Brooklyn parents struggle over whether or not to send their children to in-person school

By Tamsin Vidal
October 2020

 Lying on their bedroom floor with a half-eaten sandwich by their side, 4-year-old twins Jack and Josie stare at their small iPad screen. Josie is sucking her fingers, while Jack rests his head on his arm, both look like they could fall asleep at any moment. But it isn’t naptime that is taking place in their Brooklyn, NY bedroom, it’s Zoom school time with their pre-k teacher.

Since March 16th, 2020 when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order closing all schools statewide because of the novel coronavirus, many children, including Jack and Josie, have been learning from home. But with the progression of time, New York City has been able to stabilize its amount of cases, and Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced that NYC public schools will reopen for in-person learning again -- offering hybrid classes (a mix of in-person and remote teaching) and staggered scheduling.

With schools reopening, de Blasio experienced extreme pressure from unions and educators who said his New York City schools weren’t safe for in-person learning. Many cite the school buildings offer poor ventilation, windowless classrooms, disorganized distribution of personal protective equipment, and numerous teachers still needing to implement a blended learning model. Despite this, de Blasio announced that kids could go back to school for the first time in six months starting on September 29th, 2020. Some parents opted to keep their kids home and to learn remotely. 

Jack and Josie live on the Redhook and Carroll Garden border in Brooklyn, NY. Less than two miles away from their home is the Cobble Hill Health Center, whose nursing home reported the most COVID-19 related deaths out of all nursing homes nationwide back in April. A factor that played into their mom Anna Murphy’s decision to keep them home.

“People are shocked that I’m keeping them home,” said Murphy, a public school teacher. “But I don’t feel the Department of Education’s plan is strategic and safe enough. As a teacher, I feel the plan that they put in place to reopen schools is problematic because it doesn’t consider the idea that children might not socially distance outside of school. And how do they expect kids to socially distance? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“They’re in pre-k, and part of the pre-k curriculum is based on interaction and play. There’s not enough room for that with social distancing. What they are going to school for versus what they would be getting is nowhere aligned. My babysitter could do a better job at it.”

Murphy struggled with her decision. She doesn’t feel Zoom is developmentally appropriate for her children’s ages and notes their struggles. The twins’ entire Zoom school day is 21 minutes. “I’m lucky to be able to afford my babysitter,” who supplements the Zoom classes as both she and her husband work full-time.

Less than five blocks away from Jack and Josie are parents Sarah and Kevin Crook, and their three kids: 5-year-old Michael, 4-year-old Mary, and 2-year-old Molly. With their eldest starting kindergarten, the parents decided it would be best to send their children back to in-person learning. 

“We think the socialization of a kindergartener is how they learn,” Sarah said. “I think it’s super important to learn with other kindergarteners when you’re that age. I just can’t imagine it working solo.”

“We could teach reading and writing ourselves,” Kevin added. “But we can’t teach the experience of being in a group of his peers. It’s a vital thing.”

The family tried online learning last school year, with all the kids in preschool. “It was unsuccessful, to put it lightly,” said Kevin. “None of our kids were interested in watching the iPad [zoom class].”

Michael and his sisters joined in the Zoom lessons for about two weeks, but after that, they abandoned them -- since all were still in preschool at the time, the classes were optional. 

Michael, Mary, and Molly’s schools are taking many precautions with reopening; like online health survey forms that must be filled out every morning, taking their temperatures before entering the school building, and of course, wearing masks 24/7 when indoors.

Despite all these precautions, Sarah and Kevin still have fears about sending their kids back to school.

“If the kids did catch it [COVID-19], the thing I’d be most frightened about isn’t my personal health, or the personal health of Sarah or any of the kids, because they’re not at-risk,” Kevin explained. “My biggest concern would be that we would give it to someone else. That it would pass on through us, and indirectly via our actions someone would die. I would be shattered if that happened.”