# data[].attributes.body
Can we get the metrics/ parameters that the DOH used to determine that this school building should be closed? How many positive cases? Was it a ratio of positive cases to total student population? Was it staff cases? Please provide transparency and information on this

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Are the blue dots on the map both the partially closed and the fully closed classrooms? When I look at the PressNYC table of the current action data, I get a number of closed classrooms that is equal to the current “Classroom Closures” for DOE and charter schools on the website, but no “Partial Classroom Closures”. Does that mean none of the partially closed classrooms are listed? Or are the partially closed rooms included in the total listed as “Classroom Closures”? Based on various counts published in the media it seems like they are meant to be counted separately, in which case is there a list of the partially closed rooms somewhere? I just want a complete picture of what is happening.

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Percent Fully Vaccinated for Each School 

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Percent Fully Vaccinated for Each School 

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Can we see this data for staff and students?

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Could they be checked daily and posted so parents know rooms are in the safe range and if there are not actions can be taken?

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Is the Situation Room adequately staffed?

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Is the Situation Room adequately staffed?

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With 200 cases a day, how is that going?

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Is it educationally sound to have classes divided into quarantining students and those at school? 

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Is it educationally sound to have classes divided into quarantining students and those at school? 

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Wouldn't it be better if everyone could be learning together? Perhaps pivot to zoom for all, or at least do "zoom in a room" for that period until everyone is back. The unsoundness of this policy gets more severe for younger students for whom no syncronous classes will be very difficult.

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#COVIDIsAirborne How does the new quarantine plan take this face into consideration?

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#COVIDIsAirborne How does the new quarantine plan take this face into consideration?

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Isn't it possible that other students in the class might be infected?

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High school students are not planning to get vaccinated. Teachers are quarantining left and right without clear tracking- will anything be done to increase students 18 and over vaccination rates?

District 75 sites in hallways with no ventilation- medically fragile students in extremely close proximity with paras and teachers who change diapers and work very physically with non- verbal students, Covid crises waiting to happen

Has any child been turned away from school due to the parent not filling out the health screening form? What percentage is doing it? Why is it even there?

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"I asked about whether there was an investigation given the 7 staff cases and the response I got was: "We monitor all schools for evidence of widespread transmission." I'm not aware of a specific numerical threshold." -- Alex Zimmerman

From PS 194 staff: “they never asked us about our connection to each other, or if we were around each other, or anything of the sort.”

So…if 7 cases among teachers in mostly adjacent classrooms DOESN’T warrant an investigation, what does?

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My 6th grade classes have an average of 34 in a classroom. Social distancing is not possible, as per the principal's email to parents. Is it important to have in person learning for academics and social emotional learning? Yes, absolutely. With the Delta variants and students under 12 is it important to safe actual lives? YES. Please allow parents of students under 12 year olds to opt into a remote option. You are risking the lives of children under 12 by not offering a remote option of learning in NYC.

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I’m not allowed to ask who is quarantining

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I’m not allowed to ask who is quarantining

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It seems that by asking my HS students if they are quarantining I am violating their privacy rights, because it’s essentially asking vaccination status. How’s that going to work out with attendance? Am I supposed to magically know which children are handing in their one assignment per week because they are legitimately on quarantine, or because they were cutting class and are ducking out of work? This is NOT thought through on the high school level. Our halls are still packed, we’re overcrowded by over 1,000 - just to add some context.

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Intellipure Compact Ionizing Air Purifiers KILLING US in the classrooms... please, HELP.

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Intellipure Compact Ionizing Air Purifiers KILLING US in the classrooms... please, HELP.

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The Intellipure ionic air purifiers purchased by the NYCDOE are hazardous to our health, especially to those with asthma or allergies. Ionizers generate ozone, a known lung irritant that causes chest pain, coughing, shortness of breath along with throat irritation. Inhaled ozone can make asthma worse.

I teach in the Bronx. We'r  coughing more & more each day."Asthma morbidity rates are much higher in Bronx children than for other US children".
According to CDC, the South Bronx is one of most asthma-ridden neighborhoods in New York City.

With that said, when will we expect to spend the ARP money that's been allocated to our school to SAVE OURSELVES by creating DIY Merv-13 air purifiers?

