Hellscape High

NY Post

Hundreds of “radicalized” kids rampaged through the halls of a Queens high school this week for nearly two hours after they discovered a teacher had attended a pro-Israel rally — forcing the terrified educator to hide in a locked office as the teen mob tried to push its way into her classroom, The Post has learned.

The mayhem at Hillcrest High School in Jamaica unfolded shortly after 11 a.m. Monday in what students called a pre-planned protest over the teacher’s Facebook profile photo showing her at a pro-Israel rally on Queens Oct. 9 holding a poster saying, “I stand with Israel.”

“The teacher was seen holding a sign of Israel, like supporting it,” a senior told The Post this week.

“A bunch of kids decided to make a group chat, expose her, talk about it, and then talk about starting a riot.”

Hundreds of kids flooded into hallways and ran amok, chanting, jumping, shouting, and waving Palestinian flags or banners. 

Many tried to barge into the teacher’s classroom despite school staffers blocking their entry.

“Everyone was yelling ‘Free Palestine!’” a senior said.

“Everyone was screaming ‘(The teacher) needs to go!’” a ninth-grader said. 

NY Post

Four students were arrested for allegedly assaulting school safety agents who were trying to break up a fight inside Hillcrest High School less than a week before a mob of kids rampaged through the halls of the Queens school over a teacher attending a pro-Israel rally.  

Shocking video that captured part of the harrowing attack on one NYPD officer was posted to social media Sunday night and later verified by the NYPD.

The brawl broke out around noon Nov. 15 when three students were fighting two other students.

School safety agents attempted to break up the fight but became the target of several blows themselves, police said.

In total, three NYPD school officers were injured as they tried to separate the students during the melee, cops said.

Four of the students, two 15-year-old boys and two 16-year-old boys, were arrested and issued juvenile reports, according to the NYPD.

The department gives out juvenile reports in lieu of a misdemeanor or felony charge when the suspects are young minors.

Footage of the incident shared by Queens Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X shows a student in a gray sweatshirt appearing to spin away from a cop, out of her grip, and then charge at another student who is quickly blocked by a second uniformed officer.

Hundreds of kids flooded into hallways and ran amok, chanting, jumping, shouting, and waving Palestinian flags or banners. 

Many tried to barge into the teacher’s classroom despite school staffers blocking their entry.

“Everyone was yelling ‘Free Palestine!’” a senior said.

“Everyone was screaming ‘(The teacher) needs to go!’” a ninth-grader said. 

 

 

30,000

 

NY Post

New York City public schools are on track to lose close to 30,000 students by this fall, according to new city data.

Projections from the Office of Student Enrollment, shared with The Post Friday, showed the city Department of Education expects to enroll roughly 28,100 fewer students this fall, and another 2,300 students by the end of the school year.

The figures account for students in all geographic district schools — but do not include those enrolled in charter schools, schools for kids with disabilities, and other nontraditional public programs.

“Here’s what’s happening with the Department of Education,” Mayor Eric Adams said at an unrelated event this week.

“We have a massive hemorrhaging of students — massive hemorrhaging. We’re in a very dangerous place in the number of students that we are dropping,” he said.

By the end of next school year, the largest school district in the nation expects to serve a student population of just 760,439 children, the data show.

The second largest public school system — the Los Angeles Unified School District — enrolls over 600,000 students in kindergarten through twelfth grade, according to its website.

The DOE on Friday doubled down on School Chancellor David Banks’ focus on responding to students’ needs and making families feel heard to stem the tide.

Roughly 120,000 students have fled the public school system over the last five years, according to the DOE.

Officials also pointed to national trends of decreased enrollment, attributing that to diminished birthrates, a lack of affordability, and relocations during the pandemic.

Adding that those problems can’t be solved in half of a year, they were optimistic about plans so far and in the works to lure families back to the public school system.

 

41% of public school students did not comply

Chalkbeat

Just over half of New York City public school students are fully vaccinated, according to data the education department released Friday.

In total, 59% of the city’s public school students have received at least one vaccine dose and nearly 52% are considered fully vaccinated.

