Leonie Haimson writes here how New York Coty hopes to reopen its public schools, which enroll more than one million students.
Haimson has chided the city for years about its failure to reduce class sizes, and that long history of neglect is making it even more difficult to find space to reopen with small classes.
DOE officials have determined that to maintain proper social distancing, a range of 9-12 students per classroom will be allowed, varying according to the size of the classroom.
Because class sizes are much larger than this in nearly every school, schools will have to separate their students into two or three or sometimes four groups who will take turns attending school in person, to be provided with remote learning when not in school. Families can also choose full-time remote learning with their children never attending school in person.
As a result of vastly different levels of school and classroom overcrowding across the city, some schools will be able to offer about half of their students in-person instruction each day; while others may only be able to allow each student to attend school one or two days a week. Or alternatively, different schools will opt for different groups of students attending school every other week or every third week.
For the most overcrowded schools, there will likely be three cohorts of students with complex schedules (not counting the group who stays home for full time remote learning) as shown to the right.
As usual with most such DOE documents, it provokes as many questions as it answers:
How will the existing number of teachers be able to teach three or four different student groups at the same time, including the ones who are present in school, the ones who are home receiving online instruction part-time, and those receiving full-time remote instruction –– particularly with planned budget cuts and a staffing freeze to schools?
If schools are encouraged to repurpose gymnasiums and cafeterias to allow for more classes to be taught at once, as the Chancellor has suggested, what additional personnel will be used to teach those students?
Will the same teachers be assigned to teach the same groups of students over time, whether in person or remotely?
What will working parents do when their kids are learning from home and cannot be in school?
How will busing and after school be handled?
If children attend school 1-3 days a week, parents will need to make arrangements for them when they are not in school.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Like a sand castle built along the shoreline, the edifice of public education has been left increasingly endangered over the years. The tide was coming in…the waves getting bigger…a rip tide, even a tsunami was on the way. It’s probably been no surprise for anyone who reads this blog how the COVID-19 crisis is playing out. (Cue the effort to privatize our schools and sell out to the lowest corporate bidder…I just read about it happening in South Carolina.)
I remember 20+ years ago when I asked the then superintendent where I teach what Plan B was if the still-being-constructed high school was not ready in September. (This was towards the middle of August, I believe.) He readily admitted there was no Plan B, no back-up. And, that was one building in one small school district.
What about a entire nation with no Plan B or, even worse, a president who doesn’t want a Plan B, a safety net for his citizens?
We’ve been careening in this direction as a country for a long time.
BTW I received a copy of the New York State Department of Health’s just released plan to restart preK-12 “in-person instruction”.
Click to access Pre-K_to_Grade_12_Schools_MasterGuidence.pdf
I printed out a copy and since I was having work done on the car this morning I took a lawn chair down to town and sat out by the garage in the sun, equipped with my red marking pen.
[While there, I saw at least a half dozen Trump flags and banners fluttering in the summer breeze as well a couple confederate flags, too. Ah, rural America, so many of you fiddle while our entire nation burns.]
Where does one begin when talking about New York State’s reopening plan?
Well here’s one choice tidbit I circled on page 15:
“Student use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers should always be supervised by adults to minimize accidental ingestion and promote safe usage; supervision is required for elementary school students.”
Ah……..yeah. Huh?!
There’s a lot to digest in the plan…but not the hand sanitizer!
God help us all.
Just imagine days at school watching every move you make, watching every move students make, thinking of being safe at every moment, fighting with kids over masks, hand washing, keeping windows and doors open, getting temperatures checked, watching cleaning take place, freaking out when someone coughs, distancing in the halls, holding your breath in the faculty bathroom…. Oh wait! Was I supposed to be teaching something?!?!?
what is also true — and we all know it simply by being human — is that careful supervision and overarching daily care will slowly but surely turn into occasional supervision and occasional care
P.S. let me try that link using Chrome. take two: https://www.governor.ny.gov/sites/governor.ny.gov/files/atoms/files/Pre-K_to_Grade_12_Schools_MasterGuidence.pdf
Good afternoon Diane and everyone,
Thanks John for this. I’ve already read it through quickly but a few questions immediately come to mind. 🙂
1. Will teachers, staff and students have to buy their own PPE or will it be provided? In any case, it may get pretty tough since PPE is already in short supply.
