NY Daily News Op-Ed: Do Whatever it Takes to Get Kids Back in Classrooms

By Justin Krebs

“Daddy, is tomorrow an in-person day?” asks one of my 6-year-olds. “It is for cohort B,” responds my 8-year-old. “Oh good!” smiles the 6-year-old.

This is a conversation I never could’ve imagined 11 months ago. As surprised as I am that “cohort” is common jargon for my kids, I’m even more surprised to have kids thrilled when it’s their turn to go to school. The two happiest days each week in our household are the ones when we say goodbye to our 8-year-old and twin 6-year-olds at the gates of PS 39.

For the next five hours, our kids have the chance to feel accountable to and invested in by a skilled and experienced professional. They get to negotiate the world with other kids who don’t share their DNA. They learn to write, read new books, talk about their weekends and their feelings, play tag, notice how other kids have different interests and learn more about themselves. In short, they get to be school kids — an essential, developmentally-appropriate part of life in New York City and across the country that has been sadly snatched from our children in the midst of a savage pandemic, which has disrupted two school years.

If city leaders don’t get serious and soon, a third disrupted school year could be on the way. And I don’t want to be the one to break that news to my kids.

We’re approaching a year since New York City closed down. Along with the terrible health and economic crisis, we’ve also seen an educational crisis for the million-plus students in New York’s schools. Despite huge efforts by teachers and administrators, the tenacity of our families and the resilience of our students, remote and hybrid education are just not as developmentally appropriate or successful for the vast majority of our kids.

And yet, parents like me have still not seen a plan to get back to five-days-a-week in-person schooling in the fall.

I see the exasperation families are experiencing in my own community and around the city. I see it matched by the frustration felt by teachers who are being asked to do the impossible, and who would design a different system from the bottom up if they could. And I see the exhaustion of our principals, who are often learning of policy shifts and closures from the same tweets and press releases the parents are receiving — without being consulted or given time to make plans.

We need to get back to five-day-a-week in-person school this fall. But it won’t happen on its own, it won’t work by decree and it can’t happen chaotically. We need a plan to get there, regular updates on that plan, citywide buy-in — and every elected official and candidate for office discussing it constantly to make it the priority it absolutely must be.

Increasingly, public health data shows us that we can return to schools safely — if we invest in our safety in smart, impactful ways, ensure adequate COVID tests, increase vaccination rates among teachers and families, and create better home-based options for students who can’t return.

Most critically, it will require building trust in the DOE and city leadership across the city, especially in communities of color, in which many families know it’s not yet safe to send their kids back and don’t believe the system is listening to them.

We need to see the vigorous work to listen to concerns and address them — with a citywide mobilization of resources and with transparency, clear communication and community engagement that can begin to rebuild trust.

Many New Yorkers imagine that we’ll be back to normal, full-time, in-person school in the fall. My family talks of fourth and second grade like an exciting dream just beyond the horizon, almost like planning a trip to the Magic Kingdom.

But full reopening can’t happen without a real, aggressive plan from City Hall. We can’t wait until the summer to debate what that plan will look like. We need that discussion now, with teachers, administrators, parents, guardians, students, and city leaders at the table, laying out the criteria that will ensure a safe and successful return. Many private schools in our city are doing this, safely.

Meanwhile, the city should adopt other measures to make this year as successful as it can be that parents, advocates and teachers are already fighting for — including steps to close the digital divide, invest in additional tutors and teacher aides, ensure multilingual communications about schooling and more.

We’ve always been told it’s hard to transform such a massive, complicated system. Well, we did transform it on Monday, March 16, 2020. Now, instead of reinventing it in a moment of acute crisis, let’s reimagine and rebuild it with priorities of equity, accessibility, and excellence, and the resources and citywide prioritization to match — all while adopting some of the lessons from this year around investing in smaller cohort opportunities, digital learning and outdoor education. We must rebuild and reopen better, and we can’t wait another year.

Krebs is a political organizer, board chair of The Tank theater, and secretary of the District 15 Presidents’ Council. He is also a candidate for City Council.