Kids, teachers, administrators, other school employees, and their loved ones are deeply concerned with how the new school year will work in light of COVID-19. In much of the country, the coronavirus is simply too widespread to allow a return to in-person education with any reasonable degree of safety. That reality hasn’t stopped some absurdly irresponsible Republican officials from pushing hard to do so anyway (here’s looking at you, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott). New York City, however, has gone from being the pandemic’s American epicenter to the one very large city with infection rates low enough to—according to the current plan—offer at least some regular in-person instruction at every public school, including the ones my children attend.
No one knows how it’s going to go. No one thinks it’s going to be easy. And no one, at least around here, is taking reopening lightly. New York City’s process has been driven by science and data, as every reopening should be. As Eliza Shapiro at The New York Times wrote Aug. 14, New York City’s schools are “quietly shaping what pandemic-era schooling could look like, not just for the city’s 1.1 million students but for children nationwide. New York’s reopening plans are being closely watched by politicians and school superintendents around the country.”
As part of those closely watched plans, each New York City school was given a degree of choice in how to reopen. I had the remarkable opportunity to participate in one school’s decision-making process—that of my older child’s high school. This was a great responsibility, but one I was eager to take on because—I hoped—participating in the process would allow me to feel more comfortable with the ultimate decision.
In each New York City school, there exists a School Leadership Team (SLT). The parent/family members are elected to the team, which also includes teachers, the principal, and—at high schools at least—students. As part of the SLT, I was on the planning team that convened this summer to work on reopening. New York state and New York City set limits on our school’s ability to choose, however, so we need to start there.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the criteria for reopening on Aug. 7. School districts can reopen only if they are located in areas where the average positive test rate over a two-week timeframe is under 5%—a rate the World Health Organization has also promulgated as a prerequisite for reopening. Cuomo’s Republican counterparts in Texas and Florida, by comparison, have not just simply published reopening guidelines, but have put their thumbs on the scale by pushing hard for reopening. Florida’s Hillsborough County—home to that tiny hamlet known as Tampa—was informed that it would lose up to $200 million in funding if it changed its initial plan and began the year with four weeks of online-only instruction. School officials reluctantly conceded, days after Gov. Ron DeSantis drew a comparison between bringing back in-person instruction and “the SEALs (who) surmounted obstacles to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.”
New York City is home to the nation’s largest public school district. The bar to reopen schools was set even higher by Mayor Bill de Blasio. Rather than the 5% marker laid down by Cuomo, the city must maintain a positivity rate below 3% in order for its public schools to begin in-person instruction, and schools will be closed again if the rate—which has held steady at around 1% over recent weeks—jumps back above 3%. The city also released a plan for individual school and classroom closings in case of one or more positive tests.
Each school’s planning committee received a number of possible models from which to choose—none of which allowed for a full-time return to the classroom. All the models centered on a form of blended online and in-person learning. Essentially, each school had a choice between dividing the kids into two cohorts—in which case each student comes to school every other day—and three cohorts—in which case each student comes to school one out of every three days. Additionally, all students have the option to choose remote-only learning and not come to school at all. According to family surveys, approximately 70% of all students plan to take advantage of the option to return to school at least part-time, although that percentage is likely to continue to drop as more families officially request to go remote-only.
Given the understandable fears some families have—in particular in Black and Latino communities that have been disproportionately hard hit by COVID-19—it would have been unimaginable for New York City not to have provided the remote-only option for students. Students will be able to switch from online-only learning into the blended option once per quarter, and can switch from the blended option to online-only at any time. Having this choice, and having the ability to change our minds—especially to decide to keep our kids at home if circumstances change—means a great deal, and helps reduce our tension level significantly.
Regarding the plan, there has been significant questioning and even pushback from teachers, other school staff, and principals, who have raised serious and important potential problems. First, although students can simply opt for distance learning, staff cannot choose to work from home unless they have a medical exemption. According to New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, about 85% of teachers are required to be in school five days a week. Risking their health or even their lives is not something educators signed up for. Their concerns must be addressed, both for the sake of the educators and of the students they teach.