2. The guidelines say bandana masks are acceptable face coverings. I’ve seen many doctors on tv saying that these are NOT acceptable and provide little protection.
3. The guidelines say masks can be taken off to eat and that students can eat in classrooms or other areas. What adult is going to supervise these students in classrooms with students not wearing masks and talking?
4. The guidelines say ventilation of classrooms and other areas should be improved. We live in New York. In winter temperatures can get below 0. Will we still be opening doors and windows? I know I will. Not to mention that in September, many classrooms can get to over 90 degrees. Mine does.
5. Since almost half of people who have the virus are asymptomatic carriers, how are we going to be sure they are not bringing the virus into the school? I don’t think anyone has a good answer to that one!
I’m sure I’ll have more questions later………
There are SO many questions that come to mind. It’s staggering.
Navigating through the document is a challenge -never mind living though it..
P.S. If my union brothers and sisters (our local as well as NYSUT and the AFT) go back into the classrooms in some way, then I’m going go in and teach to the best of my ability. If the union gets to a point where we need to pull the plug to protect the students and everyone in the schools, then I’m with them, too.
I know there are plenty of faculty, staff and administrators who can’t say the same thing -for very good reasons including health concerns. I respect you all.
But this is where I am, right now. I’ve been very lucky. Of course, things could change. With this virus, in the blink of an eye.
Unions are more important than ever right now. I hope more people can realize that fact as we dig our country out of this disaster.
Take care.
The contagion rate (% testing positive) in NYC is at 2%, well below the 5% cutoff for in-person instruction, baring a spike in the rate over the next two weeks school will open in a “hybrid” model that will vary from school to school, schools are currently designing appropriate models to fit the configuration of the school w/ many, many questions to be answered. See discussion:
https://mets2006.wordpress.com/2020/07/13/new-york-state-tip-toes-toward-a-measured-school-opening-with-significant-local-input-and-a-long-list-of-unanswered-questions/
Teachers are smart!
Schools should NOT open. It’s dangerous to everyone. DUH …
Covid-19 infections by country as of yesterday … America is #1.
Guess that dump sure got America at the top of the list. He must be so proud of himself.
There is no or minimal ventilation in City Schools. Windows don’t open or open 2 inches from the top. Water is lukewarm on a good day. We wait years for plumbers to come in and fix leaky sinks. It is recommended students wear masks but it is not mandatory. The city is lying about classroom capacity. Three teachers in Arizona met at school to plan. One died. One out of three. Students can be physical or go remote any time during the year they feel like it. How do you plan for that? So much energy is being devoted to the logistics of being physically present we are losing sight of actual instruction. It would be pathetically comical if it weren’t for those pesky deaths interrupting our economy.
and imagine if the outside ‘experts’ had a clue about what you write here: there is no generic physical fix for a system of buildings so notably diverse
Children and staff member will die.
Then policies will change.
This is a war.
War involves deaths and sacrifices.
We are not New Zealand or Vietnam, or Germany or Finland or France.
Our notions of work and productivity and how that happens are different.
We are exceptional.
This is what it takes.
Betty Rosa is fine with all of this. So is the mayor. So is the governor.
Let’s place our faith in them.
They’re good people.
They’re caring people. They care about us.
“This is a war.
War involves deaths and sacrifices.”
What’s the quote?
“Ah, I love the smell of napalmic sarcasm in the afternoon!”
From a parent’s perspective:
It seems as if some parents want a hybrid return and others want remote. It seems as if teachers largely want remote (please correct me if I’m wrong about that).
As much as I would like small class sizes, I also recognize that brings up a huge issue, not simply in doubling the classroom space but also finding twice as many teachers to teach the students. If there are smaller classes one or 2x/week and remote the other days, that may be a decent solution under the circumstances.
I think small class sizes should be prioritized for schools serving high percentages of at risk and struggling students.
Finally, can someone in the teachers union please tell me what the teachers are doing about presenting their own plan for coming back.
