Monday, July 27, 2020

BRYAN MCGEEVER IN DAILY NEWS

Former Jamaica HS colleague J Bryan McGeever has an op-ed on reopening schools in the NY Daily News. I copy it in full below. He makes some great points. I also learned from the piece that Bryan's wife Tiffany, who was a strong member of the UFT Chapter Committee for years at Jamaica HS, is now at Midwood HS. I digress. The op-ed:

How can schools be safe? Partial reopening for all students creates breeding ground for coronavirus

I’ve been a teacher in New York City schools for 16 years. In late June, my principal gave us permission to enter our building to remove personal items and secure our classrooms for the summer. It was the first time we’d been back since schools were closed due to coronavirus in March. The last theme I’d covered was still waiting for me on the whiteboard when I entered the room: “The Consequences of Change.”

My English class is a former shop room. The floor has rust marks from the heavy equipment that was once here. It’s also located in a basement, the tiniest sliver of natural light visible from a sewer grate, and has a tendency to grow dank and moldy. How can the mayor possibly ensure clean air for this room in the fall?

As it stands right now, city schools are scheduled for a partial reopening in September, a hybrid of remote learning on some days, with thousands of students entering 1,800 different schools in shifts on others. An endeavor that would demand such remarkable levels of timing, precision and effort, it’s no longer plausible to entertain.

If this is truly our plan, then where was the tractor-trailer filled with Plexiglass to install for social distancing when I visited my school? Why aren’t there materials arriving at schools throughout the five boroughs? My daughter’s school in Brooklyn is a veritable ghost town — all five stories.It’s now late July. When exactly does the preparation begin? If the mayor and his chancellor go ahead with this proposal, it’s going to be a debacle.

Under normal conditions, every September through June, each member of my household wakes up and reports to a public school. I teach at August Martin in South Jamaica. My wife is at Midwood, and my daughter attends PS 139 in Brooklyn. These buildings are old, beautiful, and built to last. They’re also roiling cauldrons of sickness the moment they become filled with thousands of people.

Since my daughter started pre-K years ago, the three of us have never been so sick in our lives. Each member of my family catches something at school and then brings it back to the nest. The illness bounces from person to person until it eventually grows bored with us and moves on.

But when the pandemic hit New York everything changed. We were ordered to vacate our schools, and guess what? My family’s been cured. Our constant colds, cases of flu and pesky critters have disappeared — five straight months of perfect health that we haven’t seen in years.

I haven’t had the vile taste of cold medicine on my lips since March. We no longer order tissues in bulk, and no one cares that the thermometer has been missing for weeks.

If coronavirus is still slithering its way through New York in September, it will find its way inside our schools immediately. The only solution is to stay out of them. Remote learning is far from perfect, but at least it’s safe.

There are layers to this problem, of course. Special needs students must receive their services. There are also children who need to eat and thousands who don’t have access to the internet. So far the most intelligent suggestion comes from a parent whose Op-Ed in The New York Times suggests that we keep key buildings open solely for these kids.

In this scenario, every child receives their services and everyone keeps their dignity. Students and teachers who feel unsafe are at home doing remote learning. I would gladly teach at one of these buildings in the fall.

During the first few months of the pandemic, my neighborhood in Brooklyn would applaud, whistle, and whoop every night in tribute to our essential workers. It was a wonderful way to express grief, give thanks, and burn some energy, but I never want to do it again.

McGeever teaches English in Queens and lives with his family in Brooklyn

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Agreed �� percent.

Anonymous said...

A 9 year old girl in Florida died from Coronavirus and she had no underlying conditions. If 1 in 1000 kids could die from going into schools, would you still send your kid?

Anonymous said...

With Mulgrew at the helm, you have a 60% chance of returning in September. That’s Mulgrew saying that - so it’s 99.9%.

Anonymous said...

Good candidate? Bernie Sanders co-chair: Voting for Joe Biden like eating ‘half a bowl of s–t’

Anonymous said...

When the daily new Corona infection cases goes above 120,000 per day the US will shut down again That will happen during the next month. We are not going to re-open schools in September.

