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Mayoral Candidates Pitch Their Resumes and Values to the West Side Democrats


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 l-r: (top) Eric Adams, Shaun Donovan, Kathryn Garcia, Carlos Menchaca, (bottom) Dianne Morales, Scott Stringer, Loree Sutton, Maya Wiley


With the 2020 elections over -- but for the counting of absentee ballots across the city and state -- greater attention is turning to New York City’s 2021 local elections, including an increasingly-crowded race for mayor. The first candidate forum of the 2021 cycle was held by the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club last month, featuring seven Democratic mayoral candidates: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, former city Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, nonprofit executive Diana Morales, Brooklyn City Council Member Carlos Menchaca, City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and civil rights attorney Maya Wiley, who was counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

On Thursday night, those seven, plus former city Veterans Affairs Commissioner Loree Sutton, participated in a forum hosted by the West Side Democrats. Former Citigroup executive Raymond McGuire, who is the most recent entrant into the race but like several others in the field has not formally launched his campaign, did not participate in the forum, nor did military veteran and nonprofit founder Zach Iscol.

The online forum, which had a quick pace to ensure the more than 350 viewers could hear from eight candidates in a reasonable amount of time, continued to show the early dividing lines in the Democratic primary field, with candidates staking out different “lanes” based on their political ideologies and personal and professional experiences. The party primaries for mayor and all other elected positions in city government will be held in June of next year, and they will feature ranked-choice voting.

During Thursday’s forum, candidates were given six minutes to speak about their candidacies and priorities for the city and then questioned for an additional three minutes by a group of West Side Democratic Club leaders, who asked questions submitted by club members. The candidates appeared one at a time and answered a different set of questions.

Eric Adams
The candidates went in alphabetical order, with Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams kicking off the event. “I think we’re all breathing a sigh of relief, but let’s not kid ourselves, there’s still anxiety in this city,” Adams said, referencing the results of the presidential election.

“I get it,” Adams emphasized, listing a series of quality of life concerns and painting a bleak picture of New York City, from rising crime rates to public drug use and urination. He warned of a possible return of less prosperous times for the city in the wake of the pandemic. Speaking from personal experience, Adams told the audience, “I went through a lot. It’s time to have a mayor who’s gone through a lot to help people who are going through a lot.”

“Our cities are made up of agencies and if the agencies aren’t doing their jobs, it doesn’t matter how much money we throw at them,” Adams said, noting that “inefficiency leads to inequality” and “the inability for agencies to coordinate is failing this city.” He called out the Department of Education in particular for the poor nutritional quality of school meals and “historically failing black and brown boys year after year.”

“You’re doing your job as taxpayers. We’re not doing our job of effectively running this city,” Adams said.

Adams said that his time in the NYPD taught him city agencies need to go from being “reactive to proactive to predictive.” He also said that “Public safety is a prerequisite for prosperity in this city, but I believe we’re slipping back.” He called policing “a noble profession,” but that he believes “we can be safe and we can have the justice we deserve,” which he said means rooting out offices unfit for the job.

On housing, Adams said, “I believe we are failing in NYCHA and real affordable housing” and to combat this, he supports “upzoning all throughout the city” because “the problem of real affordable housing is a citywide problem.” He said that “high transit areas,” presumably including the Upper West Side where the host club is based, “need to share that prosperity with the rest of the city.”

Shaun Donovan
Donovan said he’s running for mayor because he’s a “lifelong New Yorker who grew up in another time of crisis,” referring to the 1970s. A veteran of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, Donovan stressed that he was there for the first and last days of Barack Obama’s presidency, serving that administration in multiple roles.

He said he’s spent his career “on the frontlines of housing and homelessness and racial and economic justice,” while also noting his emergency management experience relating to the federal responses to the 2008-2009 Housing Crisis, Hurricane Sandy, and Ebola.

Donovan said his progressive politics and record of accomplishment in government make him “the best candidate to lead this city because I combine the biggest, broadest vision for change with the deepest experience to accomplish it.” He also claims that he is the “real, true progressive in this race,” which several other candidates would be quick to dispute, based on what he’s actually gotten done.

