For most NYC students, back to school, but not the classroom

NEW YORK (AP) — Monday’s return to New York City schools won’t be the return anyone planned for. For most, it won’t be a return at all.

Only pre-kindergarten and some special education students are scheduled to end a six-month absence from school buildings after a last-minute decision to postpone, for the second time, plans to be among the first big districts to resume in-person instruction after the coronavirus forced students and staff home.

Schoolchildren in kindergarten through 12th grade are still starting the new school year Monday, but fully remotely, the same way students in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and many of New York's other urban districts have.

After a fidgety spring of online pre-K, Jessica D’Amato’s 5-year-old son has been so excited about going back to in-person school that he keeps asking: “When am I going to kindergarten?”

First the answer was Sept. 10. Then it was Monday. Now it’s Sept. 29, much to the family’s frustration. High school students return Oct. 1.

“I think that all the students are really, really at a disservice right now -- because of the uncertainty, because of the lack of in-person instruction,” says D’Amato, 35, a public relations manager who lives in Brooklyn. She wonders why the city is still grappling with the staffing shortages cited for the latest delay after having months to plan, and how likely it is that the extra days will solve the problem.

“I can’t see how they’re going to fix the issue in a week, and I’ll be very upset if then they push it again,” she said, “because this kid needs to be in school already.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the new timeline Thursday alongside leaders of the city’s teachers union, who had sounded alarms that schools could not open safely.

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