On the schools:
The continuing national coronavirus crisis may contribute to putting the 2020-21 school year at risk, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said Sunday.
"If this continues across the country," Cuomo said, "kids are going to be home for a long time."
Cuomo made his comments on "Meet The Press" as he discussed how New York's coronavirus numbers have dropped to all-time lows while the virus is surging in several other states.
The governor said no decision has been made regarding schools, and that the state has plans to open schools and is preparing to do so.
However, he told host Chuck Todd, "This is complicated so let's get the facts and we'll make the decision when we have to. If this continues across the country, you're right, Chuck, kids are going to be home for a long time."
Getting the daily death count in NY down to five for Saturday, while tragic for those five families, is a major accomplishment. However, as we wrote earlier, NY is not an isolated country that can control who comes in and out. Cuomo feared a rise in NY infections because of what is occurring nationally.
"How does that number go up?" Cuomo asked rhetorically on "Meet The Press." "Two ways. Lack of compliance – and I'm diligent about staying after New Yorkers and local governments that have to police it.
"Second, I'm now afraid of the spread coming from other states because we are one country and people travel, and I'm afraid the infection rate in the other states will come back to New York and raise that rate again."
The problem is the longer it takes to decide on what schools will do in the fall, that leaves less time for school systems to prepare and get it right.
23 comments:
Ok, and?
80 people who visited one bar in Michigan came down with the virus and so far infected 5 others. Imagine what one school could do?
Stating the obvious yes but it does need to be said.
Seems moot. Dont waste your breath.
Jazz star Rudy Gobert dealing with coronavirus side effects 3 months after diagnosis
The Jazz big man still hasn't recovered his sense of smell. Gobert's ordeal marked a bad sign for other coronavirus patients waiting for their own symptoms to diminish.
This seems ominous:
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told CNN that the “window is closing” for the U.S. to take action and get the coronavirus under control, calling the current state of the outbreak a “very, very serious situation.”
This is what randi is concerned about...
AFT
@AFTunion
We're going to have a union-wide, nation-wide conversation about what school safety should be like. How do you create an environment that all kids and teachers feel safe and welcome in schools. -
@rweingarten
on
@PoliticsNation
#COVID WARNING: "We have a hard 6 months ahead of us,"
@scottgottliebMD
warns. "We need to focus on preserving life and maintaining hings most important to us" like keeping businesses open and sending kids back to school
"We need to collectively come together to limit spread."
This who we count on? Feel confident?UFT members file improper practice charge against union
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Some members of the United Teachers Federation, including three Chapter Leaders at three schools, are filing an improper practice charge against the union and the New York State Public Employees Relations Board for “violating its duty of fair representation” after the union told them their right to issue a grievance against the Department of Education’s handling of schools during the pandemic was halted indefinitely.
According to the Movement of Rank and File Educators, more than 200 UFT members with grievances on the department was in violation of union contractual provisions on health and safety during the weeks of March 9 and March 16 were stopped by the UFT from further pursuing their grievances, as a result.
Members argued that keeping New York City public schools open during the novel coronavirus pandemic and requiring staff in the buildings until March 9, endangered the lives of thousands of employees. Over 70 DOE staff died as a result of complications caused by the novel coronavirus, according to department data.
Initially, DOE officials were testing to release data on school personnel killed or infected by the virus but eventually did so after mounting pressure from teachers, staff, parents, students, and unions.
“People didn’t feel that that was fair,” said Ellen Schwietzer, a teacher at Stuyvesant High School during a Zoom press conference. Schwietzer added that untenured teachers, new teachers, and those without many accrued days off felt pressured to show up to schools despite the health risk. Teachers banded together in April to ask that the days they came to a physical building during the pandemic would be added to their sick days.
Her principal scheduled hearing with the teachers filing grievances. “We knew that it would be denied because of the official policy of the DOE, but then we thought that we would be able to take it to the next step,” said Schwietzer. But Schwietzer and others were then told by low-level union staff that they would not be able to proceed to the next step because the grievance process had been “frozen.”
Union staffers told teachers that the grievance process would be reopened at “some future date” and that grievances could be filed at that point.
