‘Prioritize’ homeless kids: groups
Homeless students should get full-time access to in-person learning this fall if they choose as part of the city’s partial school reopening plan, more than 30 advocacy groups urged in a Tuesday letter to city officials.
“The city should be prioritizing the needs of the students who had the most difficulty with remote learning, including students who are homeless, to help address the learning loss and trauma they experienced during the closure of schools and help them catch up,” the groups wrote.
The current school reopening plan allows students to return to in-person schooling in shifts to reduce crowding and maintain social distance. That means most students who opt in to in-person learning will get between one and three days a week in school. That’s not enough for the more than 100,000 kids living doubled up with friends and relatives or in city homeless shelters, advocates say.
Many such students struggled to access online content last spring even after receiving city-funded iPads “due to poor cell phone reception in shelter units, low digital literacy, or other technological barriers,” the groups wrote. Others had difficulty concentrating in crowded, shared rooms, advocates said.
City officials are building an alternative child-care system that has room for up to 100,000 families on days they aren’t in class, but the system will only serve students from pre-K to eighth grade. In city family shelters, teens younger than 18 aren’t allowed to stay alone without adults, “leaving teenagers … with nowhere to engage in remote learning while their parents work, search for jobs and permanent housing, or attend required social service appointments,” the groups wrote.
Advocates are urging officials to expand eligibility at the child-care sites to include homeless students of all ages. They’re also pushing officials to guarantee that students in shelters get access to yellow school buses — a service the city has provided for the past several years but hasn’t committed to this fall.