NYC again delays in-person learning for most students

New York City’s ambitious attempt to be among the first big cities to bring students back into classrooms closed by the coronavirus suffered another setback Thursday, as the mayor announced he was delaying the start of in-person instruction for most students due to a shortage of staff and supplies.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new timeline that will keep most elementary school students out of physical classrooms until at least Sept. 29. Middle and high school students will learn remotely through at least Oct. 1.

“We are doing this to make sure all of the standards we set can be achieved,” de Blasio said.

The latest delay came just days before students across the nation’s largest school district were set to resume in-person instruction Monday. Now, only pre-kindergarten students and some other special education students will be going back into physical classrooms next week.

The mayor announced the decision to delay alongside union leaders, who had sounded alarms in recent days that schools weren’t ready to reopen.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said it wouldn’t have been safe to open all the school sites next week.

“If we are going to do this, we must make sure that we get this right,” he said. “We want our school systems up, running and safe and we want to keep it up running and safe, because that’s what the families, the children of this city deserve.”

The city’s reopening plan, which has now been delayed twice since it was announced in July, is for the majority of the more than 1 million public school students to be in the classroom one to three days a week and learning remotely the rest of the time. Public school students began an online orientation Wednesday with full-time instruction beginning Monday.

Reaction to the latest delay was a mixture of frustration, concern and relief.

The announcement exasperated parents like Dori Kleinman, who said the hiatus from in-person learning is affecting the development of her fourth- and eighth-grade children.

“If it were up to me, I’d send them five days a week,” she said. “I feel like we’ve got to rip the Band-Aid off here.”

Daniel Leviatin, a fourth-grade teacher and school librarian at Public School 59 in the Bronx, questioned what an additional eight days would change.

“It’s not good enough because they’re still just kicking the can down the road,” he said, adding that he believed reopening dates should be determined by school or neighborhood, not dictated citywide.

New York City schools shut down in March when the pandemic hit and students went to all online instruction. School officials distributed more than 300,000 tablets and laptops so that children who lacked such devices could connect to their virtual classrooms, but gaps persisted and online attendance was low.

It was partly because of the difficulty in reaching all of the city’s children remotely that de Blasio has insisted on opening schools in person this fall even as other big city school districts across the nation started the school year with online-only instruction.

But opening the massive system of more than 17,000 schools has proved a daunting challenge.

Earlier this month, de Blasio delayed the initial Sept. 10 start of school to avoid a teacher strike and give schools more time to obtain personal protective equipment. At the time, de Blasio insisted there would be no need for further delays.

The unions had pressed for more staff as well as additional protective equipment and other supplies to protect against the coronavirus. De Blasio promised Thursday to hire 2,500 more teachers in addition to the 2,000 additional teachers he had previously announced.

“Our folks have been telling us, the teachers and the school leaders and all of the folks that are working in the schools have been letting us know that right now, currently, they are understaffed, they need some other items,” said Mark Cannizzaro, the head of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.

As of this week, about 42% of families have opted for remote-only instruction.

Omeisha Snape, who was among the parents choosing all-remote learning for her children, said Thursday’s news reinforced a sense that she and her husband had made a wise choice.

“I am extremely happy my husband and I agreed to keep our children home,” Snape, who lives in Queens, said. “This way, they are all on the same page and aren’t missing out on schoolwork.”

Snape, who has six school-age children, said she had her husband, Norman, wanted to avoid potential problems if the children, who have asthma, dropped their masks at school. But also, “You don’t know who your kids are going to be around, and who’s bringing home what,” she said.

For Christine Gibson, who chose an all-remote learning plan for her two kids who attend Queens public schools, she describes the current situation as a “lost year.” She says the last-minute changes and ever-changing protocols make a bad situation worse for parents, students and teachers.

“People are just going to go insane,” she said. “It’s psychological warfare.

SOURCE

Buffalo school teaching students to question nuclear family as part of BLM-integrated village academic curriculum

The public school system in Buffalo, N.Y. has integrated Black Lives Matter propaganda into its curriculum for elementary school children, encouraging them to question the importance of the nuclear family, Fox News has learned.

According to several lesson plans obtained by “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the Buffalo public school system has instructed students in the fourth and fifth grades to question the importance of their own family as part of a broader effort to promote a radically left-wing agenda in line with the Black Lives Matter movement.

The lesson plans prepared by the Buffalo Public Schools’ Office of Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Initiatives, instruct teachers to discuss various “guiding principles” with students including “Black Villages,” which they describe as “the disruption of Western nuclear family dynamics and a return to the ‘collective village’ that takes care of each other.” The school system took the lesson plans offline on Friday, but Fox News has retained and reuploaded copies.

“They are teaching to your kids, that your family should be destroyed,” Tucker Carlson said on his show Thursday. “Why are we allowing this? You know what this is, it’s an all-out war on the most important thing we have, which is the American family.”

At the conclusion of the lesson, students of the fifth grade are asked to complete an assignment responding to a prompt that explores a society without “separate, nuclear family units.”

Black Lives Matter teachings in school is ‘cause for deep alarm’: ExpertVideo
Teachers are also reportedly encouraged to promote activism, and “Discuss the NFL player Colin Kaepernick who refused to be silent about discrimination against Black people.”

“Another lesson plan explains to second, third and fourth graders “the need for the BLM movement,” Carlson observed. “OK, you might think a Marxist organization that destroys private property and wants to replace parents is a bad thing, but that’s not what your children are learning. Other lesson plans actually teach children the specifics of the BLM platform which rejects western family structures.