Parents will be more likely to side with teachers about continuing remote learning if the teachers are committing to doing more than they did in the spring. I know a lot about what teachers don’t want, but I have no idea what they do want school to look like in the fall.
Hello NYC public school parent,
I’m wondering how long you think is appropriate for students and teachers to sit in front of screens daily. I don’t think it’s healthy for anyone to sit in front of a computer for 7-8 hours per day. And not only that, students may then have homework to do on the computer outside of class. As a teacher, I’m imagining in person teaching to be a lot like online learning but with me in front of the class. Teachers in districts I know have been asked to give their concerns and suggestions for reopening. Some schools have committees for reopening. I haven’t heard anything from my school yet on what is going on in those committees. Many of the teachers in my school are older and I’m sure there are some who are concerned about underlying health problems.
I’d also like to say that teachers and students were in an unprecedented position and we all had to learn to use online platforms, etc. Contrary to popular belief, teachers can’t just hop online and start to teach. Teaching takes preparation and learning – especially in this situation. Plus, we were all dealing with upheavals in our own lives. So, if you don’t think teachers were doing enough, please remember that this was an extremely difficult period for all of us – students and teachers.
Mamie Krupczak Allegretti,
I certainly understand that the spring was something that was a necessary and unplanned result of an emergency. I know that there were all kinds of upheavals and I have great sympathy for the hard work that the teachers did in the spring under extremely difficult circumstances. Thank you.
However, I was simply pointing out that for parents, that is the only reference point they have right now about what remote learning would be like. And now there is time to re-think how to do remote learning because not only did teachers get to experience it and see where problems arise, but there is most of summer vacation left to think about how a better remote learning program would work.
And as a parent, I want to hear from teachers. I want to know what teachers believe is a good remote learning system, since they are the ones who experienced it in the spring. What should be changed?
I am just suggesting that if teachers were presenting some kind of suggestions that addressed a better way of doing remote learning than happened in the spring, it would very likely get a lot of support from parents.
From my perspective, the approach was mixed. And I think parents got the feeling that it was up to the individual teachers to decide how to approach their classes. And that made sense in the spring, when there was no warning.
But now there is a chance to think about how to make that remote learning experience better, and I would love to hear what teachers’ ideas for what remote learning should look like in the fall are.
What I mean is that just saying “school will be remote” doesn’t give parents any idea of what that actually means, except for a repeat of what happened in the spring. I have faith that teachers are not just talking about the experience being what happened in the spring, but it would be nice to hear that from teachers and hear their ideas for what it would be. What discourages parents is when administrators say “we can’t tell teachers what to do, so just accept that it will be whatever the teacher your kid gets decides it will be.”
^^^also, I don’t think students sitting in front of screens for 7 hours is a good idea either! That’s why I’m asking what teachers themselves think would be a better remote plan than the spring.
I understand parents’ concerns because of how last semester went, but online school this coming semester will be necessarily different. Now that I know I will be online again next month, I am able to begin planning. New York needs to get Gates and Cuomo out of the way and, like Los Angeles, start planning structure immediately.
Starting the school year online is going to be different than ending it online. When we shut down in March, I already knew my students, had provided most of a school year’s worth of instruction in person, had plenty of grades established, and therefore had no problem with holding students harmless for lack of online participation. This fall, I still hope I am able to give students some sort of a break regarding grades and workloads when their home life situations call for it, but I also will need to establish firm groundwork for the whole school year ahead. A school year must begin with structure. There must be rules.
California will require attendance be taken (which had better not negatively affect per pupil funding). On Thursday, my union and district will negotiate grading and scheduling policies. Whether live instruction winds up being required or not, no matter how much or how little screen time winds up being scheduled, and no matter how much or how little flexibility is given to teachers who also need to take care of their own children and parents, this fall portends to be more structured than spring.
It will be better because teachers and students will make it better.
All mid-year changes harm students. That’s an immutable fact. I’ve had even worse experiences than the coronavirus shutdown when administrators have changed my class schedule in the middles of semesters. There was upheaval. I can’t change students. I can’t change my rules. I can’t change my grading policy. I can’t switch to an online platform after using books for months. The online platforms stink, but the smell won’t be as foul if I start with them instead of switching to them. It will be much easier to hopefully switch back to books in 2021. It will be exciting to switch to books. That’s one mid-year change I can make, but most of the changes I had to make in March were dreadful. That will not be repeated.