The information is required under City Council law, and includes a breakdown of school-level vaccination rates and the number of students who have consented to in-school COVID testing. Updates will be shared every two weeks. The figures don’t include charter schools.

The data show that there are wide disparities by school and neighborhood. Schools in Brooklyn’s District 23, which includes Ocean Hill, Brownsville and parts of East New York, had the lowest rates of vaccination, with just 38% of students receiving at least one dose. Districts 16, which includes a significant chunk of Bedford-Stuyvesant, and 18, which includes Flatbush and Canarsie, both had vaccination rates of 43%. On Staten Island, the rate is 47%.

“In the coming months, we are working with our partner health care agencies on an outreach campaign to encourage vaccination in the communities with the lowest rates,” education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said in a statement.

Manhattan’s District 2 has the highest vaccination rate, with 80% of students receiving at least one dose. That district spans much of Lower Manhattan, some of Chinatown, and the Upper East Side. Not far behind: District 3 in Manhattan, which includes the Upper West Side and part of Harlem, at 77%. Next is District 26 in Bayside, Queens, where 74% of students have at least one dose.

At nearly 250 of the city’s schools, fewer than a third of students have received at least one dose. Out of the city’s nearly 1,600 district schools, the share of students who have been vaccinated with at least one dose ranges from from just 12% to 94%.

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?”

Student reporters get sex predator teacher removed from school that the city kept on

 

NY Post

 Pupil Power!

Thanks to intrepid student journalists, an English teacher and coach at prestigious Townsend Harris HS in Queens was yanked from the school this week after it came to light that city investigators confirmed he had sex with a former female student.

Joseph Canzoneri, 53, allegedly brought the girl to an apartment where he plied her with wine and marijuana before they had intercourse and oral sex, the Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools found.

The SCI recommended Canzoneri be fired, and the Department of Education tried to do so. But the girl refused to testify at a hearing, so the case was dropped and he was entitled to keep his job under New York tenure protections.

After more than a year in a rubber room, a space where accused teachers await the disciplinary process, he quietly returned to Townsend Harris at the start of the school year in September. The principal kept him out of classrooms in an office.

The scandal remained under wraps until three weeks ago, when someone leaked the case to teen journalists at the school’s student newspaper, The Classic.

Known for aggressive reporting, the paper has run a series of articles in the last year on six former students who claimed sexual contact with three Townsend Harris teachers — cases all kept secret at the time. The unnamed teachers no longer work at the school.  The editors have called for greater openness and training on educator sexual misconduct.

In light of this campaign, an anonymous “concerned parent” sent The Classic the bombshell SCI report on Canzoneri. The precocious journos spotted him in the building and on Wednesday filed a Freedom of Information Law request with SCI to authenticate the document. 

Suddenly the DOE took action. The same week — the agency would not say which day — officials shunted Canzoneri from Townsend Harris into a “central office” somewhere outside of the building. After making $135,000 last year, he remains on the payroll.

“It is past time for greater transparency about what has gone on at Townsend Harris and for the DOE and school administration to engage students and families in an open, honest conversation about the horrific allegations we have reported on,” editors-in-chief Ryan Eng, Julia Maciejak, and Jasmine Palma told The Post.

This school should send these kids to City Hall and trail the Blaz for the next month. 

Donnie Richards brings civics to students

Queens Post 

 The Queens borough president has launched a new initiative to educate high schoolers about city government and the importance of civic engagement.

The borough president’s office is sending in staff into Queens high schools to teach students about the role city officials and elected leaders play in local government, as well as how city government can address quality-of-life issues.

The initiative, dubbed “Civics in the Classroom,” is being offered to one high school per week. The program kicked off this morning at Bayside High School.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards joined the school’s principal, Tracy Martinez, and hosted a discussion in front of hundreds of students about the importance of voting and getting involved in one’s community.

Richards said that while the younger generation is leading many political movements, there are many young people who are not engaged with or educated about their local government.

“The youngest among us are courageously leading nationwide movements around systemic discrimination, gun violence, voting rights, climate change and more, giving us all so much hope for the future of our society,” he said in a statement. “But there are still far too many young people who are unaware of their power or unsure of their place in our city,”

This was Curtis Sliwa's idea.

