Local Rift Remains On Schools Reopening

Public appeals issued late this week — at a Hartford protest, via Facebook, and on a popular local radio show— illustrated just how wide of a gap still exists between those calling for all-online instruction to start the year, and those arguing for an in-person learning option.

The first day of school, meanwhile, is just two weeks away.

On Wednesday morning, New Haven teachers rallied outside of the State Capitol as part of a National Day of Action and Solidarity Fighting Unsafe School Reopenings. 

The event was organized in part by Action Together Connecticut, the Greater Bridgeport NAACP Education Committee, CT BATS, CT Public School Advocates, an CT Workers Crisis Response, and saw teacher, parents, and students from across the state demand a delay to in-person learning until school districts have safety plans in place that families and school staff are confident in.

On Wednesday night, Board of Education member Tamiko Jackson McArthur joined Citywide Parent Team President Nijija-Ife Waters and activist Nicole Huckaby for an outdoor interview on the local radio show, The Raw Report.

The three parents of public school children spoke about why they intend to keep their kids home from school at the start of the semester, and defended the city Board of Education’s vote this summer to begin the school year with 10 weeks of online-only education.

And on Thursday morning, Mayor Justin Elicker released a Facebook video and a mass email alert in which he called for the city schools to open instead on a hybrid schedule with all families given the option of staying home if they feel unsafe back in school. That’s the plan that has been pitched by New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Iline Tracey, who has said publicly that she will implement whichever plan is approved by the Board of Education — even though she still believes the hybrid model is best.

All of these pitches took place in the immediate aftermath of the a state Department of Education review panel meeting on Tuesday during which the state’s education commissioner reaffirmed that local authorities will be left to decide how the school year restarts, and that the state will not make New Haven resume some kind of in-person instruction this fall — even if he and fellow state education and health officials believe that that is the best course.

Tracey said after that meeting that she felt New Haven remained ​“in limbo” in regards to how the school year will actually restart come September.

She also said that the district’s latest survey of family preferences closed out on Tuesday evening with over 15,000 respondents. A slim majority — 8,000 — want their child to learn remotely. The other 7,200 want their child to learn in-person some days of the week.

The public debate that has played out over the past two days has only underscored that uncertainty.

And the first day of school is Sept. 3.

Parents: Why We Want Remote

On Wednesday night’s Raw Report, Jackson-McArthur, Waters and Huckaby have all spoke about why they believe remote learning is the best route forward for their children this September.

Waters spoke about her distrust that the school system will be able to keep her children safe when they have exposed children to their food allergies.

All three agreed that the decision about whether to opt out of in-person school should be up to families — once that reopening is safe enough.

Jackson-McArthur said that the board’s decision to open remotely for 10 weeks is a pause to allow them to fine tune safety measures, like ensuring families have masks.

“It is an expense that a lot of people, of course, didn’t think we were going to need. With the pandemic, a lot of people are having difficulty with their incomes,” Jackson-McArthur said. ​“If we’re going to require something, especially something that is going to prevent the spread of an infectious agent, we should be providing it.”

Waters served on Superintendent Iline Tracey’s ​“Tiger Team” of parents and educators who informed the district’s reopening plans. Waters said that the team was preparing to reopen with distance learning, though.

After combing carefully through distance learning plans, she was surprised by the sudden appearance of hybrid and in-person learning plans when Gov. Ned Lamont asked school districts to reopen with in-person classes.

“When July hit and the decision was made that we were going to go into schools, April through July went out the window,” Waters said. ​“I was lost. Where the heck did the rest of this stuff come from?”

Roughly 1,400 people have watched the Facebook Live of the radio show. Listen to the full show here.

Mayor: ​“Teachers, We Need You”

On Thursday morning, Elicker offered a different take, describing his support for a hybrid, remote and in-person learning schedule, in a Facebook video and mass email notification.

The mayor said that families worried about school-related health concerns during the pandemic can opt out of in-person learning.

He also described teachers as ​“essential workers,” and urged those without specific health conditions to return to the classrooms because in-person instruction makes such a positive different for students.

In the video, Elicker reiterated his support for reopening schools with a hybrid of in-person and virtual classes. 

“I strongly believe this is the right decision for our New Haven young people and that our Covid-19 cases are now so low — among the lowest in the entire country — that we can do this with low risk,” Elicker said.

Considering the distance between his and the school administration’s views and those of a majority of the Board of Education and parent and teacher advocates, Elicker said that he is hoping to finalize next week how exactly NHPS will reopen.

The mayor made the case throughout the video for hybrid school reopening being safe and necessary.

He pointed to statistics showing that thousands of students never logged on to remote classes and that 12,000 students engaged only partially in those classes. NHPS survey data, according to the state panel hearing on Tuesday, show that only 30 percent of New Haven Public Schools students engaged with their schoolwork during the spring shutdown.

The city and school district are working to close one part of that divide by ensuring every student has a computer and has internet access, the mayor said. He said that even after closing the divide, remote learning will not be enough.

