the president of District 8鈥檚 Community Education Council in the Bronx, was skeptical about whether the Department of Education will have made much progress on long-standing issues central to teacher and student safety 鈥� including ventilation and problematic school configurations 鈥� by Sept. 21.

鈥淭hese issues will not have disappeared,鈥� she said. 鈥淢aybe [the DOE] will have made dents. But these issues are real; they are structural. There are a lot of issues that are not going to be resolved by the 21st.鈥�

Despeignes鈥檚 family is one of 360,000 that have opted into remote-only learning this fall. She found it somewhat reassuring that the mayor, who until Tuesday was insisting that reopening Sept. 10 was best for the city, and Chancellor Richard Carranza are listening to parent and teacher concerns.

Despeignes said she spends much of her time these days dropping in on school town halls held by principals in her district, where she鈥檚 noticed that many parents are surprised to learn that school reopening will look very different this year, given COVID-19 protocols.

Mike Loeb, a seventh-grade science teacher at the Urban Institute of Math, a middle school in Despeignes鈥檚 district in the Bronx, shared some of her concerns.

As his school鈥檚 UFT representative, Loeb has been fielding questions from other teachers about the building鈥檚 ventilation system 鈥� a position for which he recognizes he鈥檚 vastly underqualified. 鈥淚鈥檓 not an expert in that field,鈥� said Loeb. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have an answer as to how we know if it鈥檚 good air.鈥� He hasn鈥檛 yet received his school鈥檚 ventilation report from the UFT.

Loeb is also worried about personal protective equipment and other supplies, given recent budget cuts. Teachers have been informed that they鈥檒l have all the masks and hand sanitizer that they need for the year, he said, 鈥渂ut there鈥檚 little trust in the DOE that they鈥檙e going to execute on that. What鈥檚 going to happen come Nov. 30? Are we still going to have the supplies we need?鈥�

Both Mulgrew and Mark Cannizzaro, president of the principals union, acknowledged the tight schedule and the challenges that remain.

The plan was among 鈥渢he most aggressive policies and greatest safeguards of any school system in the United States of America,鈥� Mulgrew said, adding, 鈥淚t is not going to be easy. We now have another difficult road to go down: the amount of work that is going to have to be done over the next couple of weeks, just to get all of our schools prepared and ready to go.鈥�

鈥淭he task before us is monumental,鈥� echoed Cannizzaro. 鈥淚t is incumbent on the DOE to seize this time in support of school leaders so that these additional days will provide a much needed opportunity to implement necessary safety protocols, program classes, and align all school staff towards critical goals for this unimaginable school year.鈥�

City Councilman Mark Treyger, who chairs the Education Committee, said in a statement that the delay was needed but came without a commitment of new funding to implement the safety standards and meet the needs of vulnerable students and families.

Nearly 73 percent of the city鈥檚 public school students , 20 percent have disabilities, and 13 percent are English learners.

鈥淲hat we have today is far from what we need to ensure that the inequities of remote learning are not perpetuated and deepened in this school year,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are well-publicized concerns around how hybrid learning will meet the needs of students with disabilities, students in temporary housing and multilingual learners, among others. There are many unanswered questions around child care and how working parents are supposed to make hybrid learning functional.鈥�

Since the pandemic struck in March, 20-year-old Sarshevack Mnahsheh, a 2017 graduate of the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science in the Bronx, has been helping his siblings with their schoolwork. These days, things are starting to feel a bit more relaxed for his family, he says. He tries to spend as much time as he can playing basketball outside. His younger siblings are excited to go back to school, he says. They鈥檙e relieved that they鈥檒l get to see their friends and that they won鈥檛 be hanging out, bored, at home as much.

Still, he has mixed feelings about schools reopening. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think students should be going back because of the corona situation,鈥� he says. 鈥淕oing back enables people to get sick 鈥斅爀veryone from their different spaces bringing it to one place. It鈥檚 weird to me that things are opening up so fast.鈥�

He hadn鈥檛 heard about the random testing, but he thinks his family won鈥檛 be very receptive to it. 鈥淲ho knows how they鈥檙e testing, and what they鈥檙e gonna do,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not something that鈥檚 immediately agreeable.鈥�

Under the safety agreement reached with the UFT, any student who refuses to be tested will be required to attend school remotely, and any staff member who fails to comply with mandated testing will be placed on unpaid leave.

Students or staff found to have the virus must quarantine for 14 days. City tracing teams will be sent to their school immediately to do contact tracing. The presence of a COVID-19 case confined to one class will result in the entire class moving to remote instruction; more than one case in a school will mean that the entire school will move to remote instruction, until the contact tracing is completed.

Although Despeignes and other leaders in her district shared some concerns about parents not trusting the idea of mandatory testing in school, she thinks they can work to dispel that fear by raising awareness at the community level.

鈥淓ducating them and making sure they know 鈥� it鈥檚 such an important thing to do,鈥� she said. Eventually, though, she believes, 鈥淚 think parents will buy into it.鈥�

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