School’s in Session but Not All Are Happy with In-Person Learning at This Queens School

Nearly 800 elementary school students at P.S. 121 in Queens return to in-person classes for the new school year as the New York City Department of Education (DOE) makes a shift from 18 months of remote learning. The city-mandated return to in-person classes was met with mixed reactions from parents, however.

Some parents of the District 28 public elementary school are especially concerned as the highly contagious Delta variant predominates in the United States.

Sectioned off by grade, the children toted their backpacks with new supplies and lined up accordingly on the sidewalks surrounding the school, alongside their uncertain parents. After some drop-off confusion, parents such as Serafiena Mohammed, were able to see their children make it into the school building for their first day back after an extended period of remote learning.

She remains concerned about her son contracting the virus at school and bringing it home to the elderly members of their family — sometimes unknowingly. Mohammed said she prefers the remote option and would have liked to continue doing that.

Vijah Ramjattan is a parent of two incoming third graders at P.S. 121 and also sits as the President of the DOE’s Community Education Council (CEC) for District 28 and the Vice President of P.S. 121’s Parent Teacher Association. On a local and district level, Ramjattan said that a lot of parents he has heard from are concerned about the lack of a remote option.

Many of the children at the South Ozone Park school live in “generational family homes,” he said, which include members of the extended family who are often older aunts, uncles and grandparents that can be at an increased risk of obtaining the virus’ strains.

According to the Pew Research Center, multi-generational family households continue to rise among all Americans but the Asian demographic is more likely to live in these joint homes. Data from the New York State Education Department for the 2019–2020 school year shows that over a half of the student body is Asian — the ethnicity commonly checked off by parents whose families have South Asian ancestry.

According to Ramjattan, the DOE is only providing a remote option to students with special needs on a “case by case” basis. Some students approved for this are those who typically cannot wear a mask all day due to underlying conditions.

“I think the pipeline of information has been confusing, because you hear one thing in the news, in the mayor’s office, in the chancellor’s office and then on the local level,” Ramjattan said. “The principals and the parent coordinators they don’t really communicate as much as they should with parents,” Ramjattan said.

Some parents, however, see the return to in-person classes as beneficial to developing their social interaction skills. Roopnarine Singh prefers in-person learning for his child because of “the reaction with other kids rather than staying at home watching walls.” He said, “They get to share their ideas in a group.”

The DOE has invested in cleaning products and air filters for classrooms and lunchrooms to promote clean surfaces and healthy air quality indoors.

In the event of a positive COVID-19 case in schools, contingency plans are in place that include quarantining and utilizing a remote option, Ramjattan said. He said the DOE has now allowed students to keep the iPads and other electronic devices borrowed until they graduate from that particular school or until further notice — a change that would facilitate childrens’ learning from home should quarantining take place.

Ramjattan said he is “looking forward to the kids going back. I think they’re doing the right thing to reopen schools. And I think that’s the best way.”