Donovan discussed several broad planks of his vision for the city, including creating "21st century streets...without cars dominating our streetscape," but didn’t offer specifics for what that would really look like.

On housing, the former HUD Secretary said, when asked about the proposal, that “Land banks are a critically important example of the ways we can ensure public ownership of land.” He said that the city needs to “reimagine our right to shelter as a right to housing” because “if we believe we’re going to solve homelessness with homeless programs alone we’re going to fail.”

While Donovan declined to voice his support for “defund the NYPD” as a slogan, he said he did “support reducing, reimagining, and reinvesting our criminal justice system.” As mayor, he would want to “reduce [the NYPD’s] role and focus them on guns and violent crime,” including by removing the police from schools, homeless outreach, and other tasks.

Kathryn Garcia
Garcia pitched herself as “the go-to crisis manage for New York City” in recent years, citing her role as the “food czar” during the early months of the pandemic and leading the city’s response to the lead crisis at NYCHA, touting a 20% reduction in children with lead poisoning under her leadership. “You won’t find someone with more municipal crisis experience than me,” she said, also referencing her work as sanitation commissioner under Mayor de Blasio and working on clean water under Mayor Bloomberg.

Garcia said that the rising covid rates have “been extraordinarily concerning” and that the only way to end the crisis will be “fast, free, and easy access to a vaccine.” She pitched herself as the best-equipped person to ensure that happens, saying, “I’m an operations person. This is what I do best.”

She also said that in the coming months that the city should keep open “as much as possible, but in a safe way,” noting that visiting a museum is much safer than indoor dining as an example.

Additionally, she proposes free childcare for families with incomes less than $70,000 a year to combat what she describes as a “childcare crisis,” particular for working mothers.

Noting the city’s fiscal woes, Garcia said that she would “prioritize core services,” such as sanitation, fire, parks, water, and education, and to “stop wasting money on ineffective band aid solutions” because “we know tax revenue is down so we can’t afford to be wasteful.”

She mentioned a few examples of where she’s seen inefficiency in city government, including that she believes there are too many different technology offices and chief officers, the city’s resiliency and climate offices should be combined, and that she’s not sure what the public engagement division actually does.

Garcia sounded an optimistic note on the chance for a federal stimulus, saying, “I have a lot more confidence that we will get some relief from a Biden administration.” However, she also said that “it won’t be enough to close every gap.”

When asked if she thought the Office of Public Advocate was unnecessary, Garcia answered “I’d love to keep Jumaane in that role...but it is the question of if you need an ombudsman at that scale.”

Carlos Menchaca
“Covid has changed everything for the entire city,” Council Member Carlos Menchaca said at the beginning of his remarks, but “what I want to bring is a whole different way of thinking about government that starts with community.” He directly criticized Mayor de Blasio, saying his “entire time has really been removing power from communities from making decisions that are best for them.”

He praised Sunset Park, one of the neighborhoods in his district, for building “100% affordable” housing developments and “not waiting for towers of luxury housing to come to displace our communities.” According to Menchaca, “those units went so low in terms of access that local residents are able to afford them.”

The term-limited Council member also said that he wants “to bring universal basic income to the city of New York through pilot programs. I think this is something that can really change how people access not just housing but all the things they need.”

He had harsh words for both Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo, saying they “represent some of the worst kinds of politics.” As an alternative, he pointed to his opposition to the Industry City rezoning proposal, which he helped kill, telling the West Side Democrats that “we did our homework but I also shared that homework with transparency” and “that’s how I’m going to run this mayor’s office.” 

Dianne Morales
“This is the greatest city in the world but we’re falling short,” Morales told the West Side Democrats. “A system that works for some of us is not good enough,” she went on to say, and “the multiple crises we’ve been navigating are the result of deeply ingrained systems and structures.”

Morales says she’s running because “We’ve got to live up to the rhetoric of being the greatest city in the world.” To do so, she says “it’s time to throw out the old playbook...the people who are closest to the problems need to be part of the solution.”

