on Jan. 22 by New York Focus.
As coronavirus positivity rates rise, debate has reignited on whether to again shut down New York City’s school system. In search of a more textured understanding of the long-term effects remote learning has already had on families, New York Focus interviewed parents and children shopping at the Bronx Terminal Mall about their experience of school shutdowns so far.
Most were mothers with their children, most were in a rush, and many even those who preferred remote learning to the dangers of in-person schooling had lost or quit their jobs to support their children. With their income stripped away, they stood at the intersection of multiple collapsing systems: reduced unemployment and food stamps assistance, faulty unemployment providers, closed courts, unreliable Wi-Fi, and New York City’s Administration of Child Services (ACS), which teachers have to call when children do not appear in school at the appointed time repeatedly.