Editorial
Good vaccine news meeting our reality
New York awoke to some great
news Monday morning when
Pfi zer reported that its COVID-19
vaccine had been found to be highly effective
in more than 90% of clinical trials,
and would likely be ready for distribution
within weeks.
It’s a wonderful development, the best
news we’ve heard since the pandemic
began here in March and covered the city
and world in a dark cloud of misery and
pain. But every storm eventually breaks,
and we can fi nally start to see some of the
sun fi ghting to break through.
Still, there’s a long way to go. It will be
months before the vaccine is available to
all of us; fi rst responders, essential workers
and those at highest risk of suffering
the worst of COVID-19’s ravages will be
inoculated fi rst.
In that time, God knows how many more
of us will be infl icted with this illness. The
news comes as the United States fi nds itself
in throes of another surge in cases nationwide
— more than 130,000 becoming ill
every day, more than 10 million sickened
since January, and more than 235,000 dead
of it.
COVID-19 keeps growing like a wildfi re
across our land. It’s even growing in New
York, which has held the virus at bay for
months — though the spread here is so far
slower than it was in the spring.
Thanksgiving gatherings have offi cials
like Governor Andrew Cuomo most concerned.
There’s a fear that families coming
together to break bread might lead to
another spike in cases.
Cuomo has tried to dissuade New Yorkers
from holding big gatherings and staying
clear of older adults who are most vulnerable
to COVID-19. But it will be so very
diffi cult to keep people away from the dinner
table in the holiday season, especially
in this year dominated by isolation.
What should you do? We’re not going
to tell you to stay away from family. But
please exercise caution and care when you
visit them.
Keep the visit short and intimate. Wear
masks and, whenever possible, practice social
distancing. Get tested before your visit,
and avoid visiting anyone if you feel sick.
In short, follow the same advice we’ve
heard for months in avoiding infection, and
avoiding making others sick.
The vaccine news is terrifi c indeed, but
the crisis is far from over. Let’s keep protecting
each other until we’ve fi nally beaten
COVID-19 for good.
Op-ed
New York City needs to help
students in shelters get the
instruction they need
BY SCOTT STRINGER AND
KIM SWEET
Each day during the pandemic,
13,000 students in New York City’s
homeless shelters attempt to join
Zooms with their teachers and log in to
Google Classroom to obtain the education
that is their right. But for too many of these
students, the challenge is not a math problem
or an essay, but accessing their classes
in the fi rst place. Of the more than 200
shelters housing children across the fi ve
boroughs, only a handful have internet access
— leaving many children who already
have faced tremendous loss and disruption
also cut off from instruction, cut off from
classwork and homework, and cut off from
their teachers and their peers.
Mayor de Blasio recently announced his
intention to fi nally provide Wi-Fi internet
access to all family shelters by the summer
— well after this school year ends. This
timeline is too little, too late to provide
access to education for students who can’t
afford to waste this whole year. And while
the City offered students iPads with cellular
data plans, the devices have proven
useless in many cases because of limited
bandwidth or non-existent cellular reception
at many shelters.
We need a plan to immediately connect
students in our family shelters to the instruction
they need. Drawing on our recent
experience during the pandemic, together
we have outlined recommendations to
expedite the delivery of critical Internet
service and avoid massive learning loss for
children who are already contending with
immense disparities.
DOE should work with DHS to use attendance
data to better support families.
Careful attention to attendance data can
help identify families in shelter facing
challenges. The DOE should collaborate
with DHS to use available attendance data
to target support to families. Families in
need of support could then be engaged in
real time, and if technological access is the
issue, be provided with the prompt, appropriate
solutions for their students.
Families living in shelters should be prioritized
for space in nearby Learning Bridges
programs. The City should double down on
efforts to make families in shelters aware of
nearby Learning Bridges sites, which provide
free childcare for children in 3-K through
8th grade and have Wi-Fi. Families living
in shelters should be directly connected to
the host community-based organization and
immediately be enrolled if they so choose. No
slot for a child living in a shelter should be
released until the City has confi rmed with
the student’s family that the slot isn’t needed.
Students in shelters should be able to
attend in-person instruction every day.
Since connectivity remains an issue in
many shelters, we should make the option
of fi ve-day, in-person learning available to
families in shelter. This would be especially
helpful not only for younger children who
are learning critical skills like reading, but
for high school students who are not allowed
to stay in their shelters unsupervised
during the day and who are too old to attend
Learning Bridges.
New York has both a constitutional
mandate and a moral obligation to provide
a free and full education to every child,
regardless of where they live. Next summer
is simply too late to give these students the
essential tools they need to keep learning
– during the global pandemic, and in the
transformed world that will follow. The City
must provide immediate solutions to ensure
that all children living in temporary housing
can get access to the education they deserve.
Scott Stringer is the New York City Comptroller,
Kim Sweet is the Executive Director
of Advocates for Children of New York.
Publisher of The Villager, Villager Express, Chelsea Now,
Downtown Express and Manhattan Express
PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER
CEO & CO-PUBLISHER
EDITOR IN CHIEF
REPORTERS
CONTRIBUTORS
ART DIRECTORS
ADVERTISING
ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES
PUBLISHER’S LIABILITY FOR ERROR
The Publisher shall not be liable for slight changes
or typographical errors that do not lessen the value
of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for
others errors or omissions in connection with an
advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the
advertisement in any subsequent issue.
Published by Schneps Media
One Metrotech North, 3rd floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Phone: (718) 260-2500
Fax: (212) 229-2790
On-line: www.thevillager.com
E-mail: news@thevillager.com
© 2019 Schneps Media
VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS
JOSHUA SCHNEPS
ROBERT POZARYCKI
GABE HERMAN
ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL
MARK HALLUM
MICHELE HERMAN
BOB KRASNER
TEQUILA MINSKY
MARY REINHOLZ
PAUL SCHINDLER
MARCOS RAMOS
CLIFFORD LUSTER
(718) 260-2504
CLUSTER@CNGLOCAL.COM
GAYLE GREENBURG
JIM STEELE
JULIO TUMBACO
ELIZABETH POLLY
Member of the
Minority Women Business Enterprise
8 November 12, 2020 Schneps Media
/www.thevillager.com
link
link
/www.thevillager.com
link
link
