With bullhorns in hand, about 20 parents and teachers from the Bronx rallied outside the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) offices in Manhattan on Monday, July 26, to push for a remote learning option for New York City public school students this fall.

The rally, organized by the Bronx Parent Leaders Advocacy Group (BPLAG), follows Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement, on May 24, that all public schools which had closed for on-site instruction in March 2020, in efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus, will fully reopen in September without any option for students to learn remotely.

“It’s time for everyone to come back. It’s time for us all to be together,” the mayor said during a May press conference. “It’s time to do things the way they were meant to be done – all the kids in the classroom together. So, I’m very pleased to announce New York City public schools will fully reopen in September. Every single child will be back in the classroom.”

The mayor is full supported by those representing the highest levels of the City’s educational leadership, including Meisha Porter, NYC schools chancellor, Mark Cannizzaro, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators (CSA), and Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT.

However, the move has frustrated some Bronx parents, students, and teachers, from Norwood down to the South Bronx, who collectively say they weren’t included or consulted in the decision-making process, and with the new school year scheduled to kick off on Monday, Sept. 13, BPLAG is urging all stakeholders to return to the negotiating table.

BPLAG is an education coalition comprising members which represent the six Community Education Councils (CECs) in the Bronx. Each of the six CECs has ten members who represent parents from that CEC. The CECs fall under the umbrella of the citywide Education Council Consortium (ECC).

“We need the chancellor, the DOE, the UFT and the CSA to understand that while they may be a bureaucracy, children and parents are real people,” said BPLAG’s president, Farah Despeignes, at Monday’s rally. “They’re real people who are deeply affected by the policies and the decisions that they make, and when those decisions don’t fit? Well, you know, what’s going to happen. Parents are not going to obey. So, the biggest step that they need to take is to come and talk to us.”

When given the choice this past academic year, 60 percent of the City’s 1.1 million public school students opted to learn from home. In the Bronx, where the COVID-19 virus disproportionately impacted low-income communities of color, remote learning was one way of keeping students who live in multigenerational households from catching and spreading the virus to their elderly or immunocompromised relatives.

This is a concern that many parents in the Bronx still wrestle with, despite the availability of vaccines for those aged 12 years and older. Many fear that the highly transmissible Delta variant, combined with overcrowded classrooms and widespread vaccine hesitancy, will thrust their communities back to the darkest days of the pandemic when the Bronx carried the City’s highest hospitalization and death rates.

“I remember back when COVID was really blowing up,” said Thomas Sheppard, co-founder of BPLAG. “And the conversation was, ‘Did you hear so-and-so died today? Did you hear so-and-so was in the hospital today?’ I remember when the trucks pulled up outside the hospital and had bodies in them, and now they want to open up the school system, with a variant out there that is literally thousands of times as dangerous as the original strain of COVID.”

He continued, “They want us to just forget about everything that’s happened over the last 18 months. We’re not ready to do that.”

On the vaccine front, at a press conference on Monday, Aug. 2, the mayor announced that over 10 million doses of the COVID-19 shot have been administered across the City. To keep the momentum going, the mayor also introduced the city’s back-to-school vaccination blitz initiative, a $1.3 million campaign to get children aged 12 to 17 vaccinated in time for a total return to the classroom in September.

Starting on Aug. 9 through Aug. 22, mobile vaccine units will be stationed at back-to-school shopping sites, “Saturday Night Lights” gyms, and athletic league, pre-season, practice locations across the five boroughs. In the Bronx, shopping sites with vaccine units will include Fordham Road, River Plaza Mall, and Bay Plaza Mall.

According to the mayor’s estimates, well over 200,000 or 18 percent of the City’s 1.1 million eligible, public-school students have been vaccinated.

Still, despite the mayor’s efforts to increase vaccine availability to boost safety in schools, parents with children who thrived academically in a remote learning environment during the city-wide lockdown now say that returning to the classroom has become as concerning as protection from the spread of the dominant Delta variant.

“During the pandemic, one of my children actually excelled in his work doing remote,” said Amy Tsai, 36, a mother of five from Norwood who has a son who is legally blind. “The classroom was right in front of him rather than being in the classroom where he’s feeling the stress of being bullied and the anxiety of having to walk around being known as someone who has a disability. It’s a lot of anxiety.”

In May and June, Chancellor Porter held forums in all five boroughs as part of the DOE’s family engagement tour to address community concerns regarding a full reopening of schools in the fall. Additionally, the chancellor participated in a one-off virtual roundtable discussion with BPLAG members in July. However, the DOE’s support for a total return to in-person learning remains unchanged.

“We have thought deeply about our plan for the upcoming school year and decided on one that puts safety and our school community’s needs front and center,” wrote Nathaniel Styer in an email to Norwood News. Styer is the DOE’s deputy press secretary. “The past eighteen months had put a stark spotlight on how nothing can replace a loving, caring, in-person educator and our health and safety measures have made our buildings some of the safest places to be during the pandemic.”

Meanwhile, in response to a request for comment, Cannizzaro wrote in an email that the CSA values the parents’ input, but that “it was the city’s decision to do away with the remote option for the upcoming school year.” He added, “Should the mayor choose to offer limited opportunities for some students to engage remotely, then school leaders will, of course, do their best to provide the highest quality education possible.”

Ahead of Monday’s rally, Despeignes said that Cannizzaro had confirmed that he would meet with representatives from BPLAG but said a date has not yet been set.

The mayor’s office, and UFT president, Mulgrew, did not immediately respond to our request for comment. However, a UFT spokesperson did provide a statement to News 12 in response to BPLAG’s rally, saying, “There is no substitute for in-person instruction. NYC educators want their students physically in front of them this fall. We are working with City and State officials and our own independent medical experts on what needs to be done to open schools safely.”

Meanwhile, community advocate, Tajh Sutton, the program manager for “Teens Take Charge,” a citywide, student-led advocacy group, says that for a successful return to the classroom, leadership need to make adjustments, not based on the mayor’s mandates, but when parents, students, and teachers say they’re ready.

“We’re on the ground. We’re in the schools. We’re in the street. We’re going to parent/teacher nights. We’re asking questions that they don’t want to answer because they don’t want to be accountable to families. So, the least they can do is to provide us with a remote option,” said Sutton. “And if we do not get a remote option, they will be making it very clear who they serve, and it is not the majority of public-school parents, educators, and students. It’s unacceptable.