3 Pandemic Possibilities

(Opinion) New Haven can’t stop the Covid-19 ​“dark winter” from battering our economy and robbing young people of parts of their childhood.

But we have the power to work together to lessen the damage — and even strengthen our community in the process.

That’s my theory, anyway. For now, I’m sticking with it. Here are three ideas that have occurred to me; I’m sure readers will have far better ones. Please share them in the comments sections if you feel like it.

1) Reopen Elementary Schools, With Twist

People in New Haven, as elsewhere, are divided on whether it make sense to reopen the public schools. Smart, caring people make passionate arguments on both sides.

Pretty much all experts have concluded worldwide that the youngest schoolchildren, up through grade 4, do not seem to be passing along Covid-19. That presents an opportunity for consensus and action while we continue to debate the larger questions.

While New Haven (and the state) hash out the debate over hybrid or all-remote or in-person for other grades, New Haven could immediately (or as of Jan. 4?) reopen Pre-K‑4 schools five days a week, for those families wishing to send their children.

To make it work, without conflict while opening new opportunities, the schools could:

• Continue to allow parents to keep children home learning remotely. Past surveys show that many parents prefer that option. Others very much want their children back in school buildings.

• Allow all teachers who prefer not to come into school buildings for now to continue teaching from home. No questions asked. Plenty of students will continue to need remote teaching.

• Blow up many of the system-wide curriculum requirements for now, and give principals and teachers building freedom to experiment. Principals in each school building would need to figure out how to match the right number of students with the right number of teachers. That probably won’t break down evenly. So in some cases students from different grade levels may need to be grouped together. Or teachers may need to vary planned lesson plans.

The need to explore new short-term approaches, without interference from above, may lead to exciting new approaches for the future. What gets taught. How. And even where (outside, for instance, in decent weather?). The wrenching debates over public education have necessarily focused on what we can’t do during a pandemic. There’s room as well to seize the opportunity to flex new instructional muscles. To empower principals and teachers and students to dream in addition to restricting them.

2) Create Neighborhood Teen Green Teams

Whatever happens with schooling, a lot of teens will have more time on their hands than usual. And a need to get outside.

Fortunately, New Haven has a network of environmental nonprofits that know how to work with young people. And lots of nature to explore.

That presents an opportunity: Creating neighborhood-based groups of teens working together to clean up their communities, help their neighbors, and gain an appreciation for their environment.

A viable program could keep 10 teens in six different parts of town busy strengthening their communities for 10 hours a week (two hours per afternoon?) for 10 weeks starting in March for under $180,000.

New Haven has a cohort of philanthropists with deep ties to local nonprofits who could probably be persuaded to support such a project, if done right. Perhaps a trusted community development nonprofit — I’m thinking an organization like ConnCAT/ConnCORP — could be the fiduciary responsible for making sure the money is well spent. And federal and state money could be tapped. The fiduciary could contract with nonprofits that already mobilized or have mobilized groups of young New Haveners for community projects: I’m thinking Gather New Haven (former New Haven Farms and Land Trust), Solar Youth, Housing Authority of New Haven, LEAP …. This project could build on the work already being done.

The groups could divide up responsibility for assigning a leader for each of six teams in six parts of town connected to parks or significant open space: Annex/Morris Cove; Fair Haven Heights/Quinnipiac Meadows; East Rock/Cedar Hill; Dwight/Edgewood; Dixwell/Newhallville; West Rock/West Hills. In some cases they would build on existing programs; in others, start from scratch.

The team would meet each afternoon in the parks or open spaces, or shelters in those spaces. The city parks department would work to make the spaces available. Some days the teams could do nature or community clean-up projects. Some days they could learn about those greenspaces. Some days they could help distribute food or other needed help to neighbors in need. They could check in on elderly neighbors coping with the pandemic. They could pair up with neighbors to help them plant vegetable gardens to help feed their families in months ahead.

The teens would get paid $15 an hour for their service. That would help their own families pay the bills during the pandemic recession.

Here’s how I arrive (barely) at the under $180,000 figure (please check my ​“math”):

• Program coordinator for three months, including getting the program up and running: $15,000 ($5,000 per month)
• 6 site coordinators (2/3 time position) for three months, including recruiting teens and planning activities: $54,000 ($3,000 per month)
• 60 teen participants (10 per site) working 10 hours a week for 10 weeks at $15 an hour: $90,000
• Supplies: Up to $20,000 (while seeking to obtain donated plants/seeds and other materials as much as possible)

Participating organizations would assume responsibility for insurance /liability costs, folding this program into their usual activities.

3) Launch A Long-Term Local Alternative To DoorDash/Uber Eats

Local restaurants are depending on delivery and take-out to survive the pandemic. They’ll probably need to rely on delivery and take-out more after the pandemic than they did before, if analysts’ predictions bear fruit.

Those same restaurants are squeezed by the delivery services through which deliveries are handled: out-of-town behemoths like UberEats and Grubhub and DoorDash. Those firms operate on an exploitation model to survive: Hire local drivers in each community as cheaply as possible as uninsured ​“contractors,” while slicing as big a cut as possible out of each order’s revenue. That has left too little money left for some restaurants to consider it worthwhile.

This is an opportunity — again beginning with philanthropic dollars, this time for local donors (they exist) who prefer to ​“invest” in ​“social capital” giving. Meaning dollars aimed at creating an eventually self-sufficient project.

Those donors could fund (along with state or federal small-business dollars) a local food-delivery business that employs local people and has knowledge of and commitment to local restaurants. It could use that knowledge to market ordering through this local alternative service to local customers with a two-pronged pitch: A patriotic pitch to support a local service dedicated to keeping local people employed. And a marketing pitch that, say, groups restaurants by type with different daily online email blasts and special offers.

How to compete with nationwide companies that can operate on razor-thin margins? That’s where the philanthropists come in: They would provide two years of seed funding to cover salaries of drivers and eliminate fees for participating restaurants. That would give the new local enterprise a competitive advantage on price during the pandemic and for another year. In that time, the enterprise would build expertise, customer loyalty, relationships with restaurants. So that two years later it would have accumulated capital (from the first two years of revenues) to begin to compete in the competitive marketplace from a stronger position.

It would help to create the business as a nonprofit with a public-interest mission, similar to the model that is succeeding in rebuilding local news organizations (over 300 at last check nationwide) in existing or emerging news deserts.

A broader conversation has been taking place in town about alternatives to the fee-gouging delivery services. Ideas have ranged from an ​“adopt-a-restaurant” campaign to fee limits, as Lucy Gellman reported in this story.

So those are some thoughts. Anyone else?