What To Do About Part-Time School? NYC Announces Free Child Care For 100,000 Students

[conuly]

There are over a million students in public pre-k through 12th grade. This is a drop in the bucket. You know what'd be helpful? If they gave parents of the younger kids - say, pre-k through 5th grade - money to give to their existing childcare providers. Daycares have smaller settings, and Auntie Who, Cousin Which, and Ms. Nextdoor have even smaller ones. Then the only kids who'd have to take advantage of their childcare option are the ones who don't have another one.

Comments

[sabotabby]

That's what they need to do here, so we don't end up like New York. Instead, they're like lah-de-dah we didn't have New York's death toll (because in no small part we closed schools!) so let's just do the thing that hasn't worked anywhere else!

[conuly]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: my biggest fear about schools reopening this fall is not the schools, but the commute. After elementary, most NYC students commute by public transportation. (Heck, lots of them do it during elementary too, or they go from school to aftercare, or from aftercare to their home on public transport.) That is the enormous vector that no amount of school schedule staggering is going to remedy. The city needs to suck it up and find some alternate mode of transport for middle and high school students. Yes, I mean school buses. Even if they're limited to the areas where the bulk of the students live that still will be a big help.

[silveradept]

I still don't understand why anyone is seriously considering any sort of in-person schooling for this fall. But yes, many of the problems with the virus and work and controlling infections could be solved by giving money to the people that actually need it so they can be safe. Rather than trying to make us believe that this form of clustering people together will be safe in any way.