1,000 signatures reached
To: Mayor Bill deBlasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza
NYC Schools: Don't Create MORE Chaos for Parents
Reverse your decision to force parents to choose next week between in-person and remote school for the rest of the year. Your decision is counter to all the communications families have received for months and is only going to create more chaos and confusion among families across the city. Guarantee opt-in periods later in the year, as planned and promised.
Why is this important?
UPDATE: The recent school closure and then the announcement that schools will reopen with the aim of phasing out hybrid makes it even clearer: Remote-only families deserve another opportunity (or more than one) to make decisions best for their children based on new information. It's absurd to hold families to decisions made in mid-November as the landscape was so rapidly changing.
We all know this school year is unlike any other. Parents, guardians, teachers, administrators, staff and city leaders have to work together to make it work. However, the announcement that families could only opt into hybrid learning over during one period in November was counter to that spirit of collaboration, and to all the communications families had been basing decisions on.
Families had been told there would be multiple periods to switch from remote-only to hybrid. This had helped families make balanced decisions — about what they are comfortable with for their family's health, what works for their child's particular learning style, and how their plan relates to the reality of covid infections.
Forcing families to choose in November -- while rates were rising and on the eve of schools being shut down -- ran against the promises made and against plans families had made. It meant placing bets for the rest of the year based on fast-changing information -- with our kids' education at stake. And it meant asking all of us to put faith in a system that is showing no reason for us to believe it can maintain its commitments. What is being offered in terms of instruction, safety, care for our kids' development is so uneven school to school -- and, as the chancellor has shown, may keep changing.
We all agree that remote schooling needs more attention and resources. But changing plans and rushing families doesn't solve that.
We need to focus on resources for all students: More teachers, more support for technology, more staff that attends to social-emotional development, more nurses. Last-minute changes forcing rushed decisions isn't a good foundation for that work.
We all know this school year is unlike any other. Parents, guardians, teachers, administrators, staff and city leaders have to work together to make it work. However, the announcement that families could only opt into hybrid learning over during one period in November was counter to that spirit of collaboration, and to all the communications families had been basing decisions on.
Families had been told there would be multiple periods to switch from remote-only to hybrid. This had helped families make balanced decisions — about what they are comfortable with for their family's health, what works for their child's particular learning style, and how their plan relates to the reality of covid infections.
Forcing families to choose in November -- while rates were rising and on the eve of schools being shut down -- ran against the promises made and against plans families had made. It meant placing bets for the rest of the year based on fast-changing information -- with our kids' education at stake. And it meant asking all of us to put faith in a system that is showing no reason for us to believe it can maintain its commitments. What is being offered in terms of instruction, safety, care for our kids' development is so uneven school to school -- and, as the chancellor has shown, may keep changing.
We all agree that remote schooling needs more attention and resources. But changing plans and rushing families doesn't solve that.
We need to focus on resources for all students: More teachers, more support for technology, more staff that attends to social-emotional development, more nurses. Last-minute changes forcing rushed decisions isn't a good foundation for that work.