(That will cost $346.02 a year as opposed to the $550 spent on one Intellipure machine)

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Students are eating in cafeterias this year. Even with 3 feet labels etc, students are NOT actually 3 feet apart and their masks are down for more than 15 minutes. What is the protocol for contact tracing while in the cafeteria. How will you ensure that all principals will appropriately identify close contacts instead of bending the truth? This new rule is unacceptable because even with best laid plans students are not keeping three feet distance in classrooms, hallways and other spaces. Many students do not wear their mask appropriately even with reminders.

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My children attend one doe school while I work in another. Where I work health screenings are checked for everyone entering the building. Students and staff wear their masks all day except for while eating. In my children’s school there has been 5 classroom closures in 7 days of school- the school does not check the health screening and I just found out they are getting mask breaks on top of the time the students spend maskless eating breakfast, lunch, and snack. Who is following up to be sure schools are following the guidelines set forth especially in schools with so many cases in such a small amount of time? Not to mention an area with high infection rates and low vaccination rates!

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I am a related service provider and therapist that is vaccinated.  I see kids in over 20 classrooms.  I am never told when a child I had for services is quarantined.  Two classrooms both the kids and teacher are quarantined.  I was told since I am vaccinated to come in to school.    Couldn't I be asymptomatic and become a superspreader.  Again, I see 26 kids for therapy in various classrooms.

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I am a related service provider and therapist that is vaccinated.  I see kids in over 20 classrooms.  I am never told when a child I had for services is quarantined.  Two classrooms both the kids and teacher are quarantined.  I was told since I am vaccinated to come in to school.    Couldn't I be asymptomatic and become a superspreader.  Again, I see 26 kids for therapy in various classrooms.

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Hi,
With the new rule where the classroom won’t be closed if there is a positive case if 3 feet apart and masked. What about in junior high school and high school where they walk in the hallway and are not 3 feet apart. The classrooms with 30 or more kids in it. They are not 3 feet apart. The school bus that is over crowded that students have to stand that is not 3 feet. Besides not being 3ft not safe if the bus gets into an accident. The elementary school kids who are not vaccinated. I think not closing the classrooms is going to cause mass out breaks in schools. Worse then it is now. The testing is optional so the same students will be tested all the time. I thought they were trying to keep our kids safe. Not all schools are doing 3ft apart.

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Kids are not eating the breakfast an lunches in school. Food is wasting. Younger kids like cereal, cheerios, pancakes, milk and ID not happening in school. Yogurt and a small cup of 1 type of fruit it's not sufficient and some kids do not like it. There has to be a variety for Breakfast and Lunch. RGD

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Kids need to be Outdoors and have time to play, laugh out loud and be loud. Kids need to have the opportunit  to interact t a safe distance with each other. They have to enjoy now that the weather still warm. RGD

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Filters need to be changed and logged. My filter is very dusty.

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With new Covid rules the class doesn’t have to quarantine only the child who’s positive. But the new rule states that close contact is considered 3 feet apart and unmasked. So if the class eats lunch together in the cafeteria at a table are they then considered close contact? Will they have to quarantine?

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Given that we apparently cannot have defined parameters for launching an investigation or closing a school, could we learn more about the qualifications, expertise and training of the people making the decision whether to investigate spread or close a school? How does a situation get escalated to the people who make that decision? Is the escalation metrics-based?

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When I add up the year to date students testing positive from the daily counts, I get 992. The website only shows 985. Which days were adjusted down and why? It looks like 3 disappeared on the 17th’s update and 1 on the 19th, and 1 on the 20th, and 2 on the 21st.

In schools that would generate both a gray and a blue dot, how is it determined which should be displayed? 28-37 29 St Queens as an address shows 6 (by my count-and-click) classrooms closed and one positive no intervention, and it got a gray dot, which feels disingenuous to me.  Based on my clicking around (I’m not aware of an official list anywhere) on the other gray dots, many appear to be at schools which currently have closed classrooms as well.

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HOMESCHOOL POLICY
What is the harm of holding children’s seats who opt for homeschooling until they are vaccinated or for next year so they don’t have to suffer the social-emotional and academic detriment that losing ones school, friends, and community would inflict? Parent District 15

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Maintaining sufficient ventilation and air exchange

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Maintaining sufficient ventilation and air exchange

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All classrooms that are currently in use have either mechanical ventilation or windows that open, as well as two Intellipure air purifiers. There are reports of teachers closing windows, and turning off (or down) the purifiers. What is being done to ensure that windows and doors stay open and that air purifiers stay on at a high enough level to provide an effective "layer" of mitigation?

