Students and parents stood together at City Hall Park on Thursday to demand that Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza offer outdoor learning as an option for the upcoming school year, which is just a few weeks away.
“Education is a super important right,” said Raya Ferholt-Wirz, an 11-year-old headed to a Manhattan middle school this fall, to a crowd of 50 on Thursday afternoon. However, many worry that right may be compromised for New York City students.
De Blasio and Carranza have announced plans for a “blended learning model,” which offers a hybrid of remote and in-person instruction, plus a fully-remote learning option. So far, about 700,000 children, of the 1 million public school students, are expected for the hybrid model.
However, many schools do not meet health and safety requirements outlined by New York City education officials, raising alarm among students, parents, and teachers. Some classrooms do not even have windows. The head of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has suggested teachers would strike if they did not feel conditions were safe.
Fueled from the growing movement to offer outdoor education as an option, something the city has done in the past, a petition asking for schools to be given outdoor space and equipment such as tents has garnered more than 4,000 signatures. While creating outdoor classrooms for thousands of schools could be a daunting task, parents and politicians pointed to outdoor dining as an example of what can be possible, and emphasized that similar efforts should be made when it comes to the city's students.
An open air school in NYC circa 1900.
“Schools are hungry to use outdoor space so that their students and teachers can work together in ways that are safe, and enriching and healthy, and in some cases, even healing and inspiring,” City Council Member Brad Lander, who represents the 39th District in Brooklyn and has been leading the outdoor learning push, told the crowd.
Poly Prep, a private school in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn erected about 70 tents across its sprawling campus, enabling it to offer in-person learning five days a week to fourth and fifth grade students, while sixth through 12th graders will attend classes four days a week. Proponents of outdoor learning argued that education is a right that shouldn’t only be accessed by those who can afford a $50,000 per year tuition.
“Our schools need more than guidance,” insisted Lander. “If we’re going to do this, our schools need access to tents and gear, and that cannot only be for schools that have PTAs that can pay for tents and gear. That’s the bottom line of what we’re demanding here: not just guidance, but equitable access to resources for outdoor schooling.”
Those at the rally also pointed out the virus is having an even more staggering impact on communities of color and lower-income groups, and this is a chance to right some wrongs of the last few months if the city supplies equipment. Currently, many schools are turning to parents and PTAs to fund HEPA filters and, potentially, tents.
Critics of outdoor schooling point to concerns about distractions like noise hindering students from being able to learn difficult subjects effectively, but advocates argue that there are far more distractions in the home than in a park, or closed off street.
“We live in New York. This is our life. We have noise around us all the time,” said Ferholt-Wirz. “We’re still able to have conversations with our family and I feel like if it’s a choice between outside distractions, and inside distractions while being remote, there are much more distractions remote. There’s no way to actually see if kids are paying attention on Zoom, and everyone is going to be worried about getting sick.”
Inclement weather is another hurdle that would come with outdoor education, though students pointed out that there are already online systems in place, and outdoor learning does not need to be every day.
“Unfortunately, so far we have not gotten positive feedback from the mayor and the department of education,” said Lander. “Some of you may have heard the mayor say sometimes it rains, and sometimes it does rain, but that wasn’t a reason not to let restaurants use open streets.”
“If there’s a really cold day or really rainy days, we can just stay inside,” added Rime Leonard, 7.
De Blasio said at a press conference on Wednesday that the city would offer their thoughts on outdoor learning in coming days.
“School is where we go. We don’t have jobs. It’s where we meet our friends. It’s our whole life. It’s what we do,” said Ferholt-Wirz. “It’s really hard to not know what’s going on, and if our city doesn’t do a good job with this, everyone is going to remember.”