Far Rockaway school is the third "gold standard" school to shut down because of COVID infections

Chalkbeat 

Village Academy in the Far Rockaway section of Queens will close Thursday after health department officials determined COVID-19 is spreading in the school, according to the education department.

It is the second New York City public school closed this week, and the third closure this school year.

As of Wednesday, city data show there had been nine partial classroom closures at the middle school, which shares a building with other schools. The school reported 14 cases among students over the past week and two among staff, according to state data.

Students will transition to remote learning for the next 10 days and can return to in-person learning on Nov. 22. Any student without a device can pick one up tomorrow at the school.

The co-located schools will remain open.

“We do not hesitate to take action to keep school communities safe and our multi-layered approach to safety has kept our positivity rate extremely low,” Department of Education spokesperson Katie O’Hanlon said in an email. “All staff at DOE are vaccinated and all students at Village Academy have access to a device to ensure live, continuous learning.”

The closure was announced on the same day that P.S. 166 was shuttered. The school, which sits on the border of Long Island City and Astoria in Queens, saw 22 students and three staff members test positive since Nov. 3.

The fact that there have been so few closures this year, “speaks volumes to all the precautions that were taken to create a safe environment,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Chokshi screwed up

 

NY Daily News

A city effort to vaccinate newly eligible kids ages 5 to 11 against coronavirus kicked off Monday morning at school clinics — but ran into some early hiccups.

Anxious parents spent hours waiting outside some schools in the hopes of securing a vaccine dose for their elementary-age kids, only to be told the clinic didn’t have enough supply.

Parents at Public School 8 in Brooklyn Heights began lining up at 6 am for the city-run school vaccine distribution, with the line swelling to more than 100 people, one parent said. But city workers running the clinic said they could only give out 50 shots because they needed to conserve doses for other schools they were visiting Monday, according to parents at the school.

“I just don’t understand why they would have taken this approach,” said Michele Walsh, the parent of a first-grader and a fifth-grader, who was turned away after waiting for more than an hour.

Walsh said she refrained from looking for other appointments for her kids because she was counting on getting them vaccinated at the school.

She added that PS 8 administrators even gave city officials a heads-up in advance that there was going to be a huge demand for the shots Monday morning.

Walsh was even more frustrated that her kids had to miss the start of school while waiting outside in vain for a COVID-19 vaccine. “If they had just given us numbers and told us how many they had, the kids could’ve been in school instead of waiting outside,” she said.

A parent at PS 40 in Manhattan reported a similar supply problem, and said the shipment of shots still hadn’t shown up by 10:45 am — nearly four hours after the distribution was supposed to start.

100,000

THE CITY

Nearly 1 in 10 New York City public school students were homeless last school year, a staggering rate that has barely budged for several years.

About 101,000 students lived in unstable, or temporary, housing in the 2020-2021 school year, according to an analysis of state data released Monday by Advocates for Children. That’s a larger number of children than the entire school district of Denver.

Homeless students face a host of barriers to education in any given year, especially in terms of attendance. In a year when the COVID pandemic continued to disrupt in-person schooling and place extraordinary challenges on families and students across the five boroughs, homeless students faced even more hardships.

Accessing classwork and instruction — which was difficult for many children last school year — was sometimes impossible for homeless students and their families. Family shelters did not have Wi-Fi and are only getting it now, following a lawsuit from Legal Aid. Even students equipped with city-issued internet-enabled iPads struggled to log on for classes because shelters had spotty connections to the cell service that those devices depend on.

Now, advocates are looking ahead to Mayor-elect Eric Adams in hopes that he’ll take aggressive steps to curb student homelessness and address their dire educational outcomes.

Just 29% of homeless students passed their grades 3-8 reading exams, while just 27% passed math — both about 20 percentage points lower than their peers living in stable housing, according to 2019 data. Sixty-one percent of homeless students graduated on time in the school year before the pandemic, compared to 84% of their peers with stable housing.