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We know that vaccinated students and students who have maintained three feet of distance while masked all day do not have to quarantine under the current rules. But if there is a case in their class in a close contact, can they quarantine and receive the same services as those students who are mandated to quarantine? If they choose to quarantine, will they receive remote materials? Will they be marked as present?

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Will students find out if there was a case in their classroom?
"And if he's not quarantined because he's 4 feet away rather than 3 feet away, but I choose to quarantine him anyway, will the school provide us with remote resources (access to Google classroom, etc.) as they would for the "close contacts" who are required to quarantine?"

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Notification of cases even where no quarantine?

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Notification of cases even where no quarantine?

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Under the new quarantine rules (announced Sept 20), students might not be made to quarantine even if they are in a classroom with a positive case (because they are not considered a "close contact"). In such case, will families still be notified so they can make their own decision about whether to quarantine? And since my child's teachers rotate through more than one classroom in his elementary school, would I be notified if there is a positive case in one of his teachers' other classrooms?

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How many people related to public schools testing and how many positive?

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Are there any cases that would not be counted in Situation Room data right now?

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Cases on the Weekend, who does tracing and contacting?

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Cases on the Weekend, who does tracing and contacting?

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We are hearing that schools themselves were doing this work on the weekend. Is that how it's supposed to, going to be? Also, can you explain why Sunday night cases never seem to be that high, when it should be the result of two days of reporting.

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When a parent keeps a child home due to pandemic safety reasons, and the school says the only option is to homeschool due to the lack of a remote option and requests a letter of intent, how will that student receive services as per his IEP?
Parent,
Queens District 28

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The letter families get when there is a case needs major work.

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The letter families get when there is a case needs major work.

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"lease remember to follow these important “Core Four” actions to prevent COVID-19 transmission:

1. Stay home if sick (except to get essential medical care, including COVID-19 testing).

2. Practice social distancing: Stay at least 6 feet away from people who are not members of your household.

3. Wear a face covering to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

4. Practice healthy hand hygiene: Wash your hands often or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer; avoid touching your face; and cover your cough or sneeze with your arm, not your hands."

Can we talk about this copy? Can you add testing to it? and resources to get tested?

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Why are unvaccinated children (33 in a 6th gr class) having Chorus indoors, when singing is considered a high risk activity? (Same goes for wind instruments in band class).

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"If any ___ student has a family member who tests positive or person outside of BCS they have been in close contact who tests positive, they should monitor symptoms and get tested within 3-5 days of the exposure to see if they are COVID positive” Would this person pass the health screener?  Can students say they are vaccianted on the screener and get a green, but maybe they actualy aren't?

PRESS Steering

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Please Explain this "Close Contact" thing... 

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Please Explain this "Close Contact" thing... 

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Got this from our school: "We do our best to inform the family of any student with close contact (defined as within 6 feet of a person with COVID-19 for at least 10 minutes over a 24-hour period) with a positive case. If families are NOT informed that their children have had close contact, it’s because we did not observe such contact, not that such contact did not potentially occur.  That’s why all families are notified of a positive within the school community so that you are aware and can be mindful." So what's the school's role here. Are they giving the SR names? What exaclty do you all think parents are supposed to make of " a person in our community tested positive"? Unless it's multiple cases, parents probably won't act, not that you shouldn't share it, but bottom line, if a kid in one of our kid's classes tested positive will you tell us? And what are you doing about lunch when you don't know how was next to whom? PRESS NYC Steering

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My child, who has a 504 for chronic health problems, but did not qualify under the very limited list for home instruction at this point, reported her class size this week was 32 high school students and 2 teachers in a very small room. I know that adding "whenever possible" gave the DOE a legal out from the 3ft. rule but this is totally unsafe and unacceptable. Her school, which is in a giant building with multiple co-located schools, also had the kids one on top of other day one (for 25 minutes to enter) because they still have metal detectors to go through- in a Pandemic. These metal detectors need to go, from all schools. The kids also had to eat lunch in cafeteria, with thousands shifting through, masks off to eat. And school testing REDUCED this year with 100% back in building? Why? Does the DOE not want to find cases and contain? Down from weekly to every other week, and only 10% down from 20% and only unvaccinated, when science shows vaccinated both get and transmit, and ONLY if parents give consent when last year was mandatory to attend- because no longer remote to shift to if do not consent and unlike last year we have a more contageous Delta varient. Offering remote for those who NEED it would have made schools safer for kids attending in person AND the kids who need a remote option. Parent, John Jay Campus, Brooklyn

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Based on the most recent projections (Swann et al., 2021), the number of children expected to be infected in NYC and the percent anticipated to require hospitalization and intensive care (Deville et al., 2021), at least 1200 children (best case scenario) will need a pediatric ICU bed within 107 days of the opening of our schools at full capacity. Given that NYC has 142 PICU beds, what is the City’s current plan for accommodating this expected surge in need for pediatric intensive care?

