With the pandemic still ravaging the city it’s difficult to determine if schools will remain open, let alone the future of the NYC Gifted and Talented program. The test publisher, Pearson, has yet to be awarded the contract for testing this school year for the OLSAT and NNAT tests. Since testing takes place in January there’s very little time to let parents know what’s going to happen to testing this year, if at all. The same thing seems to be occurring with selective high school admissions testing with the SSHAT. If there’s a year of no testing what does that mean for next school year? Where are all the students going to attend school in the fall of 2021?
The good news for parents this school year is many were able to move up FAST on the waitlist for the G&T placements since so many other families have left the city for suburbia or in many cases to other states with lower taxes than New York. Not sure how all this remote learning is working for new students who are in kindergarten. These poor parents having to put their child in front of a Zoom session for their first day of kindergarten? And now it’s come to light that some of NYC teachers are now instructing students from their cars (yes, CARS!) and some even from the comfort of a hammack. What could possibly go wrong with an entire school year of remote “learning”. The outcome of this could be much more devastating than the pandemic.
Many students are sleeping during class or playing video games. How is a teacher suppose to control and teach 20-30 students via Zoom? It’s hard enough when they are in the physical classroom. Some school are reporting attendance as low as 18%! That means if a school has 500 students only 90 students are showing up (online or in person). I suppose this is a good way to fix the overcrowding problem in NYC schools. Recent reports indicate that 36,000 students have officially left NYC schools over the past two months. This is a sign of huge mass exodus out of the city since some parents don’t take the time to even unenroll their children from school and just scram out of town.
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