By Eric W. Schoen
My readers with children have difficult decisions to make over the next few weeks. Should they send their children back into the buildings of the Yonkers Public Schools or other area schools in September? Should the children distance learn via computer from home?
Should the students go to school 2 days and distance learn at home the other days. Should The students distance learn at home 5 days a week. Some parents are talking about home schooling. The wealthy are examining home schooling pods, in which groups of three to 10 students learn together in homes under the tutelage of the children’s parents or a hired teacher.
This COVID 19 pandemic has sure screwed up our lives. Little children are asked to put on masks, and unlike Halloween most aren’t colorful and they can’t take them off all day. How many of remember going trick or treating or marching in the school parade with uncomfortable face masks that as soon as the activity was over would come right off.
But the masks children and adults are wearing in 2020 are not for fun. They are to keep us safe. How do you explain what’s going on to a 5 year old? Or older children. You just can’t. They have never experienced a pandemic before and neither have we.
So my sister and I on an outing discussed a simple question. With Covid 19 in our midst and so many people, mostly elderly and those with existing health condition falling ill, many of them dying, would our mom send us to school in September?
In our house these were the decisions mom for the most part made as she was a stay at home mother, finishing her teaching career when my sister and I came along. Dad earned a decent income, we weren’t rich but she was able to stay home and care for us.
Maybe because of her education to be a teacher and the time she spent teaching the young grades, when school was in session we were expected to be in school. My parents never took us out of school for Disney vacations or other trips parents take their kids out of school for today. Not that our parents could afford some of the elaborate ‘holidays’ parents lavish their children with in the 21st Century.
We were content with spending the last week in August and Labor Day in the Catskill Mountains, eating the delicious food and playing Simon Says or learning how to do the Hustle. Just watch the movie Dirty Dancing and this was the life we and thousands of others capped off our summer with.
It’s amazing that so many people because of COVID 19 are returning to escape the city to the fresh air and open space the Catskills provide. A real estate market that hasn’t been hot for years, mainly due to the reluctance of the state to introduce Casino Gambling is now thriving. Houses, bungalows and ‘cookaliens,’ small shacks where families would spend the summer months are attracting city folk in bidding wars to obtain a place away from it all.
Not to digress, the only times we were not in school is when we were sick, back to school 24 hours after our fever broke. If we took off for any Jewish Holiday the Yonkers Public Schools were not closed, we had to be in our seats at Temple Emanu-El then on Rumsey Road, or participating in holiday related activities with our family and friends.
School was very important to my parents, both graduates of the Yonkers Public Schools. And to my grandparents, grandma also a Yonkers High School Class of 1918 graduate. The importance of school resonated with my parents friends and they never kept their kids out of school for Mexican vacations.
Since mom volunteered in the School 13 Office with her friend Antoinette Costantini, if I was a little sick she would take me to school and be there in case I got sicker and had to go home.
So my sister and I chatted just the other day if mom who believed when school was open we were to be in class would have let us go to school with COVID 19 pandemic affecting everything that we do from grocery shop to trying on clothes in a fitting room.
And we agreed mom nor dad would let us go near a classroom with so many unanswered questions about the Coronavirus that exist as I write this column. I heard the Superintendent of Schools, my friend Dr. Edwin Quezada talk about bidding wars for PPE (personal protection equipment) and the hope that sufficient quantities would be available by the opening of school on a ZOOM call where parents could learn about the the plans for September and have their questions answered.
The ZOOM call had spaces for 500 callers to participate. Less than 300 parents and guardians participated. That’s because many homes in Yonkers don’t have computers. I heard the district was waiting for 4000 computers. That’s not enough for 27,000 children. In 30 days New York City Public Schools got over half a million iPads for students to do distance learning at home. NYC found the money, why not Yonkers.
Now we have 5 year olds waiting for the school bus on Elm Street. We are busing so many children from West Side to East Side because the school buildings on the West Side can’t accommodate the numbers of students who live on the West Side. With Covid 19, would you put your beloved child on a school bus wearing a mask, told to look forward and not talk with their friends.
We can never forget that Yonkers is over 4000 students on top of the number of students our classrooms can accommodate. Our buildings are old. Fancy filtration systems out of the picture.With more kids enrolling due to the heartless closure by the Archdiocese at the last minute of 2 Yonkers Catholic Schools, even more students are added to the equation.
Our mom would have probably called our pediatrician, Dr. Vincent Spinelli for advice on whether a child should be sent to school in this pandemic we face if she had any question about sending us to school. And parents, your children’s doctor is an important part of the equation in the decision you will soon have to make.
Thoughts of my grandparents came to mind. They lived through the Great Depression. Grandma’s brother was an orthopedist across from St. Joseph’s Hospital for years. Dr. Wolf. I am named after him, Eric Wolf Schoen. You took your shoes off when you entered Grandma’s house. You could eat off the floor. You could actually eat off the carpeting.
Would my grandparents, grandmas hair perfectly coiffed, strong believers in education let my mom teach with what’s going on. She was their only daughter. As grandpa who came through Ellis Island would say to mom, to me or my sister, ‘you dasent (don’t) do that. They would never let her enter a public or private school building. And my mother would never let her daughter, a gifted educator for over 35 years serving as Assistant Head of School for one of the most prestigious private schools on the Upper East Side of Manhattan enter a school building today.
If you are a teacher with comorbidities or on in years thinks seriously about whether you should enter a school building in September even if the student population will be less than 50%.
My thoughts have nothing to do with the Competence of the Superintendent, Principals, Teachers and support staff who work in our great district and have worked countless hours to come up with a plan. My thoughts have to do with the unknown and sadly what’s to come. Be safe! And pray!
Reach Eric Schoen at thistooisyonkers@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @ericyonkers. Listen to Eric Schoen and Dan Murphy on the Westchester Rising Radio Show Thursday’s from 10-11 a.m. On WVOX 1460 AM, go to WVOX.com and click the arrow to listen to the live stream or download the WVOX app from the App Store free of charge.