Asked about the idea of NYCHA public housing becoming resident-run, she said believes that “NYCHA, with the right support, should be handed over to community ownership.”

Additionally, on housing overall, the city “should be adopting models that increase community ownership and community decision-making over their housing”

Morales described the current school year as a “lost opportunity” for desegregation, stating “there’s no reason why we couldn’t have begun to experiment with desegregating classes with virtual learning.” For example, she said that the best teachers on the Upper West Side could have been paired with poor students of color in Brooklyn. 

When asked about municipal property taxes for small homeowners, Morales said that she thinks “the city needs to find other ways to cover those expenses.” She reiterated that “we need to cancel rent,” she said, because evictions are “only going to further compound the issues and challenges we’re dealing with in this city.” She also said something must be done to help make small landlords whole in such a scenario.

Scott Stringer
“For me, this is somewhat of a homecoming,” Stringer said at the start of his segment, noting that his political career began on the Upper West Side and with the West Side Democrats’ forerunner clubs. He told the attendees that the city needs a mayor who “continues to be progressive, but is also competent in management.”

Stringer said that he knows “a mayor needs to be specific,” and highlighted his “25-point small business plan” as an example of his policy specificities. As part of that plan, he said “we’re going to have to incentivize our small businesses to move to vacant corridors,” as well as provide other support for small businesses, such as with technology. Stringer, whose long list of policy plans have been produced through the work of the very large government agency he runs as comptroller, also pointed to his affordable housing plan.

Stringer was among Mayor de Blasio’s harshest critics of the night, particularly when it came to his relationship with the state government, stating that he would “reset the city-state relationship in Albany.” He said “Cuomo’s playing chess, he’s playing checkers,” while promising attendees that “no one is stealing my lunch money in Albany,” in part because of his familiarity with state government -- Stringer was a member of the Assembly before becoming Manhattan borough president, then comptroller. He said as mayor he would work with progressive state legislators to secure the city’s policy priorities.

The term-limited comptroller said that he has opposed rezonings that have occurred during the de Blasio mayoralty because the city needs to “build with communities not against them.” 

“When I open this economy as mayor, we’re not opening the same way we closed it,” Stringer said, continuing that New York will “finally” not be a “tale of two cities” under his leadership. He highlighted his progressive management of the city’s pension system as comptroller, which has included divestment from private prisons and working toward divestment from fossil fuel companies.

Stringer was also critical of Mayor de Blasio’s climate goals, saying that focusing on “2040 or 2050 goals is simply kicking the can down the road” and that “what’s happened in this administration is that we’ve been too slow to realize our yearly goals.” He promised that would change under his leadership with “an 8-year plan” and a “fossil fuel infrastructure moratorium,” noting that he has “opposed pipelines throughout the city.”

On affordable housing, Stringer said that the city “needs a reset,” away from the current Mandatory Inclusionary Housing model,  and “to merge a real affordable housing plan to our homelessness plan.” As mayor, he promised to get a law passed that would mandate “25% of as-of-right developments must be set aside for affordable housing.” He said that this key plank of his housing plan would help integrate the city.

Loree Sutton
Sutton noted that three in four registered Democrats in the city have not voted in recent local elections, but now believes many more see the importance of local leadership. She said she would take a “systems approach” as mayor, to develop innovative solutions like the 14th Street busway and Governor Cuomo’s approach to the L-train tunnel repairs that avoided the planned full shutdown.

She praised her fellow candidate Shaun Donovan’s record as HUD secretary of reducing veterans homelessness by 50%, while noting that as the city’s veterans commissioner, she brought down the city’s homeless veterans population by 90%. She believes that her work on veterans homelessness “can be applied to the larger population.”

Sutton, who is clearly running as a moderate Democrat, cited the City Journal, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, and the business-friendly Partnership for New York City as inspirations for her campaign ideas, though she said she doesn’t always agree with those sources. She also cited Regional Plan Association. She would later name former Mayor Ed Koch as one of her personal heroes, arguing that “to mayor is to walk around - mayor is a verb.”

“There’s so much that we can do together and that requires a kind of leadership that we haven’t seen,” she said.