Unions representing teachers, principals, and other school workers have all asked the city to push back the start of in-person learning. Their general consensus has been for an end of September start date. Currently, school is supposed to start on Sept. 10. The unions are not convinced that the schools can be ready to start even partial in-person learning safely, with being able to ensure proper social distancing given space constraints, enforcing mask-wearing, making sure all schools have the necessary ventilation, and that facilities in general are appropriate, among others, being areas of concern. As of this writing, the Sept. 10 start date for in-person learning has not been moved.
One other issue principals and teachers raised was that there needs to be a certified nurse in every building. Last week, Mayor de Blasio announced that this goal, which had been in question, would in fact be achieved on time.
Overall, 72.8% of New York City public school students are economically disadvantaged. In addition to the health risks of reopening, New York City and all school districts are weighing the harm caused by not offering any in-person instruction at all. Michelle Goldberg neatly summarized that harm in June: “Even for parents who can work from home, home schooling is often a crushing burden that’s destroying careers, mental health and family relationships. And online school has had dismal results, especially for poor, Black and Hispanic students.” In New York City, remote learning’s failings have been felt most acutely by the 114,000 homeless students and the 200,000 students with disabilities enrolled in public schools. There are no simple answers.
Doctors and public health experts interviewed this month by The New York Times expressed the idea that New York City—because its positive rate for COVID-19 is relatively low—can, if it takes proper precautions, move forward safely with returning to in-person instruction.
“If there’s any city that should be opening in the entire country or at least trying to open, it should be New York City,” said Dr. Uché Blackstock, an urgent care physician in Brooklyn and founder of Advancing Health Equity, a health care advocacy group, who also has children in the public schools.
Among those interviewed, Dr. Blackstock offered what she called the “unique perspective” of being an African American physician who has treated COVID-19 patients. Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University also conveyed optimism: “New York’s chances of getting a good result, even though it is a densely populated metropolitan area, are actually better than in many rural areas, where they’re not nearly as serious about trying to control the virus,” the infectious disease specialist explained.
Beyond these widely reported state- and citywide issues, I can speak to what I saw in my daughter’s school while serving on the planning committee for reopening. At the outset, committee members and the principal did an extensive walk-through of the building to brainstorm how to make the most use of the existing spaces in the school in order to achieve the maximum amount of social distancing. Additionally, the principal communicated to the school community the basics of the various options for blended models as described above, separately surveying students and parents/adult family members. The principal surveyed and met directly with teachers as well. The planning team also held “town hall” Zoom calls with members of each constituency group to answer questions and get feedback.
Adults and students both overwhelmingly favored the model that would have provided the most in-school instruction: dividing the students into two cohorts, each of which would come to school on alternating days. The teachers also expressed a desire to work with as many students as possible, if they, the teachers, were going to have to be in school anyway—as long as it was possible to do so safely. That was the key.
The principal shared the results of the initial surveys with the committee, and we looked at the numbers of students who would be in school on each day under each of the models. We discussed the possibility of using non-traditional educational spaces like the gym and cafeteria. Our first hurdle was always safety.
We would not even consider a model unless the building could handle that many kids safely. We recognized that we were operating under the assumption that the city’s guidelines on how many students could safely and properly distance in a given space were based on science. None of us were qualified to do the science ourselves. If we had been able to, it might have alleviated the concerns expressed by some of our members, given that health and lives are in the balance. The fact that the city has done a good overall job on COVID-19, and has not rushed to reopen—even reversing
a planned return to indoor dining only a few days before it was to go into effect—earned a measure of trust that wouldn't have been there if our governor was named DeSantis instead of Cuomo.
Our principal ran the numbers and told us that, according to the distancing guidelines and a careful examination of the school’s space, the two-cohort model could work, although she would have to have another meeting with the larger body of teachers who continued to express concerns. At this point, the principal reached out to the office in charge of approving the plan—the Manhattan superintendent for high schools—prior to the submission deadline in order to get input, advice, and feedback on the feasibility of implementing the two-cohort model.
