"Hot Lunch" and Cold Policy: How Context Gets Lost in the Flurry

Mayor de Blasio and School Chancellor Farina decided to keep NYC Public schools open today, even after dooming weather forecasts. By this morning, the entire city was covered in snow. Most of NYC had an opportunity to stay home. Except students. And their teachers. And whoever was supposed to get those two groups to school today.

Whoops. 

So, about two weeks ago, I wrote about the parental sacrifice involved in snow day decisions. I'm actually not going to take back any of my words, because I believe in what I said. This post isn't to restate or qualify my previous words. It's to provide context. 

Here's the context of our reality:

• de Blasio (and Farina) are jumping into an tense political climate. We forget that our last dictator mayor was a hardcore Republican who could feign "get-downness" because he has that NYC moxie. He wasn't the typical Republican, because he later stripped himself of the label. You know, because he wanted another term in office of reasons. He was a spy of sorts. He was able to blend in with liberals who advocated for gun control and gay marriage. He was also able to blend in with conservatives who advocate for Stop-and-Frisk, without making it an explicit "racial" issue. Now THAT, my friends, takes finesse. 
• Bloomberg wasn't exactly so sensitive to the realities of diverse New Yorkers. During the blizzard of 2010, Bloomberg encouraged NYC to see a Broadway show or get a bite to eat. He forgot that most folks ain't tryna "defy gravity" and shell out the $150 tickets to see Wicked. 
• de Blasio is married to Chirlane, a writer and poet of the Combahee River Collective. The CRC was a Black Feminist Writers' group that used their understanding of intersectional identity to bring awareness and advocacy to the Forgotten among us. His relationship with her is complicated and delicate. 
• There are 1 million students in the NYC School District. That makes it the largest school district in the country. It is also an extremely diverse district, which makes it a worthwhile case study for examining almost any issue in education.

Whew. Okay. Let's go. 

To Teachers

I really don't care that I had to be at work today. We're being paid to go. We'll be alright. Honestly, today was a good day in our class. We had a chance to do the things that we rarely get to do. It was team building and current events. If today felt like "babysitting", please exit stage right. I don't have professional respect for you. Did our class move on to the next lesson? No. Did we take the math test we were supposed to today? No. But we DID write letters (persuasive ones, too!) to Chancellor Farina sharing our opinions about school today. And no one copied anyone else. Our class represented the entire spectrum of opinions. And guess what? Today tied so neatly into our current unit on reviews, for which we'll need a strong foundation in fact and opinion. Check out more of our work at @weSee2CHydeBK on Twitter. You'll be surprised. 

I thank you, colleagues for your presence today. I thank you for getting Here when you had somewhere over There to be. I thank you for finding a way to get to school today. Especially for those teachers who are also parents, I thank you for being exactly what a Teacher is-- a superhero. 

To Parents

I thank you for your sacrifice. I don't have many words but "thank you". Thank you for letting us borrow your kids, for texting us kind words, for being thoughtful and valued members of our community. We thank you for making your own decisions. You are our students' First Teachers. You are their most important teachers. I can't really say much beyond that. There are too many people demonizing and trivializing what you have done. I won't be another voice in that chorus.

To Chancellor Farina and Mayor de Blasio

 While it is true that many students needed two meals today, we also worry about the safety of our students and about the loss of an instructional day. Of the approximately 75 students in second grade, only 30 were present in our school today. We also learned that less than half of our students were present school-wide. Across the city, there was an attendance rate of 44% today. That means that more students were home than at school. We understand that you are trying to remind us of the socioeconomic factors at play here. And truthfully, it's refreshing to hear someone acknowledge the pink elephant in the room. 

 

I'm not "colorblind". I'm also not "status-blind". New York City is a Tale of Two Cities, as de Blasio noted during his campaign. We are sons and daughters of janitors and of lawyers. We are the children of bus drivers and software designers. It is true, many students in NYC are poor. When we flirted with the idea of doing away with student Metrocards, our conscience guided us to make the right decision. We realized that taking away a resource was inhumane and created a "cost" for an education that was promised to be "free". 