Sutton criticized Mayor de Blasio, who brought her into city government in 2014, for his handling of the Lucerne Hotel row, specifically the “process that placed hundreds of homeless individuals without preparing the communities receiving them.” She said that “community engagement has to proceed any major shift in a community ecosystem.”

When asked more specifically how she would deal with the city’s homelessness crisis, Sutton said that “we need social workers to work with the police, not send out social workers instead of the police.”

Maya Wiley
“I am running to be the next mayor of New York City because I know our city can become one where all people live with dignity,” Wiley told attendees, in the last candidate segment of the event. She said that the city should be able to “retain what we love about it while fixing what produced so much inequality.” Much of her prepared remarks focused on her lived experiences and history of advocacy, including decades as a civil rights attorney, and the work she did in the de Blasio administration on equity, particularly on broadband access.

Wiley stressed that she did not personally know Mayor de Blasio before joining his administration, but that she was “totally on board with [de Blasio’s] mission” of ending inequality, in an apparent attempt to distance herself from her former boss. She noted she was the first Black woman to serve as counsel to the mayor.

When asked about the NYPD’s disciplinary process, Wiley, who was chair of the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) that investigates some instances of alleged police misconduct, said, “The [NYPD] commissioner cannot solely determine what discipline is” and “I think we need to reimagine public safety top to bottom.”

When asked about how to overcome community opposition to low-income housing and homeless shelters via a “NIMBY” approach, Wiley said that she thinks “it starts with a very engaged process that ensures every community does its part.”

In the final question of the night, Wiley was asked to name one city agency inefficiency that she would solve. Wiley noted that “we desperately need more nursing services,” particularly in schools, and she would accomplish this in part by merging the nursing programs at the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene so as to increase the number of school nurses.

The forum was moderated by Alec Barrett, a district leader; Lauren Brody, interim vice president of the club; and club member Pablo Zevallos. Barrett emphasized that the primary will be conducted using ranked-choice voting.

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by Andrew Millman, Gotham Gazette
   

Read more by this writer.

Ben Max contributed to this story.

Deputy Director of NYC Census Effort Launches City Council Campaign in Queens


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Amit Bagga (photo: Elizabeth Olguin)


After having helped lead a successful New York City 2020 Census outreach campaign faced with daunting and unprecedented challenges, Amit Singh Bagga is turning his eye toward the City Council.

Bagga, the deputy director of the New York City Census office, announced on Saturday that he will run for City Council in District 26 in Queens, currently represented by term-limited Demoratic Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer.

As with many “open” seats in the 2021 election, District 26, which covers Sunnyside, Woodside, Long Island City, Astoria, and Dutch Kills, has attracted a crowded field of candidates, with 16 people having already jumped into the race. Like most others in the city, the race is all but certain to be decided in the Democratic primary, which will take place in June and feature ranked-choice voting, which begins in the city in 2021 for special and party primary elections.

Bagga believes his record of public service eclipses the rest of the field. “I am the only candidate in this incredibly crowded field that has a real record of understanding how to take big complicated ideas and...push and pull every single lever of government to turn them into reality to lift the floor for working people,” he said in a phone interview prior to his Saturday kickoff event, happening at Lt. Cpl. Noonan Park in Sunnyside.

In his most recent role as second-in-command of the city’s Census program, under Director Julie Menin, Bagga helped coordinate a major $40 million effort to ensure that New Yorkers were accurately counted in the decennial Census. The campaign performed well, despite being hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and several efforts made by the Trump administration to undermine the count.

“I'm running for City Council because I essentially believe that New York City once again needs to be a place of opportunity so that all New Yorkers can live with dignity, while building power together,” Bagga said.

[Read: New York City Overcomes Obstacles to Outperform 2020 Census Projections]

Prior to working on the Census, Bagga served as a deputy commissioner at the Department of Social Services for one year and at the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection for three years. He was a project director in the mayor’s Office of Appointments and a field director for Mayor de Blasio’s first mayoral campaign, a role he took on after initially working for former U.S. Rep Anthony Weiner's mayoral campaign. Bagga was a congressional aide for nearly four years in Weiner’s office.