D15 6th Grade Parent

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Can they provide data on which schools are offering outdoor lunch? I've done some informal analysis of 27 schools and their lunch and recess practices and outdoor lunch seems to only be happening in wealthy neighborhood schools, which are getting access to city parks and closed off streets. Why not make it policy that every school automatically gets a closed off street or access to the nearest neighborhood park if school grounds aren't enough to provide safe, outdoor lunch (at least weather permitting)?

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Can they provide data on which schools are offering outdoor lunch? I've done some informal analysis of 27 schools and their lunch and recess practices and outdoor lunch seems to only be happening in wealthy neighborhood schools, which are getting access to city parks and closed off streets. Why not make it policy that every school automatically gets a closed off street or access to the nearest neighborhood park if school grounds aren't enough to provide safe, outdoor lunch (at least weather permitting)?

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I understand that 684 schools underwent testing last week and that >220 of them had 10 or fewer people tested. If a school of 1500 gets 100 consent forms, does the DOE test 10% of the 100 (i.e., 10 people out of 1500 would get tested every other week)? Or is the goal for as close to 10% of 1500 as possible and all 100 of those who consent get tested?

D15 6th Grade Parent

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What’s the hard data on the percentage of students who have consented to testing? Also not just city-wide, we need district, building and school data. Without knowing that we could literally have zero students being tested in a school. Shouldn’t we know how many parents have consented, so that we know if the measures we are implementing are working? Posting this data publicly would also help to alleviate anxiety—because for example if not enough students in a school, district, the system, have consented then we know the DOE will take the steps necessary to make sure testing is happening and effective. What might some of those steps be?

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What exactly is the rational behind vaccinated close contacts of someone who tests positive in a school not quarantining, when we know that vaccinated individuals can spread covid? Also what exactly is the rational of not requiring a negative test before coming back to a class or school after exposure? The only way either of these things seem to make sense is if the DOE and the mayor are hell bent on keeping their heads in the sand at the cost of more infections, more people sick, more people dying.

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Is there a protocol for distributing the 10% of vaccinated people tested who consent throughout a school or can all the tests be conducted in one classroom or in one grade (e.g., in one 6-12 in our district, it appears that only students in one grade were tested this week; three classes in that grade have been quarantined; no students in any of the other 6 grades in the school were tested; this does not appear to be a representative sampling of the school)?

D15 6th Grade Parent

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What is the CO2 monitoring protocol? I understand that each building is equipped with one hand-held monitor. Is every space supposed to be monitored on a regular basis throughout the day? How often? And at what time(s)?

D15 6th Grade Parent

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Is there a threshold for percent positivity or number of cases that will trigger a pivot to all remote or hybrid instruction in a school? Or for children under age 12? Or for the entire NYC school district?

D15 6th Grade Parent

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Is there a threshold for case numbers or percent positivity that will trigger an increase in in-school testing?

D15 6th Grade Parent

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Tottenville HS had 1% of its students tested last week. Will it be two weeks before they have another or the same 1% tested. But 81 teachers were tested. Does that mean they are not vaccinated? 6 classroom were closed as of Thursday? What action are you taking to investigate this school?

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Seeing How Many Cases Are In Each School 

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Seeing How Many Cases Are In Each School 

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We can see how many classrooms in a school are shut down, if we look at PRESS NYC's table, but we cannot see how many cases there are in a school. Why not? 5 closed classrooms could be 10 cases. Or 1 non-classroom quarantine could be 20 people who went to a staff meeting. Given that 4 cases in a school is no longer the threshold for action, we should be able to see the cases for each of the schools in the system at any given time. Seeing their totals for the year would also be helpful.

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If someone takes an at home rapid test, does nothing happen until the case is confirmed by a PCR? What if the family doesn't comply and get a PCR or if their is a long log time getting results? Do you support families in getting that testing appt?

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The number of positive cases have been increasing since schools opened this week. Schools are not closing due to the rise in positive cases and schools have only been open a week. How high will the numbers have to get for a remote option to finally be granted, especially when it has been called for time and again from parents, education staff and other city officials?!

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Can school tested be made mandatory as it was for in-person learning last year?

