Carranza warns 9,000 education jobs
lost if state slashes 20 percent of aid
BY ALEJANDRA O'CONNELLDOMENECH
Schools Chancellor Richard
Carranza warned that
9,000 Department of Education
jobs will be lost if the
state decides to permanently
hold 20 percent of aid to
New York City. The measure
would also force all public
schools to only conduct online
classes.
Governor Andrew Cuomo
cited a growing deficit due
to the COVID-19 pandemic’s
shuttering of businesses in
March and the absence of a
federal bailout for the withholding
of local aid. The state
is holding onto as much as it
can as it waits for Washington
to step in and help.
But if those federal funds
never come, it’s “game over,”
according to Carranza who
told teachers, parents and
administrators that without
state aid the department
won’t be able to man school
buildings.
“If there is a 20 percent
cut, let me just tell you right
now, we are going 100 percent
remote. We can not open our
schools,” Carranza told parents,
teachers and administrators
during the hours-long
Panel for Educational Policy
meeting last week.
Carranza admitted that
delaying the start of in-person
classes for at least two
weeks in order to “socialize
with teachers” and make
sure that everything was in
place in schools was “good
practice” but then explained
that the city could face penalties
from Albany for violating
the state’s 180-day instruction
requirement.
Blended learning and
thousands of New Yorkers’
jobs could be saved if the
state would approve Mayor
de Blasio’s repeated requests
to increase the city’s borrowing
capacity, Carranza said,
a privilege the was given after
the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
De Blasio first pitched
upping the city’s borrowing
power weeks before fiscal
year 2021 budget negotiations
when his administration calculated
that the city dug itself
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and Mayor Bill de Blasio File photo
into a $9 billion hole. In
June, the mayor asked to borrow
$5 billion from the state
to ease the deficit.
But a bevy of state lawmakers,
along with the governor,
have expressed worries that
the move would condemn the
city to a fate of economic despair
similar to the financial
crisis of the 1970s.
Over 130 people spoke during
the Zoom meeting, with
the vast majority asking for
a delay to in-person classes
until details on the city’s
reopening plan can be clarified
at the school level. Many
speakers expressed concerns
over the status of school ventilation
systems, personal
protective equipment shipments,
the absence of more
public data on COVID-19 related
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deaths among DOE employees
and a general distrust
in the DOE and its data.
During the nearly 10-hourlong
Zoom meeting, Carranza
relayed contradictory
numbers in regard to school
reopening claiming that 85
percent of families opted for
blended learning despite just
last week reporting that 74
percent of families signed
up to send children back to
school buildings.
Many said that the reopening
effort is too underfunded,
too rushed to be safe
and too many parents, teachers,
staffers and students
lacked confidence in the department
to safely rollout
reopening after witnessing
numerous mistakes from the
agency when schools closed
in the spring. Some mentioned
a lack of faith in the
ability of the city’s test and
trace corp.
Traditionally, the city’s
health department tracks and
traces infectious diseases but
de Blasio shifted the responsibility
to the city’s public
hospital system during the
peak of the pandemic.
Students were given the
first opportunity to speak
during the meeting an appropriate
choice given that some
said they felt they were being
left out of the city’s school reopening
conversation.
“Right now as a student I
feel like a prop to reopen the
economy,” said a Stuyvesant
student named Merrill. “I’m
a dollar sign, I’m not a human
being and my value is
being reduced to the essential
work that my parents do
… but the truth of the matter
is you can’t have an opinion
on this if you are not speaking
to those being directly
impacted groups and those
are the students and the
teachers.”
Early in the meeting, Carranza
touted the good intentions
of the city and the DOE
when it devised its current reopening
plan and assured listeners
that the city was aiming
for a 24-turnaround time
for COVID-19 test results.
The Chancellor said that it
working with the department
of health to implement
rolling tests for teachers and
reiterated the mayor’s pledge
to place a nurse into every
school building.
EDUCATION
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