“We are hopeful that given the incredibly poor outcomes we’re seeing, particularly for students in shelter, that Mayor-elect Adams’ administration will recognize the crisis for what it is,” said Jennifer Pringle, director of Project Learning In Temporary Housing at Advocates for Children.

More than 3,800 students had no shelter and lived in cars, parks or abandoned buildings, while another 200 students lived in hotels or motels, according to the Advocates for Children report.

Another 28,000 lived in city shelters, while about 65,000 students lived “doubled-up” with friends or family. (Information was not available for roughly 3,900 students, the organization said.)

Though the rate was similar to prior years, the overall number of homeless students — 94% of them Black or Hispanic — appeared to have fallen by 9.5% year-over-year. That decrease could be due in part to a drop in student enrollment across the system, which lost more than 3% of its students last school year. Additionally, schools may have faced more challenges in identifying where students lived because the majority of children chose to learn remotely — an issue that advocates also flagged last year.

Homeless students were far less likely to show up for remote or in-person school last year. Between January and June 2021, attendance rates for students living in shelters were roughly 10 to 14 percentage points less than students in stable housing, according to city data analyzed by Advocates for Children.

The struggles have continued this year. The first couple weeks of this school year, the attendance rate was about 73% for those in temporary housing, rising to 78% more recently, compared to the citywide rate hovering around the “high 80s and low 90s,” according to what education department officials have shared with Advocates for Children.

Eric Adams plans to demask students

NY Daily News 

Mayor-elect Eric Adams said Sunday he would like to see mask mandates at schools lifted by the end of the academic year, now that children are eligible for COVID vaccines.

“Not being able to see the smiles of our children, I believe that has a major impact,” New York City’s incoming mayor said on CNN.

He sounded a different tone than outgoing Mayor de Blasio, who said on Thursday that he wanted to keep the school mask mandate in place, at least in the short term, “out of an abundance of caution.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved the Pfizer vaccine on Tuesday for children ages 5 to 11.

“If we can find a safe way to do it, I look forward to getting rid of the mask, but it must be done with the science,” Adams said. “Part of the development of socialization of a child is that smile.”

School buses continue to leave students and parents hanging

NY Daily News 

A “cataclysmic” failure of New York City school bus transportation has left scores of city kids without buses for days or weeks — and some desperate families still waiting for a pickup more than a month into the school year, parents and advocates say.

Years of dysfunction compounded by the logistical challenges of restarting in-person classes amid the pandemic and a nationwide driver shortage have pushed transportation conditions in the city to a record low, according to families and school bus watchdogs.

“The busing situation in this city is cataclysmic,” said Amaranta Viera, the mother of a first-grader with autism who was without a bus for nearly a month after classes started on Sept. 13.

Some students legally entitled to school buses because of disabilities still have not been assigned a route. Others have a route, but no driver, matron or paraprofessional to pick them up. And some kids whose buses do show up are facing erratic pickups or hours-long rides, according to experiences shared with The Daily News.

“The problems are boiling over this year with kids missing not just hours, but days and weeks of school,” said Sara Catalinotto, the head of the advocacy group Parents to Improve School Transportation.

DOE officials said there are roughly 550 students who still need bus routes, a slight increase over the approximately 500 kids without routes at this time in 2019 and 2018 but still a small fraction of the 150,000 total kids who take school buses. Officials claimed all kids who were registered by the first day of classes now have a route.

But advocates say the number and severity of complaints pouring in this year are noticeably greater than in years past.

Catalinotto said she heard from eight families just last week who still don’t have a school bus, and 15 since the beginning of the year, compared to zero and three such complaints in 2019 and 2018. Another parent advocate who began compiling bus grievances at the beginning of the year got 58 hits, with half complaining of a no-show bus. The city’s Panel for Education Policy solicited bus complaints from parents for a recent meeting and got roughly 60 emails in three days.

“Typically by now, the bus issues would die down a lot, but not this year,” said Lori Podvesker, the education director of the special education advocacy group INCLUDEnyc and a member of the Panel for Education Policy.