I think that once the school year begins, parents, teachers, and students will work together as we always do to make the best of the unfair hand we are usually dealt; we will create structure and support one another, and young people will come out stronger from the collective struggle.
Oh, and many of my students and I weren’t spending six or seven hours in front of a screen when four hours was the required daily average. We were spending twelve, thirteen hours a day at times. There will need to be maximums if there are minimums.
nycpsp, LCT gave you such a generous & positive answer I had to scrub mine. I had a list of Q’s on how teachers could even plan w/the paucity of info on what/ when they’re supposed to do. I was concluding it was a massive project barely in its initial stages, w/teachers not on board now [on break & not being paid] so how could the reqd collaboration/ coordination even take place during the next 8 wks. Wondering whether indiv planning they do now would even apply to the situation they end up being assigned to, bec after all admins do actually tell them what to do in most cases, & admins seem to be at the beginning, not end of developing prereq plans…
LCT is a pubsch teacher in the trenches, I am not. [As a Spanish enrichment to PreK’s, I actually did provide 9 wks of video lessons for the kids: it took double the IRL teaching time. I have solid ideas on how I would change going ahead if I could, but there will be no visiting teachers, & probly no enrichments at all…] If pubschs actually are able to put together better-structured higher-quality remote instruction over 8 wks summer break as LCT suggests, I will be awed.
My biggest Q about what you wrote: are teachers’ ideas & suggestions solicited & used by admin in developing these plans? So much of what I’ve heard here for yrs is, they’re highly directed & restricted by admin. OTOH, admin may be so overwhelmed w/the pandemic logistics, they give teachers free rein on instructional matters, by default. (Is that a bad thing?)
bethree,
I agree that LCT – and also Mamie Krupczak Allegretti – gave generous and positive answers!
“admin may be so overwhelmed w/the pandemic logistics, they give teachers free rein on instructional matters, by default. (Is that a bad thing?)”
I think this is understandably what happened in the spring, and that was part of the problem. (But absolutely not the fault of the teachers who were working under very difficult circumstances). For the fall, I like the idea of teachers to be the ones coming up with solutions, but as a group instead of just being left to individual teachers to decide.
If teachers want parents to support remote instruction, I don’t think the union should be waiting to be asked for their ideas. I wish the union could come up with the structure of their own plan that would reassure parents whose experience with remote learning in the spring was less than positive. Parents aren’t expecting remote to be the same as face to face. Most of us understand that it has to be very different. But it would be helpful and reassuring to know that there are some expectations on teachers beyond what was done in the spring. What those expectations might be is my real question.
This isn’t about what any one caring and dedicated teacher might do. This is about what kind of structure of learning would be required from all teachers – which I think teachers as a group should be weighing in on regardless of whether their opinion is asked for! When parents hear that teachers would have free reign to decide how they will teach the material remotely, that does set off some alarm bells. Does that mean that some teachers can decide to post assignments and be available for “questions” typed in via google classroom once a week?
By the way, I didn’t intend this to be about teachers explaining how they plan to do it themselves, although I am incredibly impressed with the replies of teachers who explained their own thinking. I was wondering if there was any move by the teachers’ union to offer up their own plan for a basic structure of how remote learning might be done to include real time interaction with teachers? I don’t know what the details of that plan would be, nor do I expect that would have already been decided. I was just hoping that the union or at least a group of teachers were working on a general framework of what remote instruction would look like that reassured parents that the plan was to improve on the problems that occurred in the spring when it seemed that each teacher could decide if any live instruction was necessary.
Gov. Cuomo has earned much of the credit for this revolting situation. Whenever you hear about the deprivation of New York City’s (and State’s) public-school students, think of his adamantine refusal to consider raising revenue from the ultra-wealthy.
