I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. If so, that has absolutely nothing to do with me. I was perfectly ready to send you all in two weeks ago. After all, that’s no skin off my apple. My office is cleaner than anyplace you work, and even the two schools Blaz and I visited were not fit for me to sit my Brooks Brothers covered ass on. Anyhoo, I am writing to you today with an important update on the start of school.
For months we have, together, been preparing to reopen our school buildings. Sure, our plan relied on magical co-teachers that didn’t exist. And sure, those slimy weasels at UFT thought we’d actually hire enough of them to actually do what we promised. You think we’re gonna leave you in a position to reduce the highest class sizes in the state post-apocalypse? Think again.
Our city’s infection rate has positioned us as the only major city in the country able to welcome our children back to our schools for in-person learning. Of course we haven’t actually done that yet, and depending upon how much of a major fustercluck the whole thing turns out to be, we may not do it at all. But I digress.
As we began our preparations, we made a pledge that we would put health and safety first. And then those bastards in the press kept releasing the numbers of people who’d gotten sick. We, of course, being less than what you’d call competent, made that worse by including people who’d gotten sick in the summer and hadn’t reported to buildings since March. Oopzie.
And we made plans to make rich, high-quality learning experiences available to all students, regardless of where they are learning from. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Then we dumped them all and settled for the crap we have now. Kids come in a day or two, and hope for the best the rest of the week.
That is what we have done – and we must continue make new promises with highly lowered expectations as we prepare to open our buildings to students and families.
Toward those ends, we have worked with our labor partners on a new staggered start for in-person learning at the beginning of this school year. Children who are enrolled in fully remote programs will still begin full-day instruction on Monday, September 21. However, children in blended learning will get actual instruction maybe two days a week until we begin yet another senseless plan, the details of which will be incomprehensible as per usual.
We know that our schools and families are eager to reconnect in person, one or two days a week, and maybe get some kind of busy work the rest of the time – I know that kind of sucks but I’m completely bereft of ideas. We believe this extra time will help make sure we have viable excuses for the miserable failure this year is shaping up to be.
I always say that New York City has the best teachers and staff in the world, and nothing will ever change that – no matter how incompetent I am, no matter how aimless the mayor is, you guys will get up and do your jobs even as I sit in my luxurious office and look out the window.
Thank you for everything you do for the children and families of this city. If it weren’t for all of you, it’s likely I’d have to go out and do, you know, actual work.
Sincerely,
Richard
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