After the principal walked the superintendent through the plan, the superintendent advised that we should not use the two-cohort model. Apparently, we were being too optimistic about issues like getting students through a single point of entry and exit, as well as the school’s small bathrooms and narrow hallways and stairwells.
I give the superintendent credit for not encouraging us to reopen as aggressively as we had been considering, as well as for having such detailed knowledge about our school’s specific spaces when making the call. It would have been much easier to simply rubber stamp each school’s proposal. Not doing so demonstrates how seriously the city’s various offices are taking their responsibility to ensure safety as much as possible.
The planning committee reconvened and got to work hammering out how we would implement the three-cohort model; there were a couple of different ways of organizing the pattern, but under all of them, each cohort of students would come to school one out of every three days. We agreed on a model where group A would come Wednesdays, group B would come Thursdays, group C would come Fridays, and the cohorts would cycle through Mondays and Tuesdays. This way, families at least would know that there would be one consistent weekday each week where their child would be at school, and that could perhaps help with planning for the days when their student would be home.
Committee parents were concerned about equity for students who lack consistently adequate internet connections, a great home learning environment, or who need special education-related services. We were concerned broadly about the negative effects of not having any in-person learning, although safety concerns—in particular those of the educators whom we so highly valued and who, unlike the students, could not simply choose a remote learning option—took priority.
The committee did not discuss child care in depth; not because it is an unimportant issue, but because we had limited time to make the decisions we were charged with making during meetings. We felt frustrated that, because all of the models under discussion involved kids learning from home multiple days per week, whichever one we chose would offer little to no relief for those families who need full-time child care. We wanted to help them, but could—as a school, at least—do nothing for them.
Although it's fair to say that many or even most high school students don’t require child care, some of the families at our school have younger children, and this is particularly challenging for those struggling to make ends meet. Just under half our school’s students come from lower-income households, as defined by New York City. In many of these families, the cost of child care might be as much their household income—or more.
Because it also serves as child care, full-time in-person instruction is often of the greatest importance for the very same families who are the most vulnerable on health grounds, and who can least afford risking a child bringing the coronavirus into their home. This is the great quandary of having school during a pandemic, and it was one our committee members felt deeply, and lamented being totally at a loss to solve.
On a positive note, the city recently announced that it will provide child care at no cost that will serve up to 100,000 preschoolers, elementary school students, and middle school students whose families cannot afford to either pay for care or have someone stay home from work. The seats will be available for students on the days they are not physically in school.
Although the planning committee parents made a good faith effort to think outside of their own experiences—and the principal, teachers, and students also pushed hard to center concerns of equity—the parents were, as far as I could tell from the Zoom calls, whiter than the parent body as a whole. Although parents of color were underrepresented on our school’s committee, at least the fact that students can opt out gives every family a measure of control over their own situation.
That was the process. But what I experienced was so much more than surveys and models. I’m not going to get too specific here, for obvious reasons, but there is no denying the emotions I felt and which other committee members expressed. Fear was certainly one of the strongest. Students expressed fear—for themselves, but moreso for the educators taking risks to help them learn and grow. They did not want to put the teachers they cared about in danger. The kids’ concern was sincere, and moving. Because any student could simply choose to stay home and learn remotely, the committee focused more on the risks to the teachers and staff.
Regarding my fears for my own children, my spouse works in health care, which colors our family’s take on schools reopening in a number of ways. First, she is already exposed to the larger community in a way many of the other children’s families at our school are not. Thankfully, she receives the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) and works in an environment that maximizes safety—something that is, infuriatingly, not the case for all essential workers. Second, she knows firsthand what measures are necessary to maximize safety, so we are more comfortable with the notion that workplaces that follow appropriate standards can achieve the desired results. Thankfully, we do not have care responsibilities for any older family members or young children, or anyone with other medical conditions that put them at greater risk. We recognize that is a privileged position.
