Under the proposed DOE plan, you can have a kid, or you can have a job, but you can’t really have both. 

Dear John,

The NYC Department of Education has put forward the outline of its plan for our public schools next fall. They call it “blended learning.” But to many parents, it sounds more like “disaster.” Many of you have been asking: with kids in school only one-half or even one-third of the time, how could I possibly go to work? It’s a question we can and must answer. 

About half of elementary school families (and nearly 30% of those with middle schoolers) indicated in a recent survey that they would need child care for the time their kids aren’t in the classroom. But so far the City has no plans to provide it. Under the proposed DOE plan, you can have a kid, or you can have a job, but you can’t really have both. 

Sign our petition to Mayor de Blasio to demand a real plan for working families. And give your ideas to help develop it further.

The challenges of this plan for parents are amplified by vast socio-economic and racial inequalities. Upper-middle-class parents may be contemplating leaving the city or leaving their jobs, which will disproportionately push women out of the workforce, and further damage the City’s fiscal health. But low-income, working-class, Black and immigrant families with less flexible jobs, in grocery stores, food production, construction, domestic work, health care don’t have those choices. They must work to pay for rent and food. They can’t afford to move. These families don’t have resources to pay for private child care. So many lack good access to technology for remote learning. They will suffer the most by far.

The constraints of COVID-19 are all-too-real, so there’s no way school can be anything like normal. Thirty NYC teachers and 40 other school staff died from COVID-19 this spring. There is some evidence from around the world that kids are less likely to catch the virus and less likely to spread it, but public health experts and officials do not have enough clear data to draw concrete conclusions.

So we must take aggressive steps to make school safe for staff and students alike, including dramatically smaller classes, mask-wearing, hand-washing, cleaning, and regular testing. Teachers and families can be forgiven for a lack of confidence, when so many schools don’t even have working sinks.

But no matter what scheduling gymnastics we employ to make classrooms safer, we must plan holistically to make back-to-school work this fall. We can and must provide safe, educational, wrap-around child care for younger kids, and meaningful enrichment activities for all our students.   

In the Daily News yesterday, I proposed a plan for the City to rapidly scale up child care and enrichment activities for all families who need it, with creative utilizations of space working with not-for-profit community organizations, settlement houses, summer camp operators, after-school programs and more. 

This is a massive undertaking, just like scaling up our hospital capacity was, and we need to start right away. The City (not just DOE, who must not be expected to solve this problem alone, but the Department of Youth and Community Development, and the NYC Economic Development Corporation) should immediately issue RFPs for space, programming, and staff. 

New York State has millions of dollars still unallocated from the CARES Act for child care, but much more federal funding will be necessary.

Working parents, teachers, and child care providers need a holistic plan to make back-to-school safe and possible. Sign our petition calling on the City to step up. And offer your ideas for how we can make it work.

DOE’s plans do get some things right. Some students and some teachers, who are at increased risk for COVID or with family members who are, will need to stay out of the schools. New York City families will be able to keep their children home this fall and opt for a full remote school schedule, regardless of medical need. Teachers will be able to seek a medical accommodation to teach remotely if they meet the CDC guidelines for having pre-existing conditions that put them at greater risk.

Some other students will really need to be in-school full-time, including students in District 75 programs, and as many pre-K, kindergarten and first grade students as we can. The DOE should do everything it can to allow for these young and vulnerable students to be in class as much as possible, including creatively utilizing outdoor spaces as well as unused seats in under-capacity schools. In our district, we will be pushing to make the most of existing space (e.g. the 436 new seats at P.S. 32) to prioritize as much time in the classroom as possible, especially for students with IEPs and the youngest grades. 

New York City should also require employers to accommodate employees whose working hours are limited by school availability. Many employers have provided flexibility, but as the economy starts to open back up, if we are only going to make it possible for working families to have half-time schooling, we’ll need to mandate that accommodations are made for half-time working, too. In 2017, the City Council passed a law requiring “fair scheduling” for fast-food and retail workers that can serve as a model.   

Finally, we should work together to make school next year largely about healing and resilience in the face of trauma. The learning our students do over the next year may not be the kind measured by state tests. But if we organize it right, our students can learn valuable lessons about social solidarity and resilience, in addition to academics next year.  

There is some amazing work taking place in our schools already, like that of the Bronx Healing-Centered Schools Working Group, who have offered a community roadmap for schools that help students heal and thrive amidst trauma. The Department of Education should support this work. Let’s cancel the traditional State tests now, rather than have students anxious about them all year, and re-align curriculum to match more thoughtful and realistic goals.

This is one of the hardest policy challenges ever. But we can do it, and we must. It is our responsibility to make sure that the steps forward in our schools don’t make life impossible for working parents. And that they do not not deepen the inequality divide in our city. A just economic recovery must center working families. 

Brad

In this email: 
Important Dates for Parents 
City and State Updates
Upcoming Events

Important Dates for Parents 

Over the next month, schools will be making decisions about which of the DOE’s proposed schedules to follow, and holding sessions for parents to give feedback and answer questions. The first DOE parent session will be July 16. Principals will also soon schedule parent sessions over the next month, look out for those.

The parent portal will open on July 15 for parents to sign up for fully remote school. The deadline to opt for fully remote is August 7. Families will be able to transition back into in person school on a quarterly basis, and will be able to choose to go fully remote at any time if the in-person schooling is not working for their family. 

City and State Updates

Upcoming Events

Sunday, July 12 from 1:00 to 3:00 PM: Free mask and hand sanitizer giveaway. 

Councilmember Levin and I will be on Court Street at President Street near Carroll Park with masks and hand sanitizer and encouragement to fill out your Census! Swing by to get counted and get supplies. 

Tuesday, July 14 from 6:30 to 8:00 PM: Heat/Cool Smart Brooklyn Green Rowhouse Webinar with Brad Lander and Brooklyn SolarWorks

Heat/Cool Smart Brooklyn (HCSB) campaign is promoting green retrofits in Brooklyn to save energy, money and the planet! Join us to learn about how your home or building can qualify for a free energy audit and talk about how communities can take action together towards sustainability. Register here.

Lander for NYC
456 Fifth Avenue, 3rd Floor, Suite 2
Brooklyn, NY 11215
[email protected]

    

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