New York | Pressed by the unions of teachers and school leaders, the city of New York once again postponed Thursday the start of “face-to-face” for most students in public schools, witness to the puzzle that the opening represents facilities during the pandemic.
• Read also: Developments in the pandemic
The announcement fell just four days from the scheduled date for the reopening of schools – September 21 – extending the uncertainty for hundreds of thousands of parents: 58% of New York’s 1.1 million schoolchildren have officially chose this “hybrid” education, alternating one to three days of class attendance per week with online education, the others having opted for 100% online education.
In a city hit hard by the epidemic in the spring – with more than 23,700 dead from COVID-19 – many, parents and teachers alike, remain paralyzed by fears of contagion. This even as the first American metropolis, where many businesses and offices remain closed, has become a model of coronavirus control, with an infection rate of less than 1% for five weeks.
In the end, only the smallest and the pupils in difficulty attending specialized establishments will be able to begin to physically go to school, on certain days, as of next week, announced the mayor Bill de Blasio.
Elementary, college and high school students will wait until September 29 or October 1, he said. And will continue in the meantime to take the online courses which resumed this week.
This second postponement – after a first announced on September 1, already under pressure from the unions – was decided after a meeting Wednesday with school officials in New York and union leaders, said the mayor.
Once again, two powerful unions argued that there was insufficient preparation, and above all, an insufficient number of teachers: to ensure, simultaneously, face-to-face education for some of the students and online for the others, the unions were asking for additional staff. , even if the town hall had already undertaken to hire 2,000 more (out of nearly 75,000 in total).
“Real problems were raised” during this meeting, argued Mr. De Blasio Thursday, during a virtual press point. “Even if progress has been made, more must be done” before being able to reopen the establishments to all pupils, he added, by committing in particular to hire another 2,500 additional teachers.
” Social justice ”
These postponements are a setback for the Democratic mayor who has made this partly face-to-face teaching a leitmotif for weeks, setting New York as an example against other large cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston or Miami – who have given up everything face-to-face teaching, at least this fall.
It is about “our commitment to social justice”, he repeated Thursday.
“Who’s doing well with online education?” Privileged families, ”he said, referring to the private“ tutors ”that many wealthy families have recruited to help their children with online courses.
In a city where private schools abound, many public school students come from disadvantaged backgrounds – some 114,000 were even homeless during the 2019-2020 school year.
This is the main reason why Mr De Blasio delayed the closure of schools in March, at the start of the pandemic. He had argued that for all these children, going to school was the only guarantee that they would get a real meal.
This decision earned him strong criticism, many criticizing him for having contributed to the spread of the pandemic.
As doubt grows over the start of large-scale face-to-face teaching this fall, both the mayor and the unions said on Thursday that it would eventually materialize.
“We are determined to make it happen, and we will make it happen,” said de Blasio.
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