The city of New York is extraordinary. This can also be seen this autumn, because a big experiment is taking place. The biggest in America. With over 1 million children, New York City is the only large school district in the USA in which public schools open their doors and classes also take place in the classroom. In Los Angeles, Chicago and all the other major cities, students are currently only taught virtually. Thanks to Zoom.
But New York is still a long way from the normality of the pre-Corona period. This can only be seen in the number of children who are allowed in the classroom at the same time. In order to keep the distance of almost two meters, the classes only have about eight to twelve students instead of 20 to 30. Because hardly any school in the horizontally required city has enough space to teach all students at the same time, the children only go to the school house one to three days a week. The rest of the time, lessons also take place in New York at home in front of the computer screen.
Face-to-face teaching is not compulsory in the metropolis on the east coast. Parents who are afraid of contracting the coronavirus can also opt for full lessons from home. About half of the parents made use of this freedom of choice. For many parents, however, school is not just a place where children learn for life. Due to the care provided throughout the day, it is also essential so that the parents can pursue work that cannot be done virtually from home.
It is therefore important for the economic recovery that the experiment succeeds. But the government around Mayor Bill de Blasio was not prepared for this. For a long time there was a lack of teaching staff. The teachers’ union threatened a strike. The parties only came to an agreement shortly before school started. However, this had to be postponed twice. First the general school start at ten days, then the on-site lessons at one week. The children did not enter the classroom for the first time until September 28th.
In order for the experiment to succeed, there are several safety measures that are intended to prevent the virus from being transmitted. Students must always wear a mask. The only exception is the lunch break. The beginning and end of school are staggered so that no groups of people form in front of the school building. Movement in the school building is also restricted. If possible, the corridor and stairwell are only entered in one direction. Even in the classroom, some of the students are not allowed to move freely. For ventilation purposes, schools have decided to leave windows and doors open throughout the class. And breaks are also staggered. This is to prevent pupils from coming into contact with children from outside their own small class. In addition, the classrooms are cleaned and disinfected every day.
In addition, attempts are made to uncover positive cases as quickly as possible. Every morning the children have to fill out a questionnaire. They are only allowed to go to school if they are symptom-free, have not had contact with a corona patient or have a fever. The temperature is measured a second time before entering the school building. In addition, 10 to 20% of the students should be tested every month. If a positive case is discovered, the whole class has to be quarantined and classes take place online. If a school registers two cases that had no direct contact, the entire school goes into quarantine.
It remains to be seen whether the experiment will succeed. So far 169 of the 1,700 schools have been temporarily closed. But that was because local outbreaks had occurred in many places. The schools were not the driving force behind this.
Image: Urs Flueeler / Keystone
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