Sorry to be a downer as usual. But the last three months of this past year were an utter disaster. The disaster will pick up again this fall (it’s probably already happening for summer school students) and there is no end in sight. People better hope that the notion of “achievement gaps” and students “falling behind” are meaningless fictions, because this is a disaster that will blow the “achievement gap” wide open and put a generation of kids “behind.” The kids of the super-rich will do fine. The merely “affluent” may tread water academically and suffer emotionally. Everyone else will get badly battered, with the poorest students totally left behind.
Meant to type “falling behind,” not “fallout behind.” Fallout ahead, sure.
Hello, NYC public school parent,
I’m responding to you comments above. I can only speak for myself but I’d be happy to tell you what I’ve been thinking.
1. First, I tried to SIMPLIFY. That means not going crazy using a lot of apps, etc. I tried to use only a few websites that were familiar to students. Of course, this might change now that kids are more familiar with Google Classroom (the platform we used). Students were really just getting familiar with this whole process. One thing I find very confusing is that information often has to be accessed from a variety of sources – Classroom, grade books, email, links, etc. I kind of wish everything could be in one place.
2. Not being able to see students’ faces on Google Meet was a problem and it will be more so if we are online to a greater extent. They usually put up a screen which made it hard to know if they were even there. I don’t know if we can “force” students to show their faces.
3. This is just my opinion but whenever anyone says I have to do the same thing as all the other teachers, it makes me cringe. I’m independent as hell and I thrive when I can do my own thing and be the captain of my own ship. 🙂 So, I’m not sure forcing teachers to do the same things could even work. Teachers do things differently and all classes are different. You may just have to trust the teacher (Ohhhh!!!!!) to make good decisions about presenting his/her curriculum.
4. If we are going to be required to meet daily on Google Meet or Zoom or whatever, I think it should be short – no longer than 20-25 minutes daily for each class. We have to think about the overall amount of time students and teachers will be spending in front of a screen.
5. At my school, we posted lessons for kids every day. It might be better to stagger that. For example, Math and English post lessons on Monday and Wednesday. Social studies and Science post on Tuesday and Thursday. Something like this. I think getting all assignments at once was overwhelming for some students.
6. It’s difficult for teachers to know ho much time their assignments will take for students to do online. I have a good idea how long it will take in class but I didn’t know if I was giving too much work and overwhelming students. Again, it was a difficult time. I know that it took me much longer to do things online than if I were in the classroom.
7. I am thinking of doing some more project based work.
8. I’m also thinking that the curriculum may have to be reduced a little to take into account how much screen time students and teachers will have and also take into account factors at home – parents working, connectivity issues, availability of equipment, etc.
Anyway, these are some of my thoughts so far. I hope this helps.
Mamie Krupczak Allegretti,
Thank you so much for this comprehensive reply. It sounds like you will provide a great remote learning experience for your students. I especially liked numbers 4 and 5 in your response and I think you are right about number 6 and hopefully part of the plan would be to reassess the amount of work assigned to students after a few weeks.
I think that what parents would like to hear is not that each teacher would be doing exactly “the same things as other teachers”, but that the structure of the education would be similar. Parents used to know that you would have their child in a classroom 5x a week, but what you did there was not exactly the same as what another teacher did in their classroom with the students they had 5x/week.
I realize that different subject matters need different methods of teaching, but knowing that there was a plan for each subject matter that involved some live/remote interaction at least twice a week (and perhaps every day for some subjects) would be useful. I could even imagine a system where the “live” remote was only one subject a day for 3 hours (with breaks), but students would have time for real interaction with that one subject teacher once each week. I realize I’m talking about middle school and above classes and not elementary school.
It would be great if the Algebra 1 teachers in public schools came up for a plan (or perhaps a few plans) they think would work best for teaching Algebra 1 students remotely, and the Biology teachers came up with a plan for what they think would work best for teaching biology students remotely, and the English and Social Studies teachers did the same. With the understanding that putting students in front of live remote teachers as much as possible — even if that is only 2 hours a day in half the subjects — would likely go a long way to getting parents to feel as if a remote plan would be very different than the spring.
