While personal safety is a factor, school staff shortages due to mandatory quarantine orders are leaving districts no choice but to require students to engage with their teachers remotely.
Columbia University Teachers College professor explained:
"Unstable staffing patterns, unstable dollars, often lead to worse outcomes for kids. Especially during a pandemic when principals have already had to scramble to deploy staff in this complex mix of online and face-to-face instruction."
With districts forced to close without warning when students and/or staff test positive for COVID, parents are confronted with frustrating childcare issues at a time when many are struggling to maintain employment.
Molly Watman, a Brooklyn parent of three, who enrolled her second- and fourth-grade children in a Catholic school that offers full weeks of in-person instruction, said:
"I feel guilty about leaving [P.S. 130] because I want public schools to be amazing. But I also want to work. How do you reconcile those things?"
Even when the pandemic is behind us, the damage to public education will continue.
Student disengagement is a factor since it could lead to higher drop-out rates.
Manhattan Institute director of education policy, Ray Domanico, said:
"Some of these kids might just be gone. I'm really worried about that."
State funding is another blow.
Since states subsidize their public schools on a per-pupil basis, with fewer students comes fewer programs, services, staff, and funding.
The New York State Council of School Superintendents Deputy Director, Bob Lowry, warned:
"Enrollment losses pale in comparison to the overall fiscal outlook."
Chris Reykdal added:
"Counts are taken every month, and if these trends continue, many of our districts will need to make adjustments in the short term even as they plan for booming kindergarten and first grade classes next year."
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