Bagga also led the city’s team that negotiated with the U.S. Department of Treasury to allow IDNYC, the city’s municipal identification, to be used for setting up bank accounts. He worked to help pass successful legislation including new freelancer and fast-food worker protections (which he also helped write, he said) that have been approved in recent years.

As the child of South Asian immigrants who separately built successful lives in New York City, Bagga said he is dismayed by the unequal growth and the declining economic stability and opportunity that the city now offers, despite the best efforts of successive administrations. “Even before COVID, I think that opportunity was falling out of reach for far too many New Yorkers,” he said. “And far too many New Yorkers, I think, have also for too long, really been suffering from the ills of systemic and structural racism, and xenophobia.”

The inequity that Bagga spoke of has never been more apparent than in the wake of the pandemic. Low-income communities in Queens, with large immigrant populations, were among the hardest hit by the virus and the existing disparities in access to health care, food, housing, and employment have only been further exacerbated. District 26 borders the dense and overcrowded neighborhood of Corona, which was the epicenter of the virus in the borough. “What we saw is that the very challenging economic conditions that people were just surviving in, ended up having a very direct impact on their ability to actually fight and live through this terrible disease,” Bagga said.

“These are communities that for very long in New York City have been shut out of the decision-making apparatus,” Bagga said. Though he did praise the de Blasio administration for lifting the floor for working New Yorkers and immigrants, he said, “It's not enough.”

If elected, Bagga would be the first queer South Asian member of the City Council. He said it’s an “absolute tragedy and a shame” that despite there being more than 300,000 South Asians in the city, no member of the community has been elected to represent the city in any office in the state until this year. That “lived experience,” he said, is invaluable and sorely lacking in government.

“People, every single day, particularly people of color, particularly queer people, live in margins constantly and are constantly having to fight these battles,” he said, “and someone who understands what fighting those battles successfully, what that really means, I think having a person like that or people like that in elected office is really critical to having a government that functions well and truly serves the needs of people.”

Among his top priorities, he said, is addressing the multiple crises affecting the many undocumented immigrants that live in the district, who cannot access public benefits and have been largely ignored during the pandemic, and the working poor, like taxi drivers and gig workers, who make just enough to not qualify for public assistance but are teetering on the edge of financial instability.

Bagga cited former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to create funds for public health and public education as an example of the type of policy for which he would advocate. “We need to do the same for our workers, our small business owners and immigrants,” he said, proposing a fund that, with just 0.1% of the city budget or between $80-85 million, could be used to help taxi drivers deal with debt, provide legal and support services to undocumented immigrants, and help nonprofit community organizations expand their staff and services.

“We are entering a very, very challenging phase of our history here in New York City...and we need leadership that doesn't just have good ideas, and doesn't know just how to have a good press conference, but actually knows how to work with every single stakeholder to get the job done,” Bagga said. “And I have some opponents who are very smart people, who are very well-intentioned people, but none of them have that history.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note - this article has been updated to note that Bagga proposed a fund worth 0.1% of the city budget, not 1%. 

‘It’s the Best Thing for Him’: Many Parents of Color Choose to Send Their Children Back to School Buildings


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Children at school (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


While parents of color have been less likely to send their children into New York City school buildings when they reopened amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, thousands of Black, Hispanic, and Asian students recently completed their first month of blended learning, which includes at least one day per week of in-person school.

When nearly all public school buildings reopened on October 1, after the city’s second round of delays, about half the city’s 1 million students had opted for all-remote learning, meaning the other half were enrolled in the blended model. Two weeks after reopening, about 40,000 students switched to all-remote learning, leaving city officials to estimate that about 46% of total student enrollment was on the books for some in-person learning. 

But the city reported that just over 280,000 students attended in-person classes in October, about 180,000 lower than the Department of Education’s estimate, based on last year’s enrollment data. The number of students that have attended some in-person school has since jumped to over 300,000.

