New Jersey gives schools an option with all distances

Gov. Philip D. Murphy gives New Jersey districts the option to offer all-virtual classes when school begins again next month, and his original requirement relaxed that teachers provide some instruction for classes.

The policy change comes as the state’s powerful teachers’ union for the first time publicly called for a full virtual start to the school year, given the risks still posed by the coronavirus.

It also follows decisions by two of New Jersey’s largest city districts, Jersey City and Elizabeth, to provide only virtual instruction – plans that were in direct conflict with the governor’s original position and state approval. would have needed.

To be eligible to begin the year with distance instruction, a district must be able to document why it can not provide safe instruction and set a date for a return to school, Mr. Murphy.

“Districts that fail to meet all health and safety standards for safe instruction for individuals will begin their school year at a great distance,” the mayor said. “Public school districts will have to explain their plans for complying with these non-compliant standards and a date on which they expect the ability to resume instruction in person.”

The teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association, a close ally of Mr. Murphy, was concerned about the safety of holding classes, but had briefly stopped publicly asking for all-virtual instruction.

But late Tuesday, in a joint statement with groups representing principals and administrators, the union criticized the lack of uniform school safety guidelines and called for remote instructions to protect its members and students from the risk of contracting the virus. .

“Our state, although doing better than many others, has not stopped the spread of this virus yet, especially among the same young people who plan to return to school in less than four weeks,” he wrote. training leaders.

Marie Blistan, president of the 200,000-member union of teachers, said concerns about the inability to return safely to instruction in individuals come from a wide range of staff, including principals and superintendents, who provide guidance to elected school boards.

While state officials stressed that the goal was for a majority of schools to offer personal instruction, Ms. Blistan said she believed the policy change would lead most districts to opt for remote instruction.

“I believe that will happen one way or another,” Ms Blistan said. “And I want it to happen before anyone else gets sick.”

The virus has taken a huge toll in New Jersey, one of the states hit first and hardest by the pandemic. At least 187,328 people have tested positive for the virus, and there are 15,890 deaths linked to Covid-19.

But a strict, month-long regional lockdown has led to a rate of infection that is now among the lowest in the nation.

Still last week, the education boards in Jersey City and Elizabeth each voted to start school with only virtual instruction. The densely populated town of Bayonne, in Hudson County, and Willingboro, a Burlington County township near the state’s western border with Pennsylvania, have also submitted plans requesting all-virtual instruction.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, another close ally of the governor, had publicly urged parents not to send their children to school, citing the increased risk of the virus spreading in a city that has received at least 652 deaths from Covid-19.

“At this rate we will,” Mr Baraka, a former school principal, said on August 3. “I would advise anyone to keep their children home from school.”

He repeated the sentiment five times.

At the end of June, Mr. Murphy has a 104-page plan that requires schools to provide some form of instruction. Weeks later, he said, parents can choose not to send their children to school, and that districts should offer those students all-virtual classes.

When virus cases began to rise in New Jersey after falling to their lowest points in mid-July, Mr. Murphy announced that children should wear masks throughout the school day.

On Monday night, the board of education in Elizabeth, the state’s fourth-largest city with 28,300 students, said it had no choice but to offer virtual instruction alone because it did not have enough teachers to staff its classes.

As of Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman said 402 Elizabeth’s teachers – one in five teaching staff members – had provided comments and documentation from doctors claiming they could not teach in person based on their own underlying health conditions than those of someone with whom they lived there.

The lack of sufficient staff members meant that instruction for individuals “was no longer a practical reality,” said Pat Politano, a spokeswoman for the Elizabethan schools.

The movements by city district officials posed a challenge to a governor who had framed the argument in part about the need for some personal learning as a matter of equity for students who rely on school for access to computers and basic nutrition.

New Jersey is home to some of the nation’s top rated schools. But it is equally known for the economic gaps that exist between their working class and poorer cities and their richer suburbs, where parents are better able to handle the cost and rigor of distance learning.

New York City is the only major district in the country that has said it intends to offer instruction – with children reporting to classrooms one to three times a week – provided the rate of new positive tests remain below 3 percent.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, when asked on Wednesday whether New York was concerned about teacher shortages equal to those represented by the Elizabethan schools, said the district responded to requests from about 15 percent of its teachers for health-related accommodations.

“We will have the means to serve our children,” said Mr. de Blasio.

On the Hudson River, in Jersey City, the school board voted last week to offer only virtual instruction. The mayor, Steven M. Fulop, cited the state’s lack of access to rapid results of the coronavirus test, the lack of a robust contact trace network and lack of cleaning as reasons for the decision.

“There are limited resources around testing,” Mr Fulop said in an interview on Tuesday. “There is a slow response time, and there remains a lack of resources around cleaning and sanitation.”

It was unclear how many of New Jersey’s 584 school districts were trying to switch to all-virtual instruction. All districts now have the option of resubmitting plans based on the new guidance.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended that students be ‘physically present in school’ as much as possible, and stressed that there are health, social and educational risks to keeping children at home.

In many New Jersey cities, a majority of parents in planning surveys had said they intended to send their children to school in person.

Many districts made their preparation on a hybrid model of instruction that alternated between coming to school in person and attending to the lessons of teachers of devices at home. The rotation could enable districts to maintain the required distance of six feet between occupants of the building.

But in a survey conducted by Elizabeth, 52 percent of parents still said they would not send their children to personal classes, Mr. Politano.

The debate among parents had intensified as the first day of school grew closer and the rate of coronavirus infection increased slightly before declining again.

Mr. Murphy had blamed the spike in part in cases over housing parties among youths; in response, he reduced the number of people allowed to gather inside from 100 to 25.

It was a policy change that was widely noticed by educators, who began to publicly question how they could expect to keep children and staff safe, often in outdated school buildings that could not lack good ventilation. About 2,500 of the state’s public school buildings were built more than 50 years ago, Ms. Blistan said.

“We are not saying we should not open schools,” Patricia Wright, executive director of the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, said in an interview Tuesday. “We are of the opinion that students should be in school. What I think we need is more time. ”

In its statement, the NJEA, along with the New Jersey Association of School Administrators and the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association, predicted that the lack of uniform guidance from Mr. Murphy would lead to a chaotic decision-making.

“The question of whether and when to reopen for personal instruction is primarily a decision on public health that cannot be left in the hands of nearly 600 individual school districts,” the statement read.

“The stakes are too high, and the consequences of a wrong decision are too serious.”

Troy Closson and Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting.