'I've Lost a Lot of Faith': Suburban Parents Push Schools to Reopen Faster - The New Yo... - 0 views
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Frustration over pandemic reopening plans is growing in New Jersey’s affluent suburbs, where taxes are high and many students are barely in classrooms.
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“I’ve lost a lot of faith in the district,” said Ms. Walker, who participated in a recent sit-in outside her 7-year-old son’s elementary school. “We’ve been stopped and started a dozen times.”
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Most districts in New Jersey have partially reopened, but one in four children still live in a district where public schools are closed.
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As the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines has accelerated and President Biden has signaled a push for broader reopenings, frustration among parents has grown
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These parents have filed federal lawsuits, held protests, created online petitions and stormed virtual board of education meetings to demand expanded in-person instruction.
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The pressure to open schools more fully comes as the infection rate in New Jersey, which is small and densely populated, remains stubbornly high
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In Princeton, where schools are among the best in the state, hundreds of middle and high school parents have joined webinars and school board meetings, many asking for additional face-to-face teaching.
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Anger at the pace of reopening has led some families who can afford it to enroll their children in private schools, start home-schooling them or move.
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After lawsuits and the intervention of a mediator, some of the district’s youngest children restarted school in person on March 15, but most students have not been back in class since the start of the pandemic.
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The first lady, Jill Biden, traveled to New Jersey last week to promote the $1.9 trillion stimulus package, which includes $130 billion for schools.
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Two days after Dr. Biden’s visit, Gov. Philip D. Murphy offered his most unambiguous comments yet about school reopenings, suggesting a shift away from the largely hands-off approach he had maintained since September.
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“It is time to stem this tide before more students fall away,” Mr. Murphy said. “A full year out of their classrooms is not how students move forward or how our world-class extraordinary educators move forward in their professions, for that matter.”
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Marie Blistan, a close ally of Mr. Murphy who leads the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, said expanded vaccination access for educators and the infusion of federal funding had put schools in a better position to reopen more fully.