Friday, June 05, 2020

SPECIAL ED IN PERSON SUMMER SCHOOL APPROVED BY CUOMO

Thanks to a reader for sending this out.


ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Necessary, in-person special education instruction will be allowed in New York State this summer.

The change comes after an executive order signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Frustration had been growing among parents of children with special needs as the Governor had given approval for summer camp, but summer school programs for kids with disabilities were still ordered closed and summer schools will continue through online learning.


What does this mean for NYC?

38 comments:

  1. It means those service providers better get their wills in order. Where will the services be given? In the home? In the school? Oh boy

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  2. NEW YORK CITY (WABC) -- New York City is preparing to enter Phase 1 of its reopening Monday, the final region in the state, as the Big Apple finally begins to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.

    Mobile testing will also begin Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, reminding residents that all tests are free and recommended that everyone.

    All three of the city's indicators were under the allowable thresholds, but hospitalizations nearly doubled into the 80s. De Blasio said 4% of people who were tested were positive for COVID-19.

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  3. As a white male teacher, I'm struggling. I know, no matter how sincere, my display of allyship is going to ring hollow because my racial identity is that of their oppressor. And the fact that they have few teachers of color to turn to during this time is a symbol of systemic oppression in the DOE.

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  4. 9:28pm please just be yourself. Don't be a friend be the teacher. We are all entitled to make mistakes, say something insensitive or be afraid. Learn from it and move on As a person of color i can tell you that I appreciate your saying what you've said. Yes the doe that sent educators into a minefield is not an ally. Be well brother!

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  5. NEW:
    @NYCSchools
    will require live daily live teaching as part of remote summer school. Teachers have not been required to teach in real time via tech like Zoom during the regular school year but will be required to do an hour and 15 minutes a day this summer, DOE says.

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  6. Looks like they are setting us up for live teaching in september all day. UFT?

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  7. That is how they do it in Georgia. They replicate the school day online.

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  8. That dude won't be playing golf in his yard in September.

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  9. 9:28: You can be a teacher of color but not hold the important values needed to teach these children. Just saying we need more teachers of color is a blanket statement. There are many people of color who hold racist and bias views.

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  10. I can confirm that summer school teachers will need to go "live" for 1 hour and 15 mins per day. There will be some teacher discretion about how the "live" aspect will work. Teachers can hold live office hours, do one one meetings, etc. We all know that teachers who work summer school do so on a voluntary basis. However, I am quite afraid that this is test run that will result in us all having to teach "live" in some form or another in September if we are teaching at home or partially teaching from home. Anybody want to chime in on this???

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  11. Masks, hand-washing, and cleaning surfaces. Most special ed classes are very small. The virus is all around. Pretend that everyone has it in order to be extra careful. I used to work in a special ed school where you couldn't socially distance, but even back over 20 years ago we were using gloves and had nearby sinks. There were about 50-60 students and we also had a dedicated custodian who only worked with our school within a school.
    Good luck and stay safe everyone!

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  12. @10:36 am. Yes. It's funny that you said pretend that everyone has it. I told my family the same thing in late February. We will continue until their is a tried and tested vaccine. Stay safe.

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  13. The live aspect was right in the summer school posting so no surprise there.

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  14. My understanding is this is only for D75 students in 12 month programs.

    As far as live teaching in September I believe that definitely will happen. There needs to be more structure than there is now.

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  15. Randi Weingarten
    @rweingarten
    Let’s talk contracts and collective bargaining... unions try to create voice & fairness & better working conditions for our members. Contracts should protect against false allegations but they should never shield misconduct. Not for police or anyone . Lol.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To which union is she referring? Certainly not the UFT

      Delete
  16. I am District 75 school teacher in an elementary school. My students participate in a 12 month school year. Chapter 683 is voluntary, not mandatory for teachers.

    The Governor said "Safe, Individual Special Ed programs AND individual districts must have the ABILITY to comply with State COVID-19 guidelines." This means, at least the way I see it, is the children must have Ability to WEAR a Mask throughout the school day, Ability to Follow Social Distancing rules throughout the school day and Supply Proper P.P.E for all throughout the school day.