Why won’t you allow parents of pre-K and K students to opt into testing? Many students in the cohort are accustomed to testing procedures, and parents are willing.

Why not increase testing based on the terrifying number of positive cases this week?

Why not use data collected at out of school labs, esp H+H sites to build on in-school testing data?

Why are you trying to downplay this emergency?

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Last year the DOE made sure all our rooms had CO2 monitors to prove how great ventilation was. We kept asking for air exchange tests instead because CO2 monitors are only effective at reading air exchanges when rooms are at full capacity and last year with hybrid we had very few students per room. This year with full capacity rooms (30+ in many classes), our CO2 monitors have disappeared. We had a ventilation walkthrough over the summer and were told they would be back in rooms. We have asked every day since teachers returned and we keep being told they are coming. But where are they? And why were they removed? It seems suspect that the DOE touted them as proof of great ventilation last year during hybrid and now with full capacity they are nowhere to be seen. WHERE ARE THE CO2 MONITORS? WHY WERE THEY REMOVED? WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO BE RETURNED TO CLASSROOMS?

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What does a zero really mean? Schools that have 50% tests back also have 0% positives in the "last survey" but the results are not all back in. And this same practice seems to be true for the overall totals, tests not back in are counted as negatives. Please correct us if we are wrong, DOH/DOE. https://twitter.com/Epi_D_Nique/status/1438522490779619329?s=20

Will add more soon!

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Having 0 cases reported when tests aren't back or conducted is bad practice & confusing.

Pending or missing tests (eg no students tested) should be noted with "NA" or  "–" or "pending" rather than 0. 

There should also be clear information on % of tests with results. https://t.co/7DRApbXsZd

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.author.name
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.original_text
Having 0 cases reported when tests aren't back or conducted is bad practice & confusing.

Pending or missing tests (eg no students tested) should be noted with "NA" or  "–" or "pending" rather than 0. 

There should also be clear information on % of tests with results. https://t.co/7DRApbXsZd

# data[].attributes.wish_content.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
Another misifying detail. @NYCSchools in-school testing results page says they had 0 cases on 9.13. When you look at just the first page of schools that were tested you see that none of them have their results back yet. https://t.co/fwh04CmpnV https://t.co/694jIEbEQZ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.embed_code
Having 0 cases reported when tests aren't back or conducted is bad practice & confusing.

Pending or missing tests (eg no students tested) should be noted with "NA" or "–" or "pending" rather than 0.

There should also be clear information on % of tests with results. https://t.co/7DRApbXsZd
— Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something (@Epi_D_Nique) September 16, 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.data.text
Having 0 cases reported when tests aren't back or conducted is bad practice & confusing.

Pending or missing tests (eg no students tested) should be noted with "NA" or  "–" or "pending" rather than 0. 

There should also be clear information on % of tests with results. https://t.co/7DRApbXsZd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.includes.users[].name
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props_source.includes.tweets[].text
Another misifying detail. @NYCSchools in-school testing results page says they had 0 cases on 9.13. When you look at just the first page of schools that were tested you see that none of them have their results back yet. https://t.co/fwh04CmpnV https://t.co/694jIEbEQZ

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Having 0 cases reported when tests aren't back or conducted is bad practice & confusing.

Pending or missing tests (eg no students tested) should be noted with "NA" or  "–" or "pending" rather than 0. 

There should also be clear information on % of tests with results. https://t.co/7DRApbXsZd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Having 0 cases reported when tests aren't back or conducted is bad practice & confusing.

Pending or missing tests (eg no students tested) should be noted with "NA" or  "–" or "pending" rather than 0. 

There should also be clear information on % of tests with results. https://t.co/7DRApbXsZd

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.author.name
Dominique Heinke is off bird watching or something

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.referenced_tweets[].text
Another misifying detail. @NYCSchools in-school testing results page says they had 0 cases on 9.13. When you look at just the first page of schools that were tested you see that none of them have their results back yet. https://t.co/fwh04CmpnV https://t.co/694jIEbEQZ

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The blue dot information has been removed from the NYC schools COVID Daily Map. Visual data is used to more easily interpret/express the data. Why? I was checking it every day and saw that the blue dots were doubling. This removal appears *deliberate*. Parents were able to click onto those dots to see what school had been affected, which is just as important. You know that knowledge is power. Stop withholding critical information from the public! https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/health-and-wellness/covid-information/daily-covid-case-map?s=01

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This map shows all known active interventions and cases of COVID-19 at New York City public schools. It is updated Sunday through Friday at 6:00 PM.

