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New York City has recently reopened with restaurants, salons and other businesses being allowed to go back to 100% capacity. Many tweets over the weekend spoke of NYC looking and feeling like NYC once again. Not only are NYC business resuming at full capacity, Mayor Bill DeBlasio pivoted on his decision to offer both remote and on campus learning for the public school system come fall. Next September, remote learning will be 100% eliminated and all school will take place on campus.
New York City will no longer have a remote schooling option come fall, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday, in a major step toward fully reopening the nation’s largest school system.
This school year, most of the city’s roughly one million students — about 600,000 of them — stayed at home for classes. When the new school year starts on Sept. 13, all students and staff will be back in school buildings full-time, Mr. de Blasio said.
“This is going to be crucial for families,” Mr. de Blasio said at a news conference. “So many parents are relieved, I know.”
New York is one of the first big U.S. cities to remove the option of remote learning altogether for the coming school year. But widespread predictions that online classes would be a fixture for school districts may have been premature. Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey announced last week that the state would no longer have remote classes come fall, after similar announcements by leaders in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
New York City’s decision will make it much easier to restore its school system to a prepandemic state, since students and teachers will no longer be split between homes and school buildings.
[From The New York Times]
The article said DeBlasio’s decision to eliminate remote learning was made after the Pfizer vaccine was approved for children age 12-15. It is due to the outcry that most feel the online learning is inferior. However, many think that is DeBlasio’s fault for not doing enough to make online learning effective. It sounds devastatingly hard to run two systems, online and in person, so the minute they could eliminate one, they did. I think that’s why districts are making this decision. Our district has made the same decision. In Los Angeles Unified, it’s the parents who are demanding all students return to the classroom, but for the same reason – the remote education is so far inferior to the classroom education. An inferior education is a good argument to close down remote learning.
The article discussed the precautions that will be in place. I’m sure the schools are cleaned efficiently but the kids don’t distance. The best bet is going to be the vaccine and symptom check. There’s no mention whether the school system will insist students provide proof of vaccination or what they’ll do if a student is not vaccinated. This is a hard call. I’ve seen, unfortunately firsthand, the mental distress the pandemic/remote learning has put on kids. Our school district and I know LAUSD were absolutely unprepared to go online in March of 2020. Although I recognize everyone tried their very best, regrettably, things weren’t much better this year. And this blended learning has utterly baffled me. But it scary to think there is no option for those most at risk. And I recognize it is easier for me to accept school campus return considering I live in an area in which most parents are vaccinated and vaccinating their eligible children.
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