I don’t expect anything to work perfectly or even near perfectly. But I’d really love to hear teachers’ ideas of what they would do in a middle/high school situation if they had complete power to design the structure of a remote learning program of the entire school. It’s not telling teachers exactly how to teach, but telling teachers something like they would have half the class live 3x/week or whatever the plan is. But what I am talking about is not “rules” like taking attendance or giving grades. It is about what the structure of a week of remote school would look like and whether the amount of live instruction is whatever the individual teacher decides it should be or based on a well-thought out school or citywide plan based on what the teachers in that subject area believe would be most useful in teaching students that subject remotely.
Hello NYC public school parent,
Ok, now I see what you mean. In response to your last paragraph, I know that my school is discussing how to do an online schedule. One idea is that teachers will teach their regular school day schedule online. I personally don’t think that is a good idea. It would be too much time sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time. When in school, students and teachers can have up to almost 3 hours straight of classtime. I think it would be hard for everyone to sustain that kind of concentration online. That’s why I would opt for shorter periods of time in class online. It may also be helpful to do an online schedule of 4 days per week instead of 5 and maybe even rotate days for certain classes. 4 days instead of 5 would give students time to catch up on work. I have found that it takes longer to complete work online. So, I think we need to factor that in. I worry that we are going to try to do too much and overwhelm students, teachers and parents. This is a whole new situation and I think we have to be flexible in how we approach it. I don’t think it would be healthy to try to do everything online the same as we do in person in the classroom. I hope this helps.
Thank you again for replying! Yes, that is exactly what I mean. And I suspect that most parents agree with you that it wouldn’t be healthy to try to make remote learning be exactly like classroom learning – I know I do!!
But most parents aren’t hearing what remote learning WILL be like, except that it (hopefully) will be different than in the spring. I agree with most people here that teachers would have a better perspective in what works in remote learning than administrators. that’s why I wish the NYC teachers – or at least some interested group – would offer up their own ideas of how 100% remote learning might be structured that specifically addressed what live instruction would be required and what the other instruction would be like. In my opinion, it will be much harder to get parent buy-in if parents are simply told “we’ll figure it out” or “don’t worry” or “we can’t make teachers do XXX”.
I do think that teachers themselves are probably the best people to come up with a structure that alleviated some of the concern expressed by flerp above. But what is that structure? I don’t think parents expect a replica of the face to face schooling pre-COVID. But they do want a real structured program that includes real time teaching on a regular schedule, even if only at 1/3 or 1/4 of the pre-COVID day.
And that is just for the students who would be in regular classrooms! NYC has so many students with a variety of special needs, from ELL to mild disabilities to very severe disabilities. Clearly there needs to be a completely separate plan for those students.
I can’t imagine how hard it must be for whoever is trying to figure this all out. But it seems possible that if teachers offered a workable framework, parents would support it too and likely the DOE would try to develop something with that in mind.
Good morning NYC public school parent,
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that teachers are rarely asked for their opinion on anything let alone be able to make decisions of this magnitude. These decisions come down from on high. And often, if teachers do get to have their ideas heard, they aren’t considered as part of the solution.
I also think one of the important questions will be whether schools will change their plans if those plans are not working. For example, if students are overwhelmed by screens and work all day, will the school change its schedule? I fear not because administrators often don’t like to admit they were wrong or that the plan didn’t work out. I’ve found this interesting over the years because teachers are required to figure out what they did wrong and fix it. To be perfectly honest, I think no matter what we do is going to be very stressful for everyone – students, parents and teachers.
Absolutely! I expect there will be elements of any plan that don’t work and that is perfectly fine! No one should be criticized for offering up something that turned out to have some problems – instead there should be a recognition that there were flaws and what adjustments can be made right now to address that. I always get frustrated when administrators say “there is nothing we can do because of the union”. I don’t think that is always true, but I do think that is sometimes true. So the flexibility needs to be built in without trying to scapegoat anyone as an excuse for not being flexible.
I don’t want remote learning to be used as a political football, so that people with an agenda — either anti-union or anti-public school or anti-de Blasio – use that as the excuse for why they are not changing the things that aren’t working right away.
In other words, no matter how great a plan, there are going to be problems with 100% remote learning in the fall. Too often it seems that the response to problems is “nothing we can do, it’s the fault of xxxx, see we told you that xxxx was the real problem”. Instead of looking for scapegoats for those problems, I hope all sides are flexible and willing to make changes.