Districts Deliberate As Pressure To Reopen Schools Rises

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — The pressure to put kids back in classrooms full-time is rising as coronavirus positivity rates drop and vaccination rates rise across the Hudson region.

"The vaccine has been a game-changer in the calculus of how to bring children back to school safely," White Plains schools Superintendent Joseph Ricca told Patch, describing himself as "laser-focused" on the issue.

He's not the only one. As the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated guidance for reopening schools, parent groups frustrated by shifting mixtures of remote and hybrid learning, quarantines and closures are pointing out that schools are among the safest places for children to be in the coronavirus pandemic.

Parents in the Lakeland school district have mounted a petition drive to demand the schools open up full-time for all students. "After nine months of emails, questions and conversations with administrators it is evident that our voices are not being heard," the petition organizers said.

Parents in Putnam staged a protest on the steps of the historic courthouse. SEE: Parents Group Calls For Reopening Schools In Putnam County. They think most local districts are overly stringent about requiring quarantining, so they suffer from staff shortages while schools elsewhere in New York have successfully operated under less restrictive rules.

Politicians are adding to the pressure. Assemblyman Colin Schmitt (R-Orange, Rockland) called Wednesday for the immediate resumption of full five-day-a-week, in-person education for all New York students.

"There is no reason to further delay this return — our students need to be back to normal now," Schmitt said in a news release. "The Departments of Health and Education must get to work to expedite this."

To help it happen, county health officials, the teachers union and local school administrators in Westchester launched a collaborative program. Its purpose is to vaccinate teachers and school staffers who haven't been able to get vaccine appointments. It was begun after the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents surveyed its members to see how many staffers were in that predicament.

In its first week, Westchester health officials vaccinated about 500 teachers and school staff from six districts, Ricca, president of the council, told Patch.

Ossining schools Superintendent Ray Sanchez is hopeful that the new program will be able to expedite his staff's access to the vaccine. Meanwhile, to determine Ossining's ability to open, district staffers are reviewing the newest guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and the state, he told Patch.

In White Plains, the CDC's update is being reviewed by a "reopening committee" of stakeholders that has met regularly throughout the pandemic to keep up with the changing rules and emerging science as well as their community's infection and, now, vaccination rates.

Other districts, such as Brewster, are setting up such a committee to take the community's ideas and opinions plus the most recent guidelines, get input from the district's legal and health teams and report recommendations to the Board of Education, which will decide how to proceed.

The conditions seem right. With the holiday surge over, coronavirus positivity rates are down sharply across the Hudson region.

Vaccine supply remains the sticking point. As of Tuesday, nine weeks into the vaccine rollout, 2 million New Yorkers have received a first dose, 207,340 of them in the Hudson region, and the vaccines are being administered as fast as the federal government is shipping them.

"For what moms and dads want, the vaccine is, in my estimation, the vehicle that gets us there," Ricca said. "I have a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old. I know it is really, really hard on parents, guardians and children — and it's almost a year now."