A red dot indicates a school that has transitioned to fully remote for 10 days.

A blue dot indicates one or more classrooms closed in a school.

A yellow dot indicates a school has multiple cases under investigation.

A grey dot indicates a member of the school community has tested positive but the school community was not exposed.

Situation Room Summary

Classroom Closure: a Situation Room intervention in an elementary school, pre-K, or DECE program where the positive case is either a student, teacher, paraprofessional, or other types of classroom-based educators, and the most likely result is an entire classroom quarantining.

Partial Classroom Closure: a Situation Room intervention in a middle or high school where the positive case is a student, teacher, paraprofessional, or other types of classroom-based educators, and the most likely result is a partial quarantine of a classroom depending on vaccination status.

Non-Classroom Quarantine: a Situation Room intervention where the staff type is someone who wouldn't necessarily be in a classroom and does not require the quarantine of a classroom e.g. school secretary, parent coordinator, facilities staff, and the most likely result does not include the closure of a classroom.

This information was compiled by the DOE COVID Response Situation Room-a multi-agency partnership between the Department of Education, Department of Health and Mental Health, and the Test & Trace Corps-to facilitate a rapid response to positive COVID-19 cases in public schools.

For more information on protocols at our schools, please visit the Health and Safety page.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This map shows all known active interventions and cases of COVID-19 at New York City public schools. It is updated Sunday through Friday at 6:00 PM. A red dot indicates a school that has transitioned to fully remote for 10 days. A blue dot indicates one or more classrooms closed in a school.

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Can the data of percent consented to testing, who are also unvaccinated be shared disaggregated by individual schools?

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When a testing sample include few or no student participants, why is that acceptable as a viable sample? Since schools are majority students, a sample that is not representative of that can not gauge the ‘health of school’, and therefore should be indicated as ‘incomplete’

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Can vaccinated students opt into testing?

Can vaccinated staff opt into testing?

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Can we get data on what 10% of each school would represent in numbers?

Can the the dashboard indicate whether or not the 10% threshold was actually reached when samples were collected at each site?

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What are the actual deadlines for updating the Daily Case Map, posting the in-school testing results and getting the (state) school report card back up and running?

Why is historical daily data not available for any of the reported information? Is this a deliberate effort to keep the public from noticing patterns?

Is the Saturday data added to Sundays? Or is it never posted as “new”? On what day are the positives found in schools counted? Are they added to the day the test was given or the day the results come in? I cannot tell because I cannot look at the daily data.

I would love for the Daily Covid Case Map to include the positives from in school and out of school testing separately.

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Someone needs to go to the larger high schools and see the lunch periods.

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Why are vaccinated students/staff not part of the testing pool?

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Why are vaccinated students/staff not part of the testing pool?

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If the purpose of testing is to spot cases and remove them from the population to avoid spreading Covid-19, why are vaccinated individuals -- students and staff -- not being tested? Vaccinated individuals with Covid can infect others -- and with breakthrough cases increasing as Delta permeates and vaccine efficacy wears down, there is no science to support testing only the unvaccinated -- much less only 10% of the unvaccinated -- if the goal is to limit the spread of disease in our schools.

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This week I received an email from my child’s elementary school in District 3 about “a potential case of COVID-19 in our school community.” No other information was given.

What determines a potential case vs a confirmed case?

At this time of high transmission in our city, any positive rapid antigen test is quite specific for active COVID infection. I’m concerned that a positive rapid antigen test may be considered “a potential case” as opposed to a confirmed case. Waiting 2+ days for confirmatory PCR testing after a positive rapid test is too long - it delays testing and quarantine of close contacts, and allows for the virus to continue to spread.

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How many students have an application for home instruction pending? How many have been denied? How many have been approved? It's imperative that we understand how many students are attending school in person (an average for the week would be fine), so that we can run incidence numbers and compare these with the general community. (For anyone how wants to learn more about incidence and why it matters, check this out: https://safeschoolsny.medium.com/in-nyc-public-school-staff-might-be-getting-covid-at-higher-rates-than-the-surrounding-community-6548519edf37

To be even more clear there is a population of students and staff that the Situation Room is paying attention to, logging cases for, how many people was this last week? Could you start posting incidence numbers like LA does?

