Learning is contagious
Some number shy of the 1.1 million youngsters we’ve gotten used to saying attend New York City’s public schools return to classrooms today for a third school year shaped, and almost certainly shaken, by COVID. Shy because enrollment plunged 4% last year and could slide further as Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter embrace policies that strike many parents as too risky to their children’s health and their own, and others as too likely to unnecessarily disrupt entire classrooms. Sometimes, it’s a good sign when no one is satisfied. In this case, it’s a potential recipe for confusion, and a continued erosion of confidence in schools that desperately need buy-in.
What’s arguably too risky about the strategy? One: A COVID-19 diagnostic policy will test just 10% of unvaccinated students every two weeks, half last year’s rate. It inexplicably excludes pre-K and kindergarteners and unwisely passes over the vaccinated, who can also spread the virus. Moreover, consent to testing isn’t mandatory, which means kids could get infected without ever being detected.
Two: There’s no inoculation requirement for vax-eligible students 12 and up, despite the extremely high likelihood that some of them will get infected in school, with classrooms crowded again and cafeterias in many cases reopened.
Three: While it’s understandable that the city, properly prioritizing in-person schooling, isn’t offering a remote learning option, it’s being too stingy by limiting in-home learning solely to immunocompromised children or those with a set list of health conditions. Students with family members who fall in those categories should be eligible too.
And despite all those ways the educrats are potentially giving the virus a petri dish in which to grow, a single positive test in an elementary school will still send the whole classroom students home. That excess-of-caution move could trigger widespread classroom closures; the current positivity rate among 5-12-year-olds is more than 8,000 per 100,000.
Meantime, there are years of learning loss to make up for. Great good luck to our educators, parents and kids. They’re going to need it.