“It made us feel very nervous,” said Schwietzer. “And there wasn’t any explanation. For my principal, it was not a big deal to have a Zoom conference on the school level so I don’t see why that couldn’t be done at the other levels of the grievance process either.”
Another concern, according to Schwietzer, was that nothing was provided to the 200 members in writing between the UFT and the DOE about the alleged freezing of the grievance process. Others were also concerned about passing contractutor time limits on filing grievances.
“By preventing members from filing grievances in response to the DOE’s culpability in endangering school-based staff, the UFT is failing to do it’s most basic job– represent its members,” the MORE said in a statement.
“The charge at PERB is that the UFT has taken away members’ right to grieve, and so at best delaying their chance to correct unfair treatment.
We commented yesterday on the PERB case the MORE people and their chapter members filed. We think they should have included the DOE too in the charge but we hope they are successful.
DOE and UFT are working together to deny UFT member rights.
That says a lot, doesn't it? This is who we pay. How sad.
That is what the charge should say.
Why wasnt my school involved?
Probably because nobody knew about the case in your school
California man and 27 relatives all catch coronavirus — including his father, who died
Meanwhile in NYC, aka as Bill de Blasio's safest city: 44 PEOPLE SHOT
21 in Brooklyn 2 fatal
10 in Manhattan 2 fatal
8 in Bronx 1 fatal
5 in Queens
Not a single word yet from the mayor, other than #DefundTheNYPD
“We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives, but the hard reality is that this is not even close to being over," director-general of the World Health Organization said Monday.
NYC residents, especially homeowners, have way bigger problems than this pandemic and returning to school in September. The liberal paradise voters have asked for here, aka chaos and violence and misery, is happening before your eyes.
Cuomo is a disgrace who for the life of me cannot realize he botched this from feb and march from his own tweets! Nursing home chris!
Couple of friends in florida have said its is all politics. 78k tests in a single day and 8k came back positive, meaning 92% come back negative, yet they want to keep posting the narrative. Bet you if they tested everyone of these 78k people for influenza too, the same number would be positive.
Are you trying to argue that COVID-19 is not a problem in Florida? Cuomo has been terrible, we agree, but the denial throughout the pandemic on the right has set us up for disaster. You need to test extensively to find out where you have widespread outbreaks to try to isolate the hotspots. The federal government has been awful on COVID-19. 2/3 of the country has figured this out.
As for the crime dystopia, the crime statistics were fudged on the way down and they are more than likely being fudged again on the way up. I am not arguing that there were not considerable crime reductions over the last 30 years but some were a little too much to be believed. Now that the NYPD is angry at the Mayor, suddenly crime is out of control.
Please read my brother's book, The Crime Numbers Game, for more details on why NYPD numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Most retired captains admitted they play with numbers. If you don't think other city agencies are not playing loose with stats just like the DOE does, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
I would add to James's post that PD brass institutes terrible programs with disastrous consequences just like our employer does. Most of the rank of file don't like it either. The "elite" groups like anti-crime that was just disbanded, that did the stop & frisks, often consist of officers with a "hook", and/or they collar people to keep their numbers up and in the good graces of their superiors. Sound familiar?
The politicians (Inspectors and Chiefs) in charge of the PD take away the tools from police they need to do police work. This has already caused more death, not less. Again, not dissimilar to how the DOE takes away proven strategies (such as "teacher-centered" instruction, seating in rows not groups) that work and then complain that learning goes down. (Or, the "scores" go up, but they're bogus.)
There is also for the most part a complacent, ignorant and ill-informed populace (again, sound familiar?). Depending on one's viewpoint either the police are an oppressive Gestapo that must be eliminated or they must be backed up at all times or else savagery will ensue.
It doesn't help that people pick and choose the rights they want protected. I wonder how many "black and brown" people are in prison for carrying firearms, that would be legal in 44 other states, and more importantly is a Constitutional right (2nd Amendment). People tolerate drunk driving checkpoints, which violate our 4th Amendment rights. People's right to worship has been abridged during the response to the pandemic (1st Amendment). That's just the tip of the iceberg.
NYC Theaters will close til January 2021.
It would be ludicrous to open schools.
Theater goers attend a show for approximately one hour and a half to three hours. Students and staff are in a school building for over six hours.
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