By: PRESS NYC Steering Committee Member and D15/South Brooklyn HS parent

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From December 20th-January 13th, incidence rates for students and staff were close to or higher than averages for the general population.
Incidence " refers to the number of individuals who develop a specific disease or experience a specific health-related event during a particular time period," according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Here in New York City, our schools are open beause our mayor has repeatedly claimed that they are "safe." However, he has not walked us through the data. Each day there are more and more in-person staff and students testing positive for Covid. We wanted to know if in-person students and staff are more likely to test positive than the general population. We also wanted to know if the mayor's claim was accurate.

Dr. Jay Varma, the mayor's senior public health advisor recently said that incidence, along with prevalence, is key to understanding reopening risks, "In order for schools to remain open, the rates of both prevalence and incidence in schools should be similar to or lower than those in the surrounding community." The mayor's message, that schools are "the safest places in NYC," suggests that the incidence rate for Covid in our schools would be far lower than the incidence rate in the general public, but that is not what we found.
Caveat: We are not experts in analyzing data or in the field of epidemiology. But we have real questions about the safety of our schools. The questions we are trying to answer should be the priority of anyone with policy making power or influence in NYC, especially those that make decisions that impact the lives of families and educators. Our answers are as close to accurate as we can make them without full access to key information, like exactly how many students or staff were going into schools during the period discussed. NYC's data changes as new results come in, but the school related data does not. We used the data that was available on January 14th to do our calculations in an attempt to make this as apples to apples as possible.
On January 13th, New York City's Covid incidence rate was 58 per 100,000 (based on a 7-day average).

How does this compare to staff and students' incidence rates for the same period?

We found that in-person students' incidence rate was between 54 and 63 per 100,000 (as much as 9% higher).

In-person staff's rate was between 66 and 80 per 100,000 (as much as 38% higher).

The Department of Education has not posted exact numbers of in-person staff, but our sources helped us arrive at an estimate of 174K (this includes Learning Bridges, cafeteria, and 3-K program staff). We ran the numbers for two possibilities. And hope that someone in the DOE will share more exact figures soon.

In the tables below the red lines show what the incidence rates would be if we use population numbers on the higher end and the yellow lines show what is probably a more realistic estimate of how many staff and students were going into schools during this period (given that many were in quarantine).

Looking at the red and yellow lines, staff have a higher rate of incidence than the general public in the first two weeks of January.

Students are starting to have a similar (red line) and possibly higher rate (yellow line).

This data stands in stark contrast to the mayor's narrative about school safety. Though even his senior advisor says, "Comparing the school test positivity rate to the citywide positivity rate "is not a perfectly fair comparison." The mayor ONLY talks about schools using this unfair comparison and many news outlets repeat it daily.

The in-person testing that the mayor says is key to keeping people safe is not going as planned. Testers are leaving schools having not tested the full 20% promised. They show up the same day each week and therefore miss testing a whole cohort of students. Dr. Uché Blackstock, quoted in the New York Times last week, said her child, who has been going in person since October, has yet to be tested.City Council members sent a letter to the mayor detailing problems with the Situation Room, the city's multi-agency Covid school command center. They describe principals who "report that COVID cases take over their lives leaving them little or no time to focus on instruction." Errors in situation room data have not been publicly addressed, either.

U sing Dr. Varma's standards, that incidence rates in staff or students should not be higher than the general population, there are very real reasons to question if New York City public schools should be open right now.

Rather than alerting the public that they are noticing a troubling trend, the mayor is pressuring schools to bring more students in five days a week; he's also forcing schools to administer the specialized high school exam, and he's not taking into account the dangers of new variants and slow vaccine rollout that could mean even more in-person staff and students are at risk.

As public school parents, all of this gives us a great deal of pause:

When the governor, mayor, chancellor, and teachers' unions obscure the facts and only share information that aligns with their narrative, they put Black, Latinx and immigrant families at even higher risk. - Naomi Peña

Parents want the most transparent, user friendly, accurate data we can get, not spin or claims of the "biggest" or "best." We want to know if there is a disparate impact on COVID-vulnerable groups, and we want these students prioritized with extra attention paid to keeping them safe. - Liz Rosenberg

700,000 families chose remote, and speaking as one of them, I can tell you that the mayor will need to earn back my trust before I'd consider sending my children back. He can earn that trust by being honest about these numbers, taking action to prioritize and protect our most impacted school communities, and by focusing proportionate resources and energy to the majority remote students, families and staff. - Yuli Hsu

"There has been some pressure on the mayor to change some of the safeguards of school closures. Some of this pressure seems to be coming from a select group of people, while others have been shut out of the conversation. This is particularly troubling given these incidence rates and what we are learning about new dangerous variants. De Blasio should act fast on this information, that clearly shows schools are not safe for staff, especially, and wait until rates come way down and more people, teachers, parents and students have received the vaccine. This would at least protect the most vulnerable to this virus."

