Reopening Falls Short For 100K Homeless NYC Students: Advocates

NEW YORK CITY — The city’s push to reopen schools threatens to leave behind 100,000 students experiencing homelessness and should be delayed, argued former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Quinn called for the delay Monday in a letter sent on behalf of Win, a shelter and support services nonprofit for homeless women and their children that she now heads.

She argued the city failed to provide homeless students proper access to remote learning, among other problems.

“We aren’t there yet,” Quinn wrote in the letter.

The letter is addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Richard Carranza, who have both sought to allay increasing concerns about the schools’ return to classrooms amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The city failed to properly support remote learning during the first phase of the coronavirus crisis, the letter argues. It states that has continued to go unaddressed, as well as transportation back to schools for days homeless students receive in-person instruction.

“With schools set to reopen in a few short weeks, thousands of families in Win shelters are grappling with an impossible and frightening choice: allow their children to fall further behind because of remote learning that is failing to adequately provide them access to learning and support, or risk exposure to a deadly virus in order to partake in the classroom instruction and supports they need to advance academically and socially,” the letter states. “We are calling on you to immediately address the lack of preparedness and resources that underlie the inadequacy of options available to homeless families before you open schools this fall and postpone the opening date to urgently fill these gaps.”