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[THREAD] Much of the reporting on NYC schools' recent shift to all remote instruction is so atrocious, and the bloviating from people who have no idea the school conditions is so much worse. Here's a few problems I've gathered from teachers, please chime in with more!
2) Huge numbers of classrooms have temps in the 40s because they have no ventilation but windows and no air filtration;
3) The DOE’s randomized testing is a farce because the vast majority of students never consented but weren’t shifted to all remote like the DOE said they would be, because then there would be almost no kids in school;
4) @nytimes reported that many experts said that even if they had done the testing regime the DOE said they were going to do it could have been inadequate to catch a large outbreak: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/nyregion/schools-virus-testing-outbreak.html
5) the DOE claims the numbers from their failed testing attempts show no transmission in the schools but even then what happens is sick kids and staff get tested outside school and are never considered in these numbers: https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-year-20-21/return-to-school-2020/health-and-safety/covid-19-testing/covid-testing-results
6) Before they went all remote NYC schools had seen a total of 2347 cases including 1080 students and 1267 staff, most since 10/1 school opening. From my observations (I can post screenshots if someone questions me) this rate had doubled in recent weeks. https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-year-20-21/return-to-school-2020/health-and-safety/daily-covid-case-map
7) Before they switched to all remote the number of schools closed for outbreaks was shooting up and 9% or 126 of the 1400 NYC public school buildings were closed temporarily due to a COVID outbreak -- the vast majority for 14-days for a major outbreak... https://twitter.com/MOREcaucusUFT/status/1329100307029221378
8) It's very important here that on 11/18, these numbers from the DOE show that 51% of classroom closures so far this school year were CURRENTLY IN EFFECT, as were 70% of 14-DAY CLOSURES (and 30% of 24 hour closures). This suggests a situation getting rapidly out of control.
10) Finally it is often left out by reporters and opinion writers that most NYC kids were coming in for perhaps 4 hours 2-3 days a week-- this varied widely I think and I'd like to hear from more NYC teachers on this...and on any other additions they have to this thread...
11) The other thing that is rarely taken into account is that even if the NYC school buildings themselves result in a relatively low rate of transmission (and we have no idea how much is actually going on there) the schools being open is still an engine...
12) moving 100,000s of students and staff long distances across the city usually on crowded subways and buses to then come together -- leading to millions of encounters that could transmit the disease that would otherwise not occur....
13) And BTW that transport itself is about to become much more difficult and dangerous on all levels for students and staff...(remember even most students at least above elementary grade travel fairly long amounts of time on transit to get to school NYC)... https://gothamist.com/news/mta-prepares-budget-cuts-would-make-transit-system-unrecognizable
14) In NYC "The average 6th grader lives 17 minutes from their school. The average 9th grader lives 31 minutes from their school. At all levels, Black students travel significantly further to school than students from other racial/ ethnic backgrounds." https://research.steinhardt.nyu.edu/site/research_alliance/2018/10/24/how-far-do-nyc-students-travel-to-get-to-school/