Anonymous said...

Cuomo said under 5% to open. We are at 1%.

Anonymous said...

If it's only 1% and it's safe, then why is he still keeping so many things closed in the city like gyms, indoor dining and bars? If he wants to keep it at 1%, schools need to stay remote.

Bronx ATR said...

@7:34 ,Why is Cuomo keeping so many business, etc. closed? The truth is he and many like him want to ensure Trump isn’t reelected. If the economy is floundering that’s a real possibility even with Biden. If it weren’t for the complete incompetence of the deBlasio administration, the DOE and the sleeping UFT the schools here could indeed open. If Trump loses, and our numbers remain low, we will indeed see schools open shortly after election day.

Anonymous said...

No change until Trump is gone in January.

Anon2323 said...

If you had a bowl of 10,000 M&Ms and only 1 of the M&M had the coronavirus would you put your hand and take a hand full to eat?

Anon2323 said...

100% Bronx ATR, this is the democrats sickest game. AOC deleted her tweet about keeping small businesses closed is a small price to pay for getting Trump removed.

Between Russia which was hell on earth for 3 years, Kavanaugh, BS impeachment which dems focused more on then the virus and now using the pandemic for their own selfish political needs. Nobody in new york seems to even think there is a virus now anyways, do not hear of anyone dying.

Anonymous said...

11 fatalities in NY yesterday from COVID-19. It is not a Democrat plot. States opening up too soon has fueled a major outbreak in the south and west.

Anonymous said...

If the newly minted Marxist-Democrat Party gets more power in November I really need to move my family, if not before. I'll probably be moderated again for this again, but as a lifelong Democrat I can no longer associate with that party.
From AOC to Deblasio to Cuomo to Biden, these are sick and violent people who are no friends to peaceful, law-abiding Americans.

Anonymous said...

Agree 12:18. Former democrat here. Their enabling of the riots and disregard for small business owners has turned me too.

Bronx ATR said...

Many of my die hard Democratic friends have left the party. (I have as well - both parties are repulsive.) It isn’t the same party we grew up, especially if you are middle class. Also, if you detest our country’s eugenics program solidified here under the founder of Planned Parenthood and abortion. Glad they are pulling her statue down, along with other proponents of eugenics - especially that rotund racist Churchill in England! 😉

nerd said...

4:09 Anonymous: Mulgrew said in the most recent town hall that 60% chance we will be "fully remote" in September.

Anonymous said...


I have a question:

How is it that J. Bryan McGeever has -- how to say this correctly and politely? -- how is it that he has the right to publish an op-ed piece like this in The NY Daily News and elsewhere, when every other teacher in New York City (all 80,000 or so) would be scared to death to do so? And I mean: terrified and scared to death.

In this piece, he calls out the mayor and chancellor as shortsighted, incompetent...well, you name it, and Bryan says it.

Look, I'll admit it: I stand back in wonder at his ability to do this. Wait, don't tell me: he and his family are independently wealthy. Is that it? Or does he have powerful relatives in high places at City Hall or Tweed Courthouse who have put out the word: "Leave J. Bryan alone. Or else!! Make one move against our J. Bryan, and we will destroy you!!!"

Is that it?

I ask because I have never (and I mean: never) seen a teacher write with such unbridled freedom of expression anywhere else -- especially a teacher who is still working in the NYC DOE system.

A teacher, speaking the truth, writing the truth, and actually reporting what is going on in the schools and the DOE system? I mean: What is this??

Don't believe me? Here's proof: even the Comments by teachers on this site -- here, in this (supposedly) "safe space"-- are all Anonymous, because the teachers are shaking with fear at the possibility of being identified. Enough said.

I admit it: if I hadn't read the piece myself on the newspaper's website, I would not have believed it. Exercising one's constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press?

As every teacher knows only too well: it is not allowed in any way, shape, or form.

Or...is it? Hmmmmmm....







James Eterno said...

8:41, Bryan is rooted at Jamaica HS. It is in our DNA not to be afraid to speak out. Marc Epstein, Blogger Chaz and I all came originally from Jamaica.