Carlson highlighted a specific lesson plan that dismisses the “All Lives Matter” slogan as a problematic phrase.

“All lives don’t matter?” he asked. “This is insane.”

This office responsible for the curriculum released a statement in June defending the George Floyd riots, which they characterized as a “mass public outcry to address these recent painful and traumatic killings.”

“This outcry has manifested as peaceful protest, demonstrations, and yes, even ‘riots’ have occurred,” the statement reads, “which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. framed as ‘the language of the unheard’ in 1967.”

Their goal is simple — and parents must take note, Carlson warned.

“They wish to redefine education at all levels and turn it into a shell for propaganda,” he said.

SOURCE

New York teacher’s assignment compares police to KKK and slave owners

The hatred just oozes out of Leftists

On the first day of classes, a high school teacher in Westchester County issued an assignment that included a comic style strip comparing police officers to slave owners and Ku Klux Klan members, the New York Post reported.

The assignment was part of a chapter on “European Colonization of America,” given by Westlake High School teacher Christopher Moreno to 11th graders on Sept. 8, the Post reported.

The image depicted five versions of the same illustration that depicted one man kneeling on another’s neck, according to a picture of the assignment obtained by the Post. Types of men shown kneeling included a slaver, a KKK member, and a police officer.

Captions under the pictures said “white only” and “I can’t breathe,” according to the picture. The assignment asked students to “describe the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement” and whether or not they agreed with the movement.

“My daughter showed me the paper. I said, `What is this?! You’ve got to be kidding me!’” Ania Paternostro, the mother of a student at Westlake said, the Post reported. “This cartoon compares the police to the KKK. It’s an attack on the police.”

Paternostro said she sent letters addressing the assignment to Mount Pleasant School District Superintendent Kurt Kotes and Westlake Principal Keith Schenker, the Post reported.

“Enough is enough,” she said, the Post reported. “This cartoon is disturbing. We have to respect the men in blue who protect us,” Paternostro added. “We don’t need a teacher brainwashing my kids. I’ll teach my kids about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Paternostro’s daughter Nicole expressed concerns about the assignment, saying she thought it was one-sided and anti-police, the Post reported. Nicole said she has been bullied and called racist on social media since expressing her opinion on the assignment.

“The cartoon was disgusting,’’ Nicole said, the Post reported. “It compared the police with all the terrible people in history. It was not fair. It wasn’t right.’’

Kotes sent a letter to the parents of students in Moreno’s class which promised an “investigation” into the assignment, the Post reported.

“I want to address an issue that I have recently been advised is of deep concern to many members of our community,’’ Kotes said, the Post reported. “Specifically, I have been advised that one of our High School teachers may have recently conducted a lesson that many have deemed to be highly controversial in the current climate.”

Kotes added that he would update the community once the investigation concludes, the Post reported. (RELATED: Police Officers Were Compared To Slave Owners And KKK Members In An Assignment At A Texas School)

Steve Kardain, a retired Mt. Pleasant police officer and former New York City Department of Investigations prober called the assignment a “smack in the face to law enforcement,” the Post reported. “It’s an absolutely a smear of the police,” Kardian said.

“Parents don’t send their children to school to learn to hate America and our police,” Former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said, the Post reported.

“Our schools should be a place for the open exchange of ideas, not political indoctrination,” Astorino said, the Post reported. “The false narratives and brainwashing has to stop.”

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

SOURCE

Betsy DeVos issues salient final rule protecting religious liberty on college campuses

The Department of Education published a final rule Wednesday that expands religious liberty protections on college campuses and allows DOE to suspend or cut federal funding from colleges that violate the First Amendment.

Known as the “Improving Free Inquiry, Transparency, and Accountability at Colleges and Universities” final rule, it ensures the equal treatment of religious student groups at public universities, and “provides clarity for faith-based institutions with respect to Title IX.”

“This administration is committed to protecting the First Amendment rights of students, teachers, and faith-based institutions. Students should not be forced to choose between their faith and their education, and an institution controlled by a religious organization should not have to sacrifice its religious beliefs to participate in Department grants and programs,” said Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

If public universities fail to give religious student groups the same rights as other campus organizations, such as use of campus facilities and access to student fee funding, they could lose federal funding.

The final rule also seeks to promote “free inquiry” and to protect “academic freedom” on college campuses. “Denying free inquiry is inherently harmful at any institution of higher education because students are denied the opportunity to learn and faculty members are denied the opportunity to freely engage in research and rigorous academic discourse,” the rule reads.

In extreme cases of First Amendment violations, DOE can determine a university is ineligible for future grants. Private universities can also face the same consequences if found violating their own speech codes.

“These regulations hold public institutions accountable for protecting the First Amendment rights of students and student organizations, and they require private colleges and universities that promise their students and faculty free expression, free inquiry, and diversity of thought to live up to those ideals,” DeVos explained.

While the final rule claims that universities must allow for differing ideas and viewpoints on campus, it also gives private or religious institutions the freedom to adopt their own speech standards, so long as they comply with them.

“Religiously affiliated institutions, in freely exercising their faith, may define their free speech policies as they choose in a manner consistent with their mission,” the rule states.

The rule also states that “religious student organizations should be able to enjoy the benefits, rights, and privileges afforded to other student organizations at a public institution” as well.

The final rule will going into effect 60 days after the date of official publication in the Federal Register.

SOURCE