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The return of middle school students means that by the end of February about 250,000 of NYC’s roughly one million public school students will be back in school buildings. Richard A. Carranza, the city’s schools chancellor, said on February 8th that about half of the 471 middle schools reopening will be able to accommodate most children five days a week, and that at least some of the other schools should be able to move toward that goal in the coming months.
The schools should be open, but it has to be at a small capacity. Once these kids start coming back, both students and teachers must take the right precautions to make sure that everybody is Covid free. These steps must be made because conducting classes online is actually harder then what we expect. It is not the same feeling as actually speaking to your teacher face to face and having to do your work. The pressure is not there nor is the discipline to get the work completed in a timely fashion.The safest thing to do if these kids are coming back is to make sure each kid has been Covid tested. Parents and students who do not agree with the Covid test policy will be excluded. It is unclear how many protocols will be made, but the plan is to be in school by next week. In order to be in school other than a Covid test, all students and teachers must be at 25% capacity. If everybody is going to school, the room for error is going to be very high. Every school is going to need an abundance of hand sanitizer and cleaning supplies. The best option for all schools is to do a hybrid instruction. Until they can confirm that all students will be okay and in a safe environment, this is the best option. Since the younger generation are affected the most, it is major that they returned back to school first. These same students also are easily able to get sick.
Once a controlled system is put in place for them, high school students are able to return back to school as well. The city as well as the rest of the country wants students to be back in school and is tired of remote learning. This is a big step by setting this plan for the middle schoolers. Mayor De blasio is taking small steps to eventually get to the overall goal of bringing all students back to school. This plan can happen in due time. I think that March is still too early, but it is good that these plans are being made. This is because the Covid-19 Pandemic has been very unpredictable and you want to be 100% sure that these students and teachers will be okay.
