Help urged for homeless city students

When city officials announced a plan to open dozens of “resource centers” across the five boroughs to care for the kids of essential workers while schools are shuttered, they signaled the centers would also be open to the most “vulnerable” students — a category advocates hoped would include New York’s many homeless students.

But the centers, slated to open Monday, are currently limited to children of healthcare and transit workers and first-responders — and advocates worry homeless students will be left behind.

“We are deeply concerned about the disproportionate impact long-term closures are likely to have on the more than 100,000 city students who are homeless,” a dozen homelessness advocacy organizations wrote Friday in a letter to schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.

“Family shelters and commercial hotels are generally not appropriate educational environments, and many are not set up to provide access to remote learning.”

One hundred resource centers are scheduled to open across the city starting Monday, and will be staffed by employees from the Education Department and community based organizations that contract with the city. The centers will hold classes of no more than 12 students and at least one adult for students ages 3-18.

Staffers will supervise children participating in remote learning from their home schools, and will also offer art, music and physical-education activities.

Education officials sent out an enrollment form for the enrichment centers Thursday night, but directed the survey only to healthcare and transit workers and first-responders. Location assignments will be given out over the weekend, officials said.

Education spokeswoman Miranda Barbot said the agency will “continue to evaluate demand and capacity” in the enrichment centers.