The gap could be due to the Department of Education making the blended model the default, whereby parents had to opt their children into remote-only, and assuming those who didn’t actively choose all-remote would return to school buildings. It could also be in part due to a drop in total enrollment since estimates are being calculated using the previous year’s data and enrollment for the school year has yet to be released, even two months into the new school year.

Throughout the school reopening process, Mayor Bill de Blasio has stressed safety protocols being put into place and encouraged parents to enroll in the blended model. He has repeatedly reiterated that there is no replacement for in-person learning and explained that despite a number of hiccups and delays and major questions about staffing and the quality of instruction kids are receiving, parents should strongly consider sending their children back to school buildings.

But most parents of color, whose children de Blasio said he was most focused on given barriers and challenges they so often face, largely kept their kids home. Some said they did not trust the Department of Education, while others referenced health and safety concerns or consistency in education. Asked about the trend, de Blasio said he understood the wariness given how badly the coronavirus has ravaged the city, especially communities of color, but against stressed safety measures in place, including mask mandates, small class sizes, and more.

Yet at the same time many thousands of parents of color have decided to send their children back into school buildings. Parents Gotham Gazette spoke with cited reasons including the value of face-to-face instruction, additional care for students with disabilities, and trust in the teachers and schools.  

“The goal here, when everything is said and done, is to ensure that everyone has the right plan for their child,” the mayor said on November 5 at a press conference. “And really, it's either to be an all-remote or to be in blended learning, but we want real participation in blended learning. So, we'll be talking more in the days to come about how to make sure that every child who is in blended learning is getting that maximum opportunity to participate.”

De Blasio did go on to regularly make the case, and opened a window for parents to switch their children from all-remote to blended, but just as he was repeatedly pitching that opportunity the city’s covid positivity numbers were increasing, and the entire school system is now on the verge of going all-remote due to increases in the coronavirus positivity rate. That prospect has alarmed many parents whose children are attending some in-person school, and there are calls for the mayor to reconsider the threshold for school building closure -- 3% covid test positivity citywide on a seven-day rolling average -- that he set with the teachers union, but the mayor said Thursday he plans to stick with it.

Attendance, Enrollment and a Transfer Period
Overall city school attendance was about 85% for both remote and blended students, compared to 91.6% during the pre-coronavirus days, according to numbers released by the mayor at a press conference on October 26. Being marked present for remote learning days means students are attending virtual lessons or are completing asynchronous work. 

“Given the pandemic and the extraordinary amount of upheaval – that's not a bad number, but we want that number to go up,” de Blasio said of the attendance figures at the press conference.

According to the enrollment from the 2019-2020 school year, 41% of city students were Hispanic, 22% were Black, 18% were Asian, and 16% were white. Based on calculations using city data, about 72% of Asian students, 54% of Black students, 52% of Hispanic students, and 40% of white students are currently enrolled in all-remote education, with the complementary percentages doing blended learning (for example: 60% of white students are returning to school buildings). 

Mayor de Blasio and City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza recently changed course and announced that remote students now have one opportunity to opt into blended learning for the remainder of the school year, ongoing from November 2-14. The move was criticized by many parents and elected officials, but the mayor defended eliminating what he said would be quarterly opportunities to shift from remote to blended (students can move to all-remote from blended at any time).

“Parents have a lot more information and I understand any parent that wanted more information before making a choice – well, now that we've been able to show how our schools are working, it's time for an opt-in period,” the mayor said. “It's time to give parents and kids a chance to come back into school if they're all remote right now.” 

Although the mayor expects an increase in blended students in the upcoming weeks, a survey by Education Trust-New York, an education policy and advocacy organization, found parents of color and parents from low-income households that chose remote learning are less likely to consider the switch in the city. About 44% of parents of color and 50% of parents from low-income households have not even considered the blended model, compared to 10% of white parents and 28% of higher-income families. 

From parents of color who have considered the switch, “the driving factor was the social aspect – wanting their child to be able to socially interact with their peers and teachers, followed by the fear that their child is not meeting the academic expectations for their grade level,” the survey stated. 