It is offensive to Teachers (and to other stakeholders including students and families) to tout "a hot meal" as the primary reason for the opening of schools. We work hard, ALL YEAR, and still endure hurtful words and assumptions about our professional priorities. But then again, as teaching is a largely woman-dominated field, I never really expected you all to respect the very real intellectual work it takes to teach a class of diverse learners. We create unit plans, we differentiate instruction to reach the entire class, we build meaningful relationships with community partners and families, and we make children smile. We're not perfect, but we are serious and committed to our passion. 

I worry that the students who are home, who also need meals, have not eaten today, too. We should also be clear that there are indeed some students who have eaten at home. We should think about that. Let's think about a solution. 

During the summer, students can receive free meals at their local public school building. Summer Meals in NYC have fed many kids (including the students of our Concord Youth Programs AND their counselors). It is a great program because it is local. Some of my students travel very far to reach school in East New York. Especially in the context of the Charter School Movement, "zoned" schools are pretty much a thing of the past. We don't really have neighborhood schools as we used to.  If the point of today remaining a school day was to feed children, I believe we should have allowed students to eat at their local schools, not the schools they attend. That would have been a safer option. We care that students eat. We know that some students receive two meals at school for free. This is real.

Let's also remember that places like Best Buy and Macy's are open because labor is exploited and this is a country built on capitalism.  I wouldn't ever try to build a school on the organizational logic of a company that has its employees work 24+ hour shifts on Black Friday. Of course Macy's is open. But it was also open on Black Friday, weekends, holidays, Yom Kippur... Schools are not businesses. I thought we learned that with Cathleen Black.

I'm grateful to have a mayor and chancellor who are sensitive enough to recognize that schools serve more than one function. But we need to be careful about phrasing and context.  I just think there's something unethical about the reality in which we've asked our students and their families to live. We are asking students to jump through icy hoops. This is what the young folks call "doing the most". 

To our Kids

Most people will tell you that your only job is to go to school. And they're right. But not totally.

Your job is to think. Wherever that is. Your job is to learn, to question, to critique, to wonder, to design, to explore, to propose, to hypothesize, and to dream. You can do that in school. You can do that at home. You can do that in the laundromat while mom gets the last load in the dryer, or on the train on the way to visit your grandparents. You told me that "the baby cries too much". Can you write a story about what her cries sound like? Does it sound like a roaring lion or like a shrieking eagle? Is it a big sound? Can you describe it with seven words?  I dare you to draw what her cries sound like on paper. What colors would you use? What paper would you use?

The world belongs to you. We are counting on you to make better sense of this world than we did. I'm sorry that we didn't leave it to you in a better condition. 

Today was hard. Our class usually has 24 students, but today we only had 12. Some of our students had to leave early. Wherever you are today, I hope that you know that you are special. You are loved. You are incredible. 

Don't let anyone tell you that you can't learn if you don't go to school. That's not all the way true. When you bring in your favorite toy, share a funny joke you learned from your dad, or draw a picture of what the world would be like without gravity, you are using your brain.  Our ancestors learned in shacks, in fields, in churches, AND in classrooms. Anyone who tells you that school is the only place to learn something is someone who doesn't understand the Power of the Mind. 

We missed the students who didn't come in today. We miss you whenever you're absent.  But we also learned something new about the students who came in. And don't worry, we'll make sure that you can catch up the next time we meet. That's our job. I hope you hear me saying that you deserve an education. It is your right and our privilege. You deserve the best schools, the best teachers, the best lunch. But this world is more than what it seems. We haven't done our job right if you are unable to think outside the walls of our school building.

It's hard to see a solution with all this snow. Visibility is low. Perhaps tomorrow we will see more than we did today.