Politicians, parents and a pandemic: Families are stuck in the middle as the school year approaches
My kids are asking about school, and I honestly don’t know what to tell them.
Donald Trump, who’s been ranting about moving the election because of the virus, also keeps raving about how schools need to open to help his chances in that election. He’s right that without kids going to school, there’s no chance of opening the economy and the country back up. But with no vaccine and no national plan on his watch, most of the nation’s largest districts have already announced it’ll be Zoom school again in September.
New York City is the big exception. Here was Mayor de Blasio on Friday morning, laying out his plan for partially reopening our 1,800 public schools, so long as the city’s rolling rate of positive coronavirus tests remains below 3%:
“Everything we do is going to be focused on health and safety — health and safety for our kids, our families, our educators, our school staff,” he said, with his team acting “not just as leaders, but as parents — what we would need and expect for our own kids is exactly the way we’ve approached this.” Hizzoner stressed that “we’ve made it an absolute cardinal rule that all these specific plans have been talked through with the teacher’s union constantly.”
And here was United Federation of Teachers boss Michael Mulgrew Friday afternoon, days after its national union said it would support any local striking against reopening plans: “The standards the city proposed — for protection, testing and closing of schools and classrooms — are not enough,” and “even if there are stronger safety standards in place, we still have grave concerns about the city’s ability to enforce them effectively in every school.”
Principals, who have largely been left to work out their own reopening plans, echoed that message, with the head of their union saying “we have serious concerns about what has been communicated to school leaders so far regarding safety protocols and instructional designs as well as the city’s ability to provide schools with the necessary resources to implement their plan.”
I’d joke that’s at least a shift from Andrew Cuomo stepping all over de Blasio’s news hours later, but there’s nothing funny about this and anyways the governor did it again later in the afternoon, declaring it was ”unfortunate” that the city was announcing its plan just days before the governor will decide whether or not to approve it.
Parents have until Friday to decide whether or not we want our kids in the classroom at all, or just in Zoom school. We’re supposed to do that without basic info like what days our kids would be in the classroom.
Speaking of Zoom school, the UFT continues to reject any rule requiring teachers working remotely to do any synchronous teaching. Notably, the city’s plan doesn’t require teachers in classrooms to remain with the same pod of students. And it doesn’t include any virus testing requirement for teachers.
The mayor vows that the city will be transparent about positive tests, but anyone who remembers how reports trickled in before school buildings were abandoned in March knows to take that with a shaker of salt.
As I’m writing on Friday afternoon, the CDC is reporting that 260 campers and staffers tested positive for the virus at a sleepaway camp in Georgia with 597 campers and staffers, including 51% of the 6-to-10-year-olds.
As best I remember from high school algebra, all of us are trying now to master an undetermined system — one with more variables than equations and an infinite array of possible answers.
The uncertainty starts with the virus. Then a president more interested in avoiding responsibility than in crafting rules or solutions. A governor who often seems motivated by bigfooting the mayor. A mayor who often seems more concerned with message control than mission control passing the buck to principals and parents. And parents trying to figure out what to tell their kids.
It’s a breakdown in trust and confidence where you can trace a direct line from the White House to your kitchen table.
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