Black and Hispanic parents, from the same neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus, are more likely to be concerned with their children’s health, the survey states. The City reported Black and Hispanic people died at twice the rate of white and Asain New Yorkers during the height of the virus. About 66% of parents of color surveyed for Education Trust-New York said their child or another family member contracting the virus is at the top of their mind; that number was 60% for white parents.

Positive experiences in schools’ handling of the virus is lower for parents of color and parents from low-income households, with 67-70% rating it positive compared to 82% of white parents. 

During October, the positivity rate via tests conducted within the school system was 0.14%, significantly below low citywide numbers, though those numbers have been creeping up of late and the city school system will shut down if the citywide 7-day rolling average positivity rate hits 3%. That number was at 2.21% per data released Monday by the mayor.

Low satisfaction with remote learning is also apparent among remote learning parents, with about half of surveyed parents rating it as successful. Low ratings are “mainly driven by parents of color – especially Latinx parents. While 69% of parents rate remote learning as better than last spring, Black parents are less likely to agree (56%),” the survey states. 

Several weeks into the new school year, New York City parents are positive about their schools’ handling of the coronavirus but are not finding remote learning successful. 

Additionally, there is low satisfaction with remote learning overall and among parents of color. Only 40% of parents rate remote learning as successful (ratings of 8-10 on a 0-10 scale, an additional 20% of parents say their child is not participating in remote learning right now) – meaning just half (51%) of parents of remote learners rate it as successful. Low satisfaction ratings for remote learning are mainly driven by parents of color – especially Latinx parents. While 69% of parents rate remote learning as better than last spring, Black parents are less likely to agree (56%). 

According to interviews with Black and Hispanic parents of students enrolled in blended learning, fears of contracting the virus exist, but they made their choices based on factors such as having children with disabilities who require additional support, precautionary measures to avoid and limit virus spread, confidence in schools and teachers, and the opportunity for their children to receive face-to-face instruction and socialization with their peers. 

When asked about the fate of special needs schools shutdown in the red zones at a October 28 press conference, the mayor said, “when we opened our public schools, the first thing we did was focused on our school programs for special needs kids, our District 75 schools, because, unquestionably, this is where the in-person learning has the biggest impact and there's the greatest need. And I feel for the families, for sure – they’re dealing with so many struggles to begin with, we have to be responsive to them.”

‘It’s the Best Thing for Him’ 
Nafheema Miley, a Black mother living in Washington Heights, enrolled her autistic son in pre-kindergarten four months before the pandemic prompted public schools to go all-remote. Miley saw progress in her son, who is non-verbal and attends Mickey Mantle, a special education school in the Upper West Side. But during months at home due to the coronavirus shutdown, he regressed. 

When Miley heard about the blended learning model, she said she made the hardest decision of her life. “If I did not let him go, it would be more damaging to him,” she said, “he needs certain things I cannot give him at home and needs to be in a social environment.” Due to a large number of all-remote students at the school, her son can attend in-person Monday through Friday, which Miley is grateful for. 

Fears of contracting the virus are there but Miley isn’t as concerned because she so trusts her son’s teacher. “I wouldn’t say I trust the school per se but I trust his teacher,” she said, “we have a good relationship and text a lot so if he’s cranky, she lets me know.” Including the teacher, there is also a speech therapist and occupational therapist present for the class of eight kids, she said. 

Miley said her son has taken several big steps this past month due to attending school five days a week. He drank from a cup for the first time and tried new foods at school. “It’s the environment and the way his teacher does things,” she said. He is also trying to communicate more, she said. “I was trying to teach him to say bottle and he’ll say ‘bababa,’” she said, “before he would get aggravated but now he’s really trying to put certain words and sounds together.” 

Her son has been happier since going back to school, she said, “it’s the best thing for him.” But, “if my son wasn’t in special needs, he would’ve done remote learning, it would’ve been no question,” Miley said. 

‘No Week is the Same’ 
Wendy Sanchez, a Hispanic mother of four -- an infant girl at home, two boys in elementary school, and one boy in pre-kindergarten -- enrolled her three boys in blended instruction because they require personalized learning accommodations, known as IEPs or individualized education plans, and are on the autism spectrum. The resources, opportunities, and quality of care affected her decision in sending them in-person but the blended model has been difficult thus far. 

