FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM NOVEMBER 12, 2020 • THE QUEENS COURIER 25
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NYC 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 aft er this school year ends.
Th is timeline is too little, too late to provide
access to education for students who
can’t aff ord to waste this whole year. And
while the city off ered 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.
Prioritize more shelters to be wired by
this winter. Based on reports of connectivity
problems, the city designated 27
shelters to complete wiring by this winter.
However, we know of many more shelters
that would benefi t from immediate Wi-Fi
installation. DHS should be fl exible with
its prioritization and add shelters to the
short list as more sites with connectivity
challenges are identifi ed.
Meet with the shelter operators who
have already wired their buildings, to
learn from their experiences. Several family
shelters successfully wired their buildings
this spring with philanthropic assistance.
Th ey understand the challenges
and have developed sensible, effi cient
approaches that can help expedite installation
and reduce costs.
Explore bringing in additional Internet
service providers to support this initiative.
Th e city announced its intention to
work with Charter Communications and
Altice USA to provide Wi-Fi access to
family shelters. To expand capacity for
the project and provide internet coverage
more quickly, the city should consider
engaging additional Internet service
providers.
Offer on-the-ground, linguistically
competent tech support to all students
living in shelter. Many families are struggling
letters & comments
to use their devices due to technology
issues or lack of technological knowhow.
Th ese families need to be off ered inperson
support, in their home language.
In-person tech support teams should also
bring additional devices to distribute to
students who are still lacking them, or
need broken devices to be replaced.
Designate an interagency Director of
Students in Temporary Housing. Th is
position should focus on serving students
in temporary housing and have its
authority expanded to guide interagency
collaboration between the Department
of Education, Department of Homeless
Services and other agencies serving students
experiencing housing instability.
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. Th e 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. Th e city should double
down on eff orts to make families in
shelters aware of nearby Learning Bridges
sites, which provide free childcare for
children in 3-K through eighth 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. Th is 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. Th e 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.
Photo via Getty Images
WASHINGTON CAN’T
BAIL OUT EVERYONE
“Put politics aside — New York City
needs help” (by David Weprin, Nov. 5)
overlooked the fact that Washington
can’t bail out everyone.
Our federal $27 trillion long-term
debt will grow $1 trillion more annually
until 2030. Th e fi rst series of
COVID-19 relief bills totaled $3.7
trillion, primarily borrowed money.
Congress and the White House are
negotiating another second bailout
between $600 billion and $2.2 trillion.
How will we pay for this?
Only the government can max out
its credit cards with no consequences.
Sooner or later, China and other creditor
nations will collect the bill. You
can’t continue spending money you
don’t have forever.
Government and the private sector
must make diffi cult fi nancial decisions
on how to use existing resources.
Americans prioritize their own
family budgets; they make the diffi -
cult choices in how existing resources
will be spent.
If it can wait till later, it should be
postponed. Why doesn’t City Hall,
with a budget that has grown by $20
billion over the past fi ve years, do
likewise?
Th e president and Congress need to
off set some of these costs by changing
priorities within the fi scal year 2021
$5 trillion budget.
Larry Penner, Great Neck
PRAYERS FOR AL ROKER
NBC weatherman Al Roker has
been diagnosed with aggressive prostate
cancer. He will be having his
prostate removed at Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center in New York. Let’s
keep Al Roker in our prayers for a
healthy outcome.
He went public with his disease to
raise awareness about the fact that one
out of seven black men will be diagnosed
with prostate cancer. I praise Al
Roker for talking about this disease.
I fully understand what he is going
through. I was diagnosed with aggressive
prostate cancer at age 66 and had
to have my prostate removed. I’m 71
years old now and I am alive because
I had gotten tested for my PSA level at
my yearly physical exam.
It is estimated that over 33,000 will
die of this disease this year. Th is disease
aff ects all men over 50 and some
younger. Th at is why I urge all men
in that age group to get tested yearly.
And to Al Roker, my prayers go out to
you and your family at this time. Al, I
feel your pain in this situation. May
God help you to heal.
Frederick R. Bedell Jr., Bellerose
FALL BLOOMS // PHOTO SUBMITTED BY ROY NAIPAUL
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