The DOE also pointed to a 63% reduction in the number of calls to the Office of Pupil Transportation hotline compared with fall 2019, from roughly 6,400 calls per day in 2019 to 2,400 calls per day this year.

But parents say calling the OPT’s hotline is a lesson in futility because they either can’t get through or are directed to contact their schools or bus companies — discouraging them from trying again.

The Blaz's Knuckle Standard school reopenings

 NY Post

They’re reading, writing, and roughhousing at a highly regarded Queens high school — according to more than a dozen videos of students brawling in hallways, the cafeteria and outside, insiders confirmed.

The 14 clips of wild fistfights at or near Benjamin Cardozo High School on 223rd Street feature both girls and boys. Crowds of noisy classmates surround the combatants, egging them on.

“Fight! Fight!” a boy is heard shouting as two girls face off, before finally swinging at each other in a frenzy.

In one fight close to the nearby playground of PS 213, video shows a teen thrown to the ground, trying to shield his head from further kicks and blows.

Footage in front of shops on Springfield Avenue near Horace Harding Expressway shows a boy knocked flat onto his back, motionless.

Fight videos were taken down from the Instagram account @cardozohighschoolfights after The Post asked the NYPD about them. Two showing fights that happened off-site remain online, including one warning of “graphic or violent content.” 

“We are actively looking into the incidents,” said NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie, citing five complaints of violence in or near Cardozo since Sept. 13, when classes began.

In one case, a student menaced another kid with a Taser, though no arrests were made, she added.

In most cases, the fights were “handled administratively,” a source with knowledge of the videos told The Post, referring to school officials.

 

The Blaz abolishes schools gifted and talented program

 

 NY Post

Mayor Bill de Blasio is phasing out New York City’s Gifted and Talented program, he announced Friday — bowing to critics who assert that the coveted model is racist.

Current students in the accelerated learning program can stay in their separate schools and classrooms to completion. But new cohorts will be completely eliminated by fall 2022, ending testing for kids as young as four.

The model — which admits roughly 2,500 kids per year — is being replaced by Brilliant NYC, a program offering students aged 8 and up chances for accelerated learning while staying in their regular classrooms with other pupils.

The Department of Education said teachers would identify kids best suited for the new initiative.

De Blasio announced the major overhaul despite being in the final months of his term in office. 

The candidates to replace him, Democrat Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa, have both made clear they did not want to completely eliminate the program, which critics have attacked in part because of the higher number of white and Asian students that gain entry through the exam.

“Brilliant NYC will deliver accelerated instruction for tens of thousands of children, as opposed to a select few,” de Blasio said. “Every New York City child deserves to reach their full potential, and this new, equitable model gives them that chance.”

But critics quickly ripped Hizzoner for making the decision so late in his administration after earlier calls for him to leave it to his successor.

 “This is utterly irresponsible and reprehensible,” state Sen. John Liu (D-Queens) told The Post. “This is the worst act I’ve seen under this mayor. And there have been many of them.”

Liu had previously ripped City Hall for failing to engage parents on the polarizing issue — and intensified his critique after Friday’s rollout.

“The problem here is that the Gifted and Talented program has been part of city schools for a long time,” he said. “The premise is that kids learn at different rates. Changing that policy should involve a full public discussion involving all stakeholders. Instead, he chose the easy way out — fiat in the waning days of his administration when they can’t implement anything

 

The Blaz keeps mask mandates going for schools as he promotes restaurant weeks where masks don't apply as infections spread

 

AMNY

New York City doesn’t have plans to change its current mask-wearing policy in schools and adhere to recently updated guidelines from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday. 

In a major policy shift last week, the CDC called for the full reopening of schools across the country even if doing so meant dropping its three-foot social distancing requirement and recommended only unvaccinated adults and children wear masks while inside school buildings. 

The New York State Department of Health is currently reviewing the amended guidelines and their decision on whether to relax mask wearing requirements in schools could impact whether the DOE adopts the new CDC recommendations. But for now New York City public school families should expect that teachers, staff and students regardless of vaccination status will need to face coverings in classrooms this fall, according to de Blasio. 