    Personally, I am not too sure these requirements can be met for all children in 12 month school year programs. We all miss the children a great deal and know how hard it is to be out of routine not only for the children but families as well. Most of us ARE doing live instruction every day because we know, our children have the best chance in progressing when they see our faces and hear our voices. When they see us and their peers on the screen we know they are engaged and listening. We have strengthened family relationships and now have parents as partners better than before.

    This is hard, but we must not lose sight of the fact that Health and Personal Safety for our children and those that serve need to be at the forefront of this decision making. Many of us have not yet forgotten about those dark days in Mid-March when we were directed to return into infected buildings for 3 days of training. So many attended dutifully but did not feel safe and some lost their lives because they were ill-informed.

    How can District 75 guarantee safety for all children and staff within the walls of buildings with poor ventilation, crowded and shared classrooms with many additional adults are part of each class, very limited shared access to bathroom sinks for hand washing and groups of children who just simply cannot tolerate a face mask nor have ability to comply with social distancing requirements and need upfront and close contact with adults everyday?

    Certain groups of students could be capable of personal responsibility but the reality is not all groups of students are capable. What then??

    So I query District 75, please inform us soon.


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  17. Social distancing has brought the numbers down. It only takes one person with the virus to walk into a school to contaminate all. No vaccine, means it is not safe for students, their families, our teachers.

    How many more will have to die?

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  18. Giuliani, 76, served in City Hall from 1994 to 2001, taking over in the midst of a historic crime wave presided over by his predecessor David Dinkins. During Dinkins’ tenure, the city endured more than 2,000 murders per year and deadly race riots in Crown Heights and Washington Heights.

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  19. Great piece in the Post about Watson Harris who put in her cover letter for the superintendant job in Atlanta that under her leadership, there were record gains in ELA and Math scores. Although there were gains it was only .7 percent in ELA and 1.6 or something in Math. They weren't record breaking. I hope Atlanta gets a link to that article.

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  20. Walmart is the largest private employer of Black people in the US, is viciously anti-union, and pays poverty wages
    Walmart pledges $100 million to address systemic racism http://hill.cm/asoIetq

    Do they want work or not? Confused as uft retweeted this.

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  21. Just watched half an hour of
    @CNN
    coverage of massive nationwide protests.

    There was no mention of coronavirus or need for social distancing.

    Literally zero.

    The pandemic hasn’t gone away.
    Well over 100,000 have died.
    There’s no vaccine.
    We have to do better on this.

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  22. Az hospitals hit capacity.

    “Hospitalizations in Arizona of patients with suspected and confirmed COVID-19 have hit a new record and the state’s largest health system has reached capacity for patients needing external lung machines,” the Arizona Republic reports.

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  23. Spike in COVID-19 in Israel linked mainly to schools, which had given up on masks and social distancing.

    "By Friday, a total of 92 educational institutions across the country were closed until further notice after detecting at least one case, with around 13,700 pupils and staff being told to self-isolate as a result."

    "The fresh spike in infections has illustrated the dangers of reopening schools and offices in a country which had previously declared victory over the virus through the enforcement of strict lockdown measures."

    “We had a massive heatwave late last month and we gave up on the policy of mandatory face masks, and began allowing students back in greater numbers,” he added. “Now we are closing any school even if one case of coronavirus is found, but we will keep this under review.”

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/schools-outbreak-jeopardises-israels-emergence-125714150.html

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  24. School infrastructure report raises questions about returning to classrooms

    https://www.yahoo.com/gma/school-infrastructure-report-raises-questions-returning-classrooms-204822480.html

    "This includes an estimate of about 36,000 schools across the country that need to update or replace heating, ventilation and air condition systems, the report said. The House Education and Labor Committee said if the systems are not operating correctly, they would could fail to meet the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines for safely reopening schools that closed due to the coronavirus pandemic."

