Remote learning in action (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor’s Office)
Confidence in the New York City Department of Education and other local leaders is low for Yalena Figueroa, a Hispanic mother of two public school students learning remotely this school year from Astoria, Queens.
Figueroa wanted to send her fifth-grader and ninth-grader back to school, especially her teenager starting at a new high school. However, due to the concerns raised by teachers and news outlets, she said remote learning was a no-brainer for her. Both Figueroa and her teenage daughter are immunocompromised, and her primary concerns with school reopening include the cleaning and ventilation of classrooms. “I don’t trust what the Department of Education is saying about school safety. I trust the judgment of teachers,” she said. “We’re not getting the straight answers we should be getting as parents.”
Her children are two of the roughly 480,000 students — about 48% of the city’s 1 million (non-charter school) public school students — who have been signed up by their parents and guardians for all-remote learning, with another about 520,000 (52%) students enrolled in “blended learning,” with some days in school buildings and some days remote each week.
Data from the Department of Education accumulated through September 25 shows parents of color are more likely than white parents to be cautious of in-person instruction, though there are variances among parents of color, some of which mirror the fact that Black and Hispanic New Yorkers have been disproportionately sickened and killed by COVID-19.
Of the 480,000 students enrolled in all-remote learning about 39% are Hispanic, 24% are Asian, 21% are Black, and 11% are white. According to overall public school enrollment from the 2019-2020 school year, 41% of city students were Hispanic, 22% were Black, 18% were Asian, and 16% were white. So while all-remote learning sign-ups by racial/ethnic groups is comparable to the larger student populations for Black and Hispanic enrollment, there is a significant difference for Asian and white students, with a higher proportion of Asian students and a smaller proportion of white students choosing all-remote.
Taking into account overall student enrollment figures and the remote learning data, about 64% of all Asian students in New York City’s public schools were signed up for all-remote learning to start this school year. It is about 46% of all Black students and 45% of all Hispanic students also in solely online classes, compared to about 33% of all white students.
According to interviews with several Black, Hispanic, and Asian public school parents, their reasons for opting their children into all-remote school to start this school year range from distrust in city leaders, health and safety concerns, consistency in education, and overall low confidence in reopening school buildings.
As Mayor Bill de Blasio repeatedly pushed back the start of in-person classes for this school year, readying for the return of students for the first time since schools were shut down in March, the number of all-remote students grew steadily.
De Blasio announced a delay for the second time on September 17, saying students would return in increments, starting with the very youngest and some special needs students on September 21. Students in K-5 and K-8 schools followed, returning to classrooms on September 29, and middle and high schools opened on October 1. Despite the delays, the school year began remotely for most students on Monday, September 16.
The delay was at least in large part due to staffing shortages, according to the mayor and leaders of the teachers and principals unions. While need has been pegged at more than 10,000 additional teachers to cover all the types of classes needed and meet the requirements agreed to with the teachers union, de Blasio said the city would be hiring or otherwise finding already in city employ an additional 4,500…
Read More: Parents of Color Choose All-Remote Learning at Higher Rates