“There will be a lot of communication before school and once it begins for now assume we are wearing masks,” de Blasio told reporters during a morning press conference. “ But that could change as we get closer…we will be driven by the data and see what the science has to say.” 

The CDC guideline changes come amid a national push to boost slowing vaccination rates across the country. De Blasio started off his Monday press conference touting New York City’s vaccination rate stating that 4.4 million city residents are now fully vaccinated against the virus.  

According to the CDC, about 4.9 million New York City residents are fully vaccinated against the virus and 5.4 million, or about 64% of the city’s population, has received at least one dose of the vaccine which falls just a little below the nation’s overall rate.

 NY Post

New York City diners will be able to enjoy temporarily discounted meals at more than 500 restaurants for five weeks this summer, in a lengthened Restaurant Week aimed at helping struggling restaurants recover from the pandemic, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.

The newly extended tourism and hospitality industry promotion will start on July 19 and end Aug. 22, the mayor said at his daily press briefing.

“Restaurant Week is launching next week, in a new, amazing form,” de Blasio said, boasting of more than a month of “great discounts, great specials” across the five boroughs.

“This is going to be amazing,” he said. “Think about restaurants you’ve always wanted to go to. Here’s the opportunity to experience them, and it’s a wonderful, super Restaurant Week that’s going to be really inviting again for New Yorkers and a special opportunity to come out and celebrate for folks who are not from around here.

Remember Remember the 7th of December...

 

PIX News 

 New York City school buildings will reopen under a phased schedule beginning the second week of December, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday.

Students in grades K-5, 3-K, and pre-kindergarten will return to the classroom first on Dec. 7, de Blasio said. Students in D75 schools at all grade levels will return to in-person learning on Dec. 10.

However, all schools located in orange and red microcluster zones will have to follow the state's guidance in order to reopen.

The mayor said the city will address the future of middle and high schools at a later date. For now, those students will continue with remote learning.

Students will not be allowed to return to in-person classes unless a signed COVID-19 testing consent form has been submitted by a parent or guardian, according to de Blasio. Families can fill out and submit a consent form by visiting, mystudent.nyc.

Additionally, the Department of Education is moving toward having students whose parents chose in-person learning be in the classroom five days a week. De Blasio said some schools are prepared to offer full-time in-person learning as early as Dec. 7, but other schools will need more time to ramp up.

The update comes more than a week after de Blasio announced public school buildings would temporarily close as a result of the city's seven-day coronavirus positivity rate reaching the 3% threshold he previously set.

Students pivoted to all-remote learning on Nov. 19, just days before their Thanksgiving holiday break.

As schools prepare to reopen, de Blasio said the city is taking a new approach to monitoring safety moving forward. The city will no longer use the previous citywide 3% positivity rate threshold to determine the fate of schools.

De Blasio said the 3% threshold was very stringent and purposely set at the start of the academic year amid many unanswered questions and concerns about the pandemic's affect on schools, but the city has since proven that it can keep students and staff safe despite a higher positivity rate.

"We feel confident that we can keep schools safe," he said.

 If de Blasio thought the threshold that he mandated for closings was so stringent, why re-open them with city cases at 4% and climbing?

77,000

 

 

Gothamist

New York City Public Schools are still lacking 77,000 learning devices like tablets and laptops, nearly a month after classes began, and fewer than 15% of students attending schools in person have consented to getting randomly tested for COVID-19.

These details on the rocky reopening of public schools across the five boroughs came from a long-awaited City Council hearing held by the Education and Health committees on Friday. It was the first such hearing that Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza testified at since schools reopened on a staggered basis beginning on September 21st. Councilmember Mark Treyger, chair of the education committee, was forced to delay the hearing that was originally scheduled on September 29th, the day middle school children were returning to school.

"How many requests are you in receipt of as of this moment for devices and internet as of today?" Treyger asked Department of Education deputy chief operating officer Lauren Siciliano.

"As of this moment we have about 77,000 requests, but again we then go and verify the need for the school so it's a constant evolving number," Siciliano replied.

