Better luck next year

Not with a bang or even a bell but a whimper ends the 2019-20 academic year in the nation’s largest public school district, interrupted by a previously unimaginable systemwide shutdown. Let’s not do that ever again.

Start with chaotic messaging from the top. Both Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio resisted keeping kids home until March 15, before suddenly making the obvious-inhindsight decision. In mid-April, de Blasio rightly said buildings would not reopen this spring; Cuomo relented to the inevitable weeks later.

Distance learning was wildly uneven across the system. Blame Chancellor Richard Carranza for doing too little to lay the groundwork or to train teachers during a few-days scramble.

Data is scarce because New York canceled statewide assessment tests, but there’s no doubt the disruption was most scarring to youngsters with the fewest books at home, the worst computer setups and the worst in-home (or in-homeless shelter) learning space, which tend to be disadvantaged kids already furthest behind.

An unhealthy number of kids — 16% systemwide, on average — had no daily contact with their school, a doubling of absence rates.

Some lost learning time can be made up this summer. More important, Carranza must refine remote learning plans should the virus keep classrooms closed come fall.

Hybrid learning, with alternating inschool attendance to allow more distancing inside buildings, may be a logistical nightmare. Also on today’s page, teachers union boss Mike Mulgrew all but says his members will stay home absent Herculean efforts to stop disease spread.

Sept. 4 is 70 days away.