“It also remains the case that school is the only place where thousands of children are able to eat a nourishing meal, receive health care, and find positive role models, guidance and support in their lives,” Elicker said.

He reiterated that families can choose distance learning for their child throughout the course of the pandemic, regardless of whether the district goes remote, hybrid or fully in-person.

Teachers have less choice. They can file a disabilities claim with the district if they have a medical condition that puts them at a high risk for the severe adverse consequences of contracting Covid-19.

Tracey said on Tuesday that 90 teachers so far have filed for this option to opt out of in-person teaching, and that her administration has verified 33 claims to date.

Many teachers have become vocal critics of school reopenings both in New Haven and nationwide.

Elicker asked teachers without medical conditions to commit to in-person teaching. He said that Tracey has put protections in place for their safety.

“Health care workers, custodians, grocery store workers, police officers and fire fighters, and many more people have worked through this crisis because society has needed them. Teachers, we need you,” Elicker said.

Teachers: ​“Then Listen To Us”

The mayor’s Facebook post unleashed a storm of debate.

Parents commented on the video about their support or opposition to sending their child to school.

Teachers, however, weighed in overwhelmingly against Elicker’s statements.

“Mayor Elicker, I think you misunderstand some of your teachers’ concerns. Many of us are not afraid for ourselves, but for our community. I have mourned students before, and I have certainly supported countless students as they mourned loved ones. We are afraid of preventable trauma and death,” wrote English teacher Akimi Nelken.

Nelken and others compared in-person classes to the lack of in-person city, state and Board of Education meetings. Nelken pointed to school bathrooms that have had broken sinks and no soap in the past.

“If you need teachers, then you need to listen to us! We are telling you from first-hand experience that our school buildings are not ready and are not safe for in-person learning,” wrote Nataliya Braginsky, a high school teacher and member of the New Haven Educators’ Collective.

“Schools (are not) and cannot be the only place for young people to receive meals, healthcare, and support. It’s up to the city and state to change that rather than using it as a talking point to force teachers into unsafe work environments and students into unsafe learning environments,” Braginsky said.

Another high school teacher, Matthew Monahan, wrote that he and his wife teach at different schools, while his children attend a third. He said that he is confident in the safety of his children but that he and his wife work at riskier schools with historically worse ventilation systems.

“Until we can guarantee the relative safety of all students equally we should delay the return to in person school,” Monahan wrote. 

“Strength And Wellbeing And Public Health Of Our Community”

And on Wednesday morning, teachers from across the state brought up similar concerns in a protest held outside the State Capitol building in Hartford.

Leslie Blatteau, a teacher at Metropolitan Business Academy and a parent of a soon to be kindergartener, traveled from New Haven to Hartford Wednesday morning to help lead the rally.

She is a member of a statewide coalition of educators and public school advocates demanding a delay in the resumption of in-person schooling until school districts have safety plans in place that students, staff and teachers have faith in.

“This is not about individual children. This is about the strength and wellbeing and public health of our community,” Blatteau said.

Blatteau said that public schools in cities like New Haven, Bridgeport, and Hartford have historically been underfunded.

This means that the students and staff at these school have to deal with bigger class sizes, less outdoor spaces, and more students dependent on public transportation and school buses. These realities contributes to a high-risk environment during the Covid-19 pandemic, she said, and would leave students, staff and educators vulnerable if in-person learning begins again this fall.

Blatteau demanded in-person schooling be delayed until the state invests in a multitude of precautionary measures, including having enough bus monitors for all school buses. She said New Haven hasn’t allocated enough funding in its plan for all buses to have monitors.

“That means that the kindergarteners and first graders who get on the bus who lose their mask and drop it down underneath the bus seats don’t have somebody to help them put it on,” she said. That also means that, when an eighth-grader jokingly throws their mask out the bus window, there will be no adult present to help them get a new one.

Speaking on behalf of Wednesday’s coalition outside the State Capitol, she also demanded that the state invest in high quality remote education and not put ​“wealth over health.”

Teachers and parents in attendance held signs reading, ​“Kids ≠ Labrats” and ​“Teachers ≠ Martyrs.”

“My Job Or My Family”

A fourth grade New Haven Public Schools teacher who said her last name is Wilson joined the crowd briefly before heading back to the Elm City to pick up her 12-year old daughter, who had been staying with her grandparents that morning.

“They’re asking me to choose my job or my family, which is unforgivable,” she said.

Back in July, Wilson said, she sat her daughter down and talked her through two three-hour sessions on home finances, to teach her how to manage money and cover necessary household expenses in case she becomes sick or passes away.

“I will do it all for her. She’s my daughter, but she’s also my best friend. If I have to go back to teaching, I will to provide for her. But before anything can happen, I got to make sure she knows everything. What’s mine is hers. I don’t want nobody tricking her out of what she’s owed when I’m gone,” Wilson said.

Blatteau responded to the concern that only 30 percent of NHPS students were actively engaged in schoolwork this spring after Covid-19 shut down in-person instruction. She said that students were dealing with the immediate, uncertain, and devastating effects of the pandemic while very little information about the virus was being offered.