    "Ensuring ventilation works properly is part of the CDC’s K-12 guidance for reopening schools, in addition to increasing circulation of outdoor air "as much as possible," through things like opening windows and doors."

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  25. I'm rethinking what I posted before. Masks, hand-washing, and cleaning may not be enough. Over 20 years ago, we were worried about hepatitis. Covid 19 is spread by respiratory droplets. We are still learning about this disease, and at least the students that I used to teach, were medically much more vulnerable than the "typical" student. DOE gains nothing by rushing into in person teaching.

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  26. I applied for PE summer school no idea how that will look lol. Kids can go run and protest send vid for exercise class credit.

    ONE of the most amazing catch 22, you allow all these protestors so close together during a pandemic when we all had to follow strict guidelines and space cadets Don Lemon, Cooper crazy Rachael and many others show no fear in this?????? JUst that the looting is basically acceptable. What happens if there are no spikes in the net 2 weeks? Totally hoodwinked.

    I just want to knock out Diblasio and then pee on him. Can we please please have exceptional mayoral candidates and elect the right one.

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  27. Guess my message to little kids would be for them not to idolize men that:

    Get high on fentanyl
    Get high on meth
    Use counterfeit bills
    Shove guns into the stomaches of pregnant women while robbing them
    Go to prison 5 times

    What a truly horrible message I carry.

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  28. That's a real challenge. We barely have teachers of high morals. I love Don Lemon. BLM

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  29. "WE can't breathe" without state of the art working ventilation.

    What part of "We can't breathe" do you not understand?

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  30. The Post just published an article about DeBlasio ordering NYPD to wear face masks and practice social distancing after noticing many officers were not wearing masks during protests. He goes on to say, "they must Do Unto Others... "

    https://nypost.com/2020/06/07/de-blasio-rips-nypd-cops-for-not-wearing-masks-to-protests/

    Really, but Summer Schools should open inside buildings for the most vulnerable children who cannot or will not wear a face covering nor have ability to social distance through no fault of their own. Teachers, Related Service providers and others Forced Violation of social distancing around others for extended periods of time daily in poorly ventilated buildings????
    De Blasio and the Chancellor should not be permitted to have it both ways.

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  31. Agreed. Nyc teachers should do something.

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  32. People,

    The doe has not even done the basic first part for next school year and that is to release a tentative calendar.

    We are all way ahead of ourselves if we think the doe has any clue for the fall.

    All of us are playing chess with our ideas which I feel are good, but the doe cannot even handle remedial games of guessing heads or tails of a coin that is a two headed coin.

    Heck, if we asked mulgrew when the doe will reveal their guess of heads or tails with a two headed coin, he would repeat what he has said for 2 months about a calendar and that is ‘soon’.

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  33. Re-opening of NYC schools, the largest in the country should not be made as a hasty decision. Gov. Cuomo invited Covid patients into Nursing Homes across the state and all that occurred was death. He implied it should be done. Nursing Homes complied with his urging. Now, he doesn't take the responsibility and says it's the nursing homes fault thousands have died.

    Here he goes again..

    Fast forward- Cuomo gives an Exec Order to allow special needs students to receive in person instruction. School distrcits will comply as they feel "urged" to do this because he's the governor.

    How many more students, teachers, paras, related service providers, parents, administrators, school safety agents, kitchen workers, nurses, etc,, etc,,, have to die? Do you really think Cuomo will take the blame?

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  34. 6:23,

    I think you are right. The special ed students I taught over 20 years ago, through the DOE were medically very vulnerable. More recently, I worked through BOCES at a summer program. Truly, I don't think it's safe for students to attend, special or general ed. Looking back over my summer experience, I don't know how I could have implemented the appropriate safety guidelines. There are too many moving parts. And at the end of the day, we are talking about people's children. If we can't keep them safe and send them home safe, why are we opening schools?

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  35. Jersey Shore has several parties which is linked to an increase of COVID cases. The protests may have the same results. This is not over. Social distancing in schools will be impossible and ventilation is a serious issue.

    ReplyDelete

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