Data released by the DOE on Thursday showed that schools comprised of more Black and Hispanic students had low student engagement during the spring when they transitioned completely to remote learning. In some cases, the devices are the only way for children to learn given that more than half of the city's one million public school students have opted for remote learning only.

"We engage with the school and to better understand which is a device that is needed in the hands of a student, which is a device that has been requested to replenish supply, and it's not uniform across the entire DOE," said Carranza.

Treyger pointed out that Mayor Bill de Blasio had been saying for weeks that every student who needed a device had gotten one.

"The fact that thousands of our kids, particularly from under-resourced communities still don't have a device is unacceptable and shameful. And I want to lay the fault squarely with the mayor and his office for being in denial about the severity of this issue," he said.

Mayor Big Slow decides to suspend in person learning at schools again a few days from re-opening

 Politico

New York City schools will not fully reopen on Monday as planned, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday — agreeing to another delay in his push to bring back in-person education in the nation’s largest school district.

Teachers and principals had raised a host of objections to the city’s reopening plans, including safety concerns and a shortage of teachers.

“They had real concerns about specific things that had to be done to make sure our schools could effectively start,” de Blasio said.

Only pre-kindergarten, early education classes for 3-year-olds, and special education classes will open in person on Monday.

Elementary schools and K-8 schools will now open on Tuesday, Sept. 29. Middle and high schools will open on Thursday, Oct. 1.

That cheesy photoshop? A children's book I'm working on. 

Faculty and students are guinea pigs for the city's indoor dining policy

Eater

 Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed Thursday what some NYC restaurant owners have suspected all along: A return to indoor dining is contingent on how the city’s schools perform when they reopen on September 10.

When a reporter pointed out to the mayor again Thursday that a return to indoor dining had been postponed indefinitely, de Blasio was more measured in his response than earlier in the week when he indicated that indoor dining might not return until next year.

“As more and more people come back to work, as schools begin, you know, we’ll get to see a lot about what our long-term health picture looks like, and that’s going to help inform our decisions going forward,” said de Blasio referring to the administration’s wait and watch approach on making a decision on indoor dining.

While the rest of the state has allowed indoor dining to proceed at half capacity for the last two months, New York City restauranteurs have been waiting indefinitely, despite the fact that the city has largely brought the spread of the COVID-19 largely under control. Still, New York leaders like de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have expressed concern due to the city’s density and population. 

The Blaz is a sick mofo. 

The 71% and the 75%

Twitter

Governor Cuomo ejects students from CUNY and SUNY dorm rooms to be triaged for COVD-19 patients

NY Post

Students who reside at CUNY and SUNY colleges have been kicked out of their dorms as Gov. Andrew Cuomo and health authorities eye the campuses as sites for make-shift emergency medical centers to help treat a wave of coronavirus patients, officials said.

“New York State is sending its CUNY and SUNY students out into pandemic through dorm closures,” fumed Petra Gregory, a student government representative at the College of Staten Island.

Dorm students at CUNY’s Hunter and City College campuses were also ordered to vacate as were resident-students at several SUNY campuses — including Stony Brook, which the Army Corps. of 
 Engineers has chosen as one of Long Island’s emergency medical sites.

Stony Brook already has a hospital on campus and already serves as a Suffolk County COVID-19 drive-thru testing center.

Gregory said dorms residents at CUNY’s Staten Island campus were abruptly told that they were getting the boot Monday night when a resident assistant knocked on their doors.

“I am currently being unfairly evicted out of my dorms, and I have a mother who is immunocompromised and a 6-month-old baby sister. My family is unable to pick me up, and I have to travel with my support animal and pack for him on this short notice as well,” one of the college’s resident-students, Jasmine Shaikh, said.

A CSI official sent an email to students on Tuesday confirming the state ordered the students booted to make room.

“Governor Cuomo has asked private and public universities across New York State to be ready for the possibility that dormitories might need to be converted into temporary emergency medical centers,” said Jennifer Borrero, CSI’s vice president of student affairs.

Wonder if there has been any discussion about triaging empty condos that haven't been sold or that are being used as pie-e-terre's in all those luxury towers and empty "affordable" apartments in mixed use buildings that the state and city gave tax breaks to.