New York to Exit Distance Education System Next Fall – A Key Step Towards Full Reopening

New York will no longer pursue the distance education option for next fall, reported the mayor Bill de Blasio last Monday on television; which is an important step towards the total reopening of the largest American school system.

This school year some 600,000 students they took lessons from home. However, next September 13, at the start of the next cycle, All students and academic staff will return to classrooms full time, explained de Blasio.

New York was one of the first cities to announce the end of distant school for the following period. The predictions that online courses would be a must for school districts were perhaps very premature. The Governor of New Jersey, Philip D. Murphy, announced last week that the state would no longer have distance learning courses in the fall. The announcement came days after leaders in Connecticut and Massachusetts made the same decision.

This decision that New York City has just taken will greatly facilitate the return to the “pre-pandemic” school system., since students and teachers will no longer be separated each in their homes.

This latest announcement from the mayor has most likely alarmed several parents who are still worried about sending their children back to school., even as the pandemic finally seems to have calmed down in the United States. Recent interviews with parents have shown that, While many families hope to return to normal schooling, many others remain skeptical about the imminent return to school.

New York, like the districts of the country, fought to make distance learning a success. However, contrary to what was expected, online courses have been frustrating for many students and in some cases even catastrophic. Children with disabilities suffer the most from these difficulties.

According to official estimates, approximately three million students in the United States —Approximately all of Florida’s school population — stopped attending face-to-face classes after the pandemic began. A disproportionate number of these disconnected students are low-income Black, Latin American and Native American children who have struggled to keep pace in partially or completely remote classrooms.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has been severely criticized for failing to improve the quality of distance education, He said distance learning is “inherently inferior”.

It was also extremely complex for the city to operate parallel school systems: one in person and one online, with many students switching between the two every few days. So many students and teachers working from home have made it almost impossible for some schools to offer regular hours.

In recent months, de Blasio has said he hopes the city will maintain some sort of distance learning option for next fall. However, he and his cabinet have changed their minds in recent weeks, after viral infection rates plummeted across town and children 12 and older became eligible for the Pfizer vaccine.

The mayor is expected to announce more details on the new plan for returning to face-to-face classes.

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