More than 200,000 New York City parents have chosen to keep their children at home when school begins in September, hiding a combination of personal and distance learning, according to preliminary data.
Of the 322,572 families who submitted an online preference form to the Department of Education on Thursday, 212,940 applied for 100 percent distance learning – nearly twice the 109,362 who opted for blended learning, according to a number obtained by The Post.
The DOE allowed parents through Friday to choose between the two options and said anyone who did not choose would be in the blend model. There are 1.1 million children enrolled in the school system.
Kimberly Watkins, president of the Parental Advisory Community Education Council in District 3, which covers the Upper West Side and South Harlem, said the number of forms submitted at 11 a.m. raises questions about whether the DOE has a has firm grip on parental preferences.
“The low response rate 24 hours before the deadline speaks volumes about the legitimacy of having parents make the decision with so little information about health and safety in the building, or about the standards for distance learning,” Watkins said.
“It means there are a ton of people who will respond by the deadline, or they will not respond at all.”
In addition to fears of contracting COVID-19 at school, Watkins said, high school parents are worried about their children’s commute to mass transit, while elementary school parents are worried about a “very forced” environment where children can not interact or even show emotion through their masks. On the other hand, many parents have also complained about the lack of live instruction in video classes.
The results did not surprise any Manhattan principal who told The Post that he taught that at one high school in Midtown all but one of 275 parents who have responded so far opted for full-time distance learning.
The lone parent who opted for mixed classes asked “how much soap and sanitizer will be in the toilet.”
Bronx mother Mariama Jalloh said she is afraid to have her daughters in school, especially the older girl who is 16 and has asthma. She attends Truman High School in the Bronx.
“It’s risky to wear a mask all day,” Jalloh said. “If I have the choice, I do not want to send my children to school and I am not ready to send them.”
Her younger daughter, who is 9, goes to a Success Academy school. The charter school network plans to start the year remotely and then move on to a mix of instruction and remote instruction.
A Queen mother with sons in second and fourth grade said she did not want her children to be “guinea pigs.”
“I have no idea what other families have done to keep them safe outside of school hours,” she said. ‘I don’t need these kinds of variables and stress in our lives. I also want to keep families of teachers safe. ”
A DOE spokeswoman called the early numbers of the survey “inaccurate” but refused to provide data.
“The survey is only for parents who want full distance learning – we have been very clear that this survey is not intended to capture the preferences of every family in the system,” said Miranda Barbot.
Barbot said the results included some who changed their minds from distance learning to blended learning, but they did not provide a breakdown.
Mayor de Blasio said he will release the preference for parents on Monday.
Others who opt for blended learning can opt for full distance learning at any time. But after August 7, families who choose 100% remotely can only switch to blended, at specific times during the school year.
Otherwise, they were asked to make their first choices without knowing exactly what their children’s own schedule would look like and other specifications of their school’s plans.
“Your school will have contact in the coming weeks about their schedule and programming plans,” the DOE says on the form.
Principles require the preference of parents to plan classes and determine how many tutors are needed for both distance and person classes. Principals must submit the plans of their schools to the DOE by August 14th.
Preliminary data suggest that parents are far less afraid to send their children back to school buildings than the Blasio has claimed.
The mayor released the results of an earlier poll, July 2, toute that he showed that 75 percent of 400,000 people who responded favored a return to class.
“I ask everyone if we bring you an exceptional piece of information. Please give it the result – 400,000 people respond to a survey and 75 percent say they want their children back in school,” Blasio told a news conference Friday.
“I think what we have is a great level of parental acquisition based on what we’ve seen so far.”
But the actual research results, first reported in the Bklyner blog, paint a less enthusiastic picture.
The DOE received responses from 301,138 families – not 400,000 parents – and 117,700 students in Grades 6 to 12.
The families were asked “How comfortable are you with sending your children to a school building every day this fall, when recommended health and safety measures, such as social distance, are in place?”
Only 28 percent said they were “very” comfortable. Another 25 percent were “somewhat” comfortable, 24 percent “a little” comfortable, and 22 percent “not” comfortable.
The student’s answers to the same question totaled 83 percent for the various levels of comfort, and 17 percent “no.”
Asked to rate their preferences on how often children should be in school, 53 percent of parents said several days a week and 19 percent stood for sending them on changing weeks. The rest, 26 percent, only wanted to learn at a distance.
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