What is Going on With NYC Public Schools?
By: Jaden Tactaquin
Tags: Schools, Cities, Teachers, NYC, Education

What is Going on With NYC Public Schools?

Graphic by author.

It was announced NYC public schools would close on Thursday, Nov. 19, after reaching the 3% seven-day average testing threshold, according to a tweet written the day prior by Mayor de Blasio. At first, schools closed their doors, students’ laptops flipped back open, and outrage ensued among public school teachers. De Blasio insisted that schools remain closed until ten days later when — after waves of public backlash — de Blasio retracted his announcement, ordering a phased reopening of schools beginning this Monday.

So what’s the deal then? Why was this 3% threshold so important to de Blasio? Why did it take him so long to realize his mistake? And more importantly, what is happening to the actual teachers and students who are swept up in this mess?

It starts with this summer.

In July, Mayor de Blasio was faced with a heated dilemma. The school year was approaching and the prospective conditions of the coronavirus were not looking too bright for New York City. Gov. Cuomo had just announced a 5% COVID threshold that had to be maintained in order to open public schools in the coming fall semester.

But de Blasio — the mayor of the most population-dense city in America — had yet to propose anything. Least to say, this did not rub the public the right way.

Expectedly, De Blasio was put under intense public pressure to make some kind of move to assure public safety for the upcoming school year. Were kids going to be safe going to school? Were teachers’ lives going to be put on the line? These were the kinds of burning questions the public threw at De Blasio in the weeks leading up to the fall semester.

De Blasio’s response: Reduce the mandatory COVID-19 threshold by two percent and walk away looking like a hero of public health. And it worked.

Many were grateful for the reduced, high standard threshold De Blasio imposed, and it conveniently created a branded, COVID-safe image for him as well. In a New York Times podcast, education reporter Eliza Shapiro found that the “three-percent idea” became heavily entwined with de Blasio’s public image as an opposer to COVID-19, so much so that throwing it away would equate to giving up the promise he had made to NYC parents and teachers to keep their kids and students safe. The 3% had to be protected at all costs.

Fast forward to November.

Image from ABC News

In the fall, public schools turned out to be thriving. After increased sanitary precautions were put in place, public schools appeared to be less likely to transmit Coronavirus than the general public of NYC.

Parents began to prefer keeping their kids in schools, as it proved to be a safe environment to help keep their children out of the reaches of COVID-19 and gave them the social outlet their kids so desperately needed.

Likewise, for many low-income students facing food insecurity, schools once again became a resource for a consistent meal. Since the pandemic, New York City has provided over 22 million free meals at public schools, and such meals couldn’t be any more needed than now.

Prior to the pandemic, New York City had an estimated food-insecurity rate of 17.3%. Yet, according to a survey by Hunger Free America, shortly after the pandemic began, nearly “38% of parents in New York City reported cutting the size of meals or skipping meals for their children because they could not afford food in the previous month.”

This is why, when COVID-19 rates began to rise as public schools became safer and safer, many began to question the validity of de Blasio’s 3% threshold in the context of current conditions.

Many argued that the 3% city-wide threshold simply did not make sense as an indicator for school closures. The threshold began as an emblem for promising security to New York’s students, yet in a sad twist of irony, the 3% limit began forcing students to leave these COVID-safe school buildings and return to homes — many of which are less safe, less food-secure, and less socially beneficial than their much-needed classrooms.

I contacted several New York City public school teachers after the closure to get their take on the issue and the responses were unanimous: keep schools open.

“I’ve never ever seen such nonsense in my life,” said Jennifer Mort, a middle school teacher from Queens. “I am worried that the mental and emotional challenges that these kids and teachers are suffering is going to be more deadly.”

Blindsided by the decision of Mayor de Blasio to close down schools, other public school teachers like Mort at the time weren’t sure how they were going to adapt their teaching. This was especially true for teachers like Amanda Noelle, an eleventh-grade teacher from Staten Island whose son is a special needs student attending an NYC public school.

“He is not receiving any of his services during the closure. He is regressing academically and socially,” said Noelle. “He refuses to sit in front of the computer to do schoolwork no matter what we do.”

Noelle also teaches special needs students like her son and attests that online school simply is not effective for her students with disabilities or special needs.

“A lot of their needs are not being met as well because it’s almost impossible to do online and a lot of teachers don’t feel like we are getting support from the Department of Education,” said Noelle in a text interview.

Neither Mort nor Noelle were alone in this situation and the 3% threshold had proved too stringent a limit for jeopardizing the wellbeing of students.

In New York City, one of every 10 students in NYC public schools is homeless. About 72% of students receive free lunch, many as their only meal for the day. And approximately one in five students is diagnosed with a disability, granting them special education resources at school they could not get online. So what did these kids receive from Mayor De Blasio after his unnecessary closure?

Ten days of silence.

Yes, it took ten days for the mayor to retract his actions and allow students their food, security, and specialized education in an environment already proven to be safe.

It seemed that when faced with the option of protecting the public image of himself as a politician or protecting NYC public school students, the latter was disregarded.

NYC public school students watched as their mayor veered toward a precipice of high-societal value, stopped just before the edge, and jumped.

Now, the attempts at trying to climb back seem useless. For many students, the semester is already coming to a close and the abrupt interruption by de Blasio has ruined any chances of picking things back up in a worthwhile manner.

I followed up with the teachers I spoke with following De Blasio’s reopening and the frustration could not be more apparent. The rest of the semester simply does not seem salvageable after 10 days of a political wrench thrown into the engine of public school education.

To put it bluntly in Noelle’s words, “too little, too late.”

See you next semester, Mayor De Blasio.