For now, given the overall health situation in New York City, and knowing the care with which the decision was made, we are comfortable sending our kids to school under the current plan. Our kids need the benefits that in-person instruction provides. Some days working and learning directly with trained educators and with their own peers are better than none. There is a continued risk to not being in school at all—we saw the harm to our own children. We hope we are making the right decision, and we support, of course, the right of other families to make a different one. On that matter, the last thing anyone should be doing is judging.
Overall, I came away from the process greatly impressed by the thoughtfulness and care for all members of the school community that was demonstrated by the planning team, including all its constituent groups: educators, students, and family members. In addition to their own health and—in the case of students—educational needs, each group demonstrated real empathy for the interests of the other groups. Looking back today, I wouldn’t say that participating on the planning committee was empowering as much as it is a relief to have seen the high quality of our deliberations.
In the end, I feel confident in the ability of our school leaders to carry out the necessary measures to maximize safety, and I feel generally comfortable following the recommendations of elected leaders in New York City and New York state on going back to school. For those who live in some other states and localities, I realize it may be a very different story.
The decision to reopen schools—and how and when—is a dilemma every district faces, and the decision to send a child is a dilemma every family faces. Unfortunately for all of us, the day we learned that COVID-19 had arrived in the United States was also the day Donald Trump started politicizing our country’s response to it. As the discussion around reopening schools demonstrates, he’s still politicizing the public health issue, trying to blackmail schools into fully reopening if they want to receive the funds all of them—including ones that continue to educate remotely—desperately need. The Orange Julius Caesar actually said: “If the school is closed, why are we paying?”
Trump wants kids back in school buildings not because he actually cares about their learning or about educational equity, but because he thinks doing so will aid economic growth and thus help him politically. His plan for reopening consists of little more than a July 6 tweet that proclaimed “Schools must open in the fall!!!” When his administration’s more formal reopening plan was issued two days later, he attacked it as “impractical.” His. Own. Plan.
More recently, the guy who called himself “like, really smart” opined that if schools decide they must stick to distance education this fall, any future COVID-19 federal relief funds aimed at those schools be given “to the parents” to cover private school tuition. Because those schools haven’t been harmed by COVID-19? Because those schools still don’t need to pay teachers and staff? I’d like to see the self-described “very stable genius” answer those questions.
Furthermore, does anyone doubt that Trump and his Education Secretary Betsy DeVos would try to make such temporary crisis measures permanent, and use public money to pay for kids to attend private school—something that would destroy the funding base public schools must have to even exist? Trump’s proposal to gut Social Security by delaying the collection of payroll taxes temporarily—but permanently if he’s reelected—makes clear the slippery slope of allowing any kind of temporary defunding of public schools.
Joe Biden, on the other hand, released a thoughtful, data-driven plan to address schools reopening. First of all, his plan—like that of New York City’s—relies on science. The plan consists of five key points:
- Get the virus under control
- Set national safety guidelines, empower local decision-making
- Provide emergency funding for public schools and child care providers
- Ensure high-quality learning
- Close the COVID-19 Educational Equity Gap
Biden’s plan also offers a strong condemnation of Trump’s actions thus far: “The Trump Administration’s chaotic and politicized response has left school districts to improvise a thousand hard decisions on their own. Schools need clear, consistent, effective national guidelines, not mixed messages and political ultimatums.” In a video released with the plan, the former vice president correctly emphasized that “forcing educators and students back into a classroom in areas where the infection rate is going up or remaining very high is just plain dangerous.”
Having an inside view of how one New York City high school carefully thought through what felt like a thousand hard decisions further crystallized for me the difference between the two people running for president. As for my kids, I feel confident that Mayor de Blasio and Gov. Cuomo—even though I don’t always agree with them—are relying on science and sound reasoning rather than politics when deciding how best to reopen schools this fall. And I know in my gut that Joe Biden, unlike the current occupant of the White House, would never play politics when it comes to my kids, or anyone else’s.
Ian Reifowitz is the author of The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Foreword by Markos Moulitsas)