- Kaliris Salas-Ramirez

If we were to map the resources going towards in-person learning (time, money, emotional, mental focus) we would find that schools are overwhelmed trying to serve only 30% of their students. The mayor needs to offer schools additional resources that they can use for the 70% of students whose parents chose remote. A pivot to remote, for safety, would allow the DOE to better support schools trying to implement culturally responsive curriculum and practices, social justice studies - all things that deserve attention and focus, as well. - Tazin Azad

We all experience trauma when members of our school communities become ill or die. This is why we have continually advocated for stronger in-person learning safety protocols. We are also thinking about the future. The more transparency we have, real thresholds, robust testing, safe ventilation, prioritization of the most vulnerable students, trust, mechanisms to truly be heard, the better, & more sustainable, our eventual return to in-person school will be. - Paullette Healy

Like every New Yorker, we long to be past this period. But in the next few months, our rates will likely continue to rise unless Mayor de Blasio issues restrictions; given the already untenable death toll (82 people today), we sincerely hope that he will.

Many eyes are on New York City's school reopening, so we need our leaders to be real with us about the risks of in-person learning. We need this level of honesty nationally, as well. No matter how unpopular school closures are with some parents or business leaders, we need to heed the safeguards Dr. Varma has outlined - that in-person incidence rates should not be higher (and we would add, they should be much lower) than the community's rates, and we need a data dashboard that continually helps us understand where we are with these metrics.

On Thursday, Dr. Fauci said that it was "liberating" to "let the science speak." Science has not been speaking nearly enough in New York City's reopening process, and it's time for that to change.
PRESS NYC, Parents for Responsive, Equitable, Safe Schools, is a parent collective who hold the education press and the NYC mayor accountable. We lead on CECs, build learning communities with students, write anti-racist curriculum, have expertise in the challenges of navigating the system for students with disabilities, and demand that parents are able to engage with the DOE in their language. We expect the DOE to be responsive to the communities it serves, centered on equity, & grounded in health & safety. Follow us on twitter and facebook @safeschoolsny Watch the "Notes on the Data Incidence Rates in NYC and In Schools The First Week In January For NYC overall:

Average number of cases per day from 1/7-1/13 was 4855 (as reported on 1.14).

NYC's population is 8,398,748.

Incidence of COVID = 58

For students:

Average number of student cases per day was 106 between 1/6-1/13 .

Population of students going in is roughly between 196,000 and 166,000.

Incidence of COVID = 54-63 per 100K.

For staff:

Average number of staff cases per day from 1/6-1/13 was 115.

Population of staff going in is roughly between 174,000 and 144,000.

Incidence of COVID = 66-80 per 100K.

What does the Situation Room mean by a "case"? When contacted for an answer, City Hall stated that a "case" is a student or staff member who attends in-person who has a confirmed positive PCR or rapid test. This is an important clarification: Remote staff and students are NOT included in these numbers. A note about NYC's context for anyone who might want to use NYC as a model:

The main reason that NYC school communities have not had higher rates is that on any given day only about 20% of a school's population is in attendance.

Students wear masks here all day except during lunch or snack times, when they share air. The only students who do not wear masks all day are students with medical exemptions.

Dr. Dara Kass is an emergency medicine attending in NYC.

Most students participate in random testing, which is supposed to be 20% of in person students and staff once a week with a rapid turn around, but the rapidness is in dispute as is the 20%.

Kids 5 and under are not part of the in-person testing, and district 75 students are allowed medical exemptions.

A disproportionate number of white students attend in person (more).

The number of Black, and Asian students attending school remotely is also disproportionate (more).

The quality of ventilation in rooms is in dispute and there is no standard for testing it.

And though most families chose not to send their children in-person, classroom density just increased because of the mayor's push to have more students attend 5 days a week.

Class size has been kept small in-person, but it's union rules in remote.

" we created as a boycott of the Panel for Education Policy.
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Parents for Responsive Equitable Safe Schools

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In NYC, Public School Staff Might Be Getting Covid At Higher Rates Than The Surrounding Community

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From December 20th-January 13th, incidence rates for students and staff were close to or higher than averages for the general population. Incidence " refers to the number of individuals who develop a specific disease or experience a specific health-related event during a particular time period," according to the Harvard T.H.