“That was an emergency transition to online learning,” she said. Students of all ages were dealing with their own or their parents’ loss of work, unprecedented family loss, and taking care of their siblings.

“Right now if we plan and if we are funded we can take care of our families and our students in a way that will not be an emergency. Instead it will be a thoughtful, careful, investment in our community public health,” Blatteau said .

“Chronic Health Issues”

Mother, activist, CEO, and Manchester resident Keren Prescott also attended the protest Wednesday. In addition to the more school-specific concerns discussed at the protest, Prescott said she would also like to see the state declare racism a public heath crisis.

“There is virtually nothing put in place that addresses proven side effects that come as a result of racism and generational trauma,” she said.

“Without this declaration, there is little to no aid for families who must simultaneously deal with both Covid and racial oppression. We know these two are inherently intertwined.”

Prescott shared that her 100-year-old grandmother died from Covid this summer. She said her family at home can’t afford to get sick by sending her daughters to school this year.

Precott’s mother is a heart transplant recipient and her father has a rare disease. Her daughters also have chronic health issues, she said, and Prescott herself has multiple sclerosis.

Prescott said the state’s decision makers do not look like her or have homes like hers.

“In my home I have MS and asthma. In my home my daughter has asthma as well as other chronic health issues. In my home we live with my parents,” she said.

Covid has disproportionately affected African American and Hispanic populations throughout the city, state and country.

Prescott said that data should push state officials to back in-person learning this fall.

“How will you ensure the safety of Black and brown students who must deal with the very harsh realities of not just one but two different pandemics that both put their livelihoods at risk?” she asked. ​“How will you create a safe and equitable environment for low income students whose parents lost their jobs to Covid, students who have family members that are immuno-compromised, students who rely on school as their only safe space, yet no longer feel safe in the walls of their school?”

Prescott’s nine year old daughter Jordyn followed her mom up with a speech talking about her experience with distance learning and her fear of returning back to school.

“I wish my school and other schools cared about my health, but I am scared that they don’t,” Jordyn said.

Prescott said that in the spring, Jordyn had daily panic attacks because of the unforeseen shift to distance learning. While learning, Jordyn’s frustration and anxiety would cause her to worry about not being smart enough for the fourth grade next year. Jordyn would have nightmares about being punished in school for not learning enough through remote learning.

“It felt like I was not learning anything. I used to like learning but I lost a lot of confidence because learning through a computer is not the same as learning in person,“Jordyn said.

During the summer Prescott and her family have been working to teach Jordyn the positives of distance learning. The family has made lessons out of fun tasks like baking cupcakes and nature walks to learn math measurements, and the difference between swamps and marshes.

“We Are Teachers / Mighty, Mighty Teachers”

After each speaker, one of the rally’s organizers put a new mask on the shared microphone. Songs like Public Enemy’s ​“Fight the Power” played softly in the background.

Rose Reyes, a teacher in Windham and town council member, led the crowd in the chant:

“Being safe is a right /
This is why we have to fight /
Our districts must unite”

And then the group sang:

People want to know /
Who we are /
So we tell them /
We are teachers /
Mighty, mighty teachers /
Fighting for saftey /
And public education

Cost Of Covid

The group set up a public art installation outside the State Capitol that used 200 silhouette cardboard cutouts representing 100 students and 100 school staff, all circling around a large colorful host signifying Covid escaping from a plexiglass mimic.

A red string spewed from the inflatable Covid beach ball to each cutout, representing the quick and easy spread and those ​“perishing for the sake of reopening the economy,” as the artist’s statement put it.

Each student cutout had a price tag attached. The cost per pupil tag demonstrated the ​“total amount of revenues from all sources allocated to K‑12 education, divided by the number of students as determined, most often, by average daily attendance.”

Costs ranged from $32,000 to $16,000 for the students placed in district reference groups.

New Haven was placed in the last reference group with the lowest average price per students.

Robert Bayer, an emergency room physician at Yale New Haven Hospital, also demanded in-person learning be delayed this fall. He is the father of two sons.

“What our leaders did not tell you is that flattening the curve is not an endpoint. It bought us some time. But the real battle with this virus begins now and it’s surveillance and it’s trace testing and it’s eventually vaccination and developing treatments,” he said.

“We cannot open up our schools now until we have the ability to systematically screen our children. We must be able to detect asymptomatic carriers of this virus because asymptomatic children will spread this virus.”

Bayer said the CDC’s guidelines will be impractical in schools.

The crowd of 60 agreed that now is the time to create a safe and equitable school system that ​“focuses on justice and liberation for all.”

Valerie Horsley, a Hamden Legislative Council member and an associate professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, and dermatology at Yale School of Medicine joined the rally with her daughter Evelyn.

Horsley told the crowd that Black youth are five times more likely to get Covid and Hispanic kids are eight times more likely to get Covid than their white peers.

Horsley and other speakers demanded that Governor Ned Lamont be the leader that the state needs.