Mayor, end the stupid two-case rule
Despite progress against the scourge of COVID-19, New York City’s schools remain hobbled by policies that enhance neither safety nor student learning. A shining example is the edict that if two cases of COVID are reported in one week, a school closes for up to 10 days. While they can reopen if the cases are shown to be related, most stay closed for the full two weeks. Eliminating this rigid and arbitrary rule would signal that the mayor and his progressive allies care about kids.
The city came up with the idea last summer, to placate United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew, who was threatening to strike if his demands weren’t met.
Ten months on, we understand COVID far better. As vaccination rates increase, hospitalizations and deaths are dropping dramatically. Turns out, “deep cleaning” doesn’t matter much; the virus is rarely transmitted on surfaces. And students are far less likely to infect their teachers than adults who spread COVID to their kids and each other.
Sadly, we also know the deleterious impact of remote and interrupted instruction on student learning.
So imagine my frustration when Brooklyn Tech, my daughter’s school, fell back to remote learning last week, just two days after it re-opened for the first time since Thanksgiving. Among thousands of students at Tech — the city’s biggest school — two cases had been reported. Still, the whole school closed, disrupting the lives of teachers and learners.
The school I run, a charter, is independent of the DOE. Teaching kids in person since October, we have charted a middle course, using masks and cohorts to limit the risk of community spread. But on Monday, we also had to close one of our buildings due to two cases, neither of which arose from in-school transmission.
I raised the absurdity of this protocol at City Hall. The mayor, I was told, is “guided by a serious and cautious approach to health and safety” and is “carefully reevaluating the two-case closure rule.” But the mayor’s senior health adviser, Jay Varma, co-authored a paper demonstrating schools don’t spread the virus at any higher rate than the community. Does the mayor, like a certain former president, dislike inconvenient facts?
For months, union leaders have been dragging their heels rather than making any adjustments. I figured this was just about maximizing their take from the president’s $1.9 billion relief plan. But two weeks ago, when the CDC was about to offer schools critical program flexibility by reducing spacing requirements from six to three feet,
AFT President Randi Weingarten demanded a meeting with President Biden. She said she wanted to be sure he was sticking to the science, not being unduly influenced by politics. Seriously? I know everyone’s an epidemiologist now, but Et tu, Randi?
If, like the UFT says, in-school testing keeps us safe from COVID, including more contagious variants, why didn’t they join schools like mine when we sued the mayor to provide our kids with the same testing protocols as district schools? Union leaders claim they speak for students; the late AFT President Al Shanker, more honestly, said “I don’t represent children. I represent teachers.”
Protocols like the two-case rule underline just how far off-course the city’s response has gone. It makes no reference to the size of our schools, which range from 300 to 6,000 kids. It doesn’t enhance our knowledge of the pandemic’s path or reduce community spread, which has more to do with adults in bars, gyms and restaurants. The mayor opposed expanded opening for these businesses, even though it hurt him politically. But when it comes to school kids, his principles apparently desert him.
The bottom line is that for families with school-aged kids the year has been disastrous. Ending the two-case rule would signal that de Blasio understands students’ suffering, isolated from their classmates. That he feels for their parents, unable to return fully to work. That he recognizes the frustration of teachers stuck on Zoom. That he acknowledges the enormous learning loss we must ameliorate with consistent, in-person, instruction. Every day of the week
The outcome of the mid-term elections isn’t a public health concern. But the mayor, who, if only briefly, had pretentions to leading a national progressive movement, knows the broader dialog and the national mood. If he wants to provide Republicans with talking points to take the suburbs and flip Congress, holding tight to policies like two-case rule makes sense.
An additional benefit of rules like these is to empty the city of taxpayers; kindergarten enrollment is down 9% this year. Does he want it to dip lower?
The administration has been supposedly studying altering the rule since February. May I suggest the final exam is Monday, when students return from vacation? Parents finally deserve an answer that is true to the science.