Sanchez’s son in pre-K requires occupational therapy, which helps those with physical, sensory, or cognitive problems and doesn’t translate well via Zoom. However, at her two older sons’ elementary school, P.S. 212 in Jackson Heights, Queens, the entire OT department is working remote. “That is the one therapy he needs,” she said. Sanchez recently appealed to the principal to get the school to hire an in-person therapist. 

She said the therapists provided by the school aren’t trained in virtual therapy, which created a lag in quality counseling. Through her insurance, she was able to hire trained therapists to assist her kids, she said. 

Homeschooling and managing up to 30 Zoom meetings between therapies and classes among her three sons has become a full-time job for her and her husband, who is currently not working to support their children's education. Adapt Community Network Clearview School, Sanchez’s youngest son’s school, went all-remote two weeks after reopening, after falling in a “yellow” state covid cluster zone in Flushing, Queens. “It was very sudden,” she said, “We found out while waiting for the bus, they didn’t even give us prior notice.” The school has since reopened, in early November. 

The remote days are stressful because grabbing the attention of young children who are naturally distracted is very hard, Sanchez said. During the in-person school days, children are surrounded by sensory items, which has been challenging to recreate at home. “We lack space to give all three of them room for virtual learning and exercises,” she said, “no week is the same.” Sanchez said they recently purchased a small trampoline. 

Although her eldest son’s IEP was cut last year due to improvement, Sanchez is in the process of establishing a 504 plan, which is also about learning accommodations, but says she has received no help from the school. Recently, he was tested for COVID-19, Sanchez said, “he came home crying and screaming because he felt violated that somebody probed something up his nose. For a child with disabilities, that’s scary.” 

‘Department of Education Got It Right’ 
With three sons, one in high school and two in elementary, Lude Bonnet, a Black mother from Belmont in the Bronx, had what she described as an OK remote learning experience during the Spring, when all schools were shut down to in-person instruction.

Bonnet noticed a change in her boys since they started remote learning in March, she said, in that staying home hurt their socialization improvement and social skills. “They needed access to more people, authority, and the norm that they are used to,” she said. With some in-person school via the blended learning model, the quality of their education is higher because they have more access to learning life skills such as interacting with classmates and respecting authority, she said. Her youngest son has an IEP and prioritizing his services also factored into her decision. 

This past month went well, according to Bonnet, “seeing their teachers smile and be proud of them, all of those things make a difference for them.” Her sons in elementary school are doing well academically and enjoying activities offered in their after-school program. 

Bonnet has a good deal of confidence in both the DOE and the two schools, Bronx Collaborative High School and P.S.59. “When I say they support, I feel like I’m calling my big sister, [or] my aunty sometimes,” she said. The two public schools have maintained communication with Bonnet and supported her kids’ education, she said. “I want my kids to be the example of how the [DOE] got it right,” Bonnet said. 

‘It Was His Decision’ 
Full-remote learning was Angie Torres’ preliminary thought for her high school-aged son, but when blended learning was announced, her 15-year old was beyond excited to return to his school. 

As a Hispanic mother working from home in Astoria, Queens, with another kid in a charter school and a baby, Torres has concerns that her high-schooler could contract the virus, especially when riding the subway, and bring it home. “It was his decision,” Torres said, “with the agreement that he would be driven and picked up so he is not riding public transportation.” (There has been no evidence that the subway is leading to any covid spread.)

Torres said her son’s decision was a combination of becoming his own person by making his own decisions and getting out of the house. She keeps a close eye on infection rates both in the city and her neighborhood and will enroll her son in all-remote instruction if cases spike. 

When he returned from his first day, “I saw he was happy,” Torres said. The look on his face yelled, “I did something, I achieved something, I got out of the house.” 

Torres said she felt relieved when she heard social distancing was implemented throughout the building and there are only five kids in his classroom. His schedule is the same for both remote and in-person days, and he is handling the blended model well, she said. She and her husband alternate work shifts to support their children at home.

***
By Afia Eama, Gotham Gazette
@afia_eam   

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