COVID al fresco still going on at NYC schools

  

NY Post

Talk about cold cuts.

Kids in some city schools are still eating lunch outdoors each day due to social distancing rules despite plunging temperatures and steamed parents.

“It’s getting a little ridiculous at this point,” said a mom at MS 104 in Manhattan, where kids again pulled apart their string cheese in 39-degree weather Wednesday. “They’ve eaten outdoors every day this week. It’s cold.”

A mom at a Park Slope elementary school said her child has also been dining al freezo for the entire year and began complaining about the conditions this week.

“We’ve heard no plans to bring them inside anytime soon,” she said. “In fact, they are still asking for parents to give the school their Fresh Direct bags to create seating pads. It doesn’t sound like they’re going in.”

The Department of Education allowed principals to devise their own lunch arrangements this year while complying with social distancing rules.

While some have managed to keep kids under a roof while eating, others have headed for the great outdoors.

“It’s already hard enough for a little kid to eat outside while sitting on concrete with a mask on,” said the mother of a Brooklyn fourth-grader who ate outside this week. “What does the weather have to be to go inside? How low does it have to go?”

Quinn proposes schools become all-day babysitting service

From Metro:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced a fleet of education proposals this morning, including extending the school day and axing textbooks and using tablets instead.

Quinn targeted the education system with her speech at the New School.

The Speaker is battling to be the next mayor, facing an ever-growing list of competitors to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he finishes his term next year.

Her proposals, which she vowed would cost less than $300 million, included appointing a deputy mayor for education and children.

She also wants to make the school day longer, keeping students until 6 p.m. five days a week in schools with the highest percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.

No more textbooks would be needed under her plan – instead, students would use tablets.

I'm sure tablets cost much less than books. And are we also providing free dinner to the children since they'll be there until 6pm? How about another round of school buses?

More budget cuts are coming

From the NY Times:

With his plan to sell 2,000 new yellow-taxi medallions still in doubt, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has proposed slashing money for libraries and after-school programs and increasing fees on school lunches and parking meters to compensate for more than $600 million in lost medallion revenue.

Mr. Bloomberg’s budget proposal does not reflect additional costs related to Hurricane Sandy, disaster relief or the storm’s effect on the local economy. Yet the storm will no doubt loom large when the mayor releases his budget plan in January or February for the 2014 fiscal year.

Instead, the new proposal — which, in an unusual move, was posted to the city’s Web site late Friday night but not announced until Sunday — represents a contingency plan to cope with a budget shortfall that must be addressed before the end of the fiscal year, on June 30.

Among other proposals, the Bloomberg administration plans to increase school-lunch fees to $2.50 from $1.50, bringing in $4.4 million. The administration plans to establish new parking meter areas in Lower Manhattan, while installing 428 new multi-space parking meters, to gain an extra $2.2 million.

But libraries across the city are slated to lose $8.3 million.

Ladies who lunch

"Karen Koslowitz, Toby Stavisky and Grace Meng were walking by the Forest Hills Jewish Center which is having trouble delivering supplies, clothes and food they collected for Hurricane Sandy victims. When they were asked to see if they could help they said they would talk to the director of the Center.

Did they? NO!

They decided that going to lunch was more important than helping their community members who came together to help people suffering. They are useless, heartless politicians who care more about collecting a pay check than helping the people in their community and those who have lost everything. They are nothing but wasted votes and how they are representing our community is mind boggling.

Just thought Queens should know that going to lunch is more important to them than helping people in need." - anonymous

Overcrowding turns school lunch to brunch

From the NY Post:

Eighth-graders at a middle school in Queens will be getting a lesson in how to eat like an heiress this year after their lunch time was moved up so early in the day their principal sent a letter to parents calling it “brunch.”

Lunch will now start at 9:45 a.m. for some students at IS 25 in Whitestone.

Mimosas won’t be served, just the usual cafeteria fare of chili and mozzarella sticks.

Some parents are fuming.

“My concern is that this brunch schedule teaches children to skip breakfast,” said Paul Manuele, a father of an IS 25 eighth-grader. “Those that don’t skip breakfast won’t have the appetite for a meal two hours later.”

Principal Mary Ellen Beirne said she was scheduling three lunch periods instead of two because of overcrowding. Last year, she said, more than 400 kids were crammed into the cafeteria at once.