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Students In New York City Walk Out In Protest Because They Want Remote Learning

By Brian Richards | News Stories | January 12, 2022 |

By Brian Richards | News Stories | January 12, 2022 |

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On a day that hasn’t been entirely pleasant for the citizens of New York City, a day that saw freezing 19-degree weather, continued anger and mourning over an apartment building fire that resulted in the deaths of 17 people due to multiple space heaters being operated to make up for the building’s landlord failing to regularly provide heat, and the announcement that the city’s eviction moratorium would expire later this week, there was at least one incident that put a smile on the faces of New Yorkers yesterday. Even though if you were to ask many of them, it was something that shouldn’t have needed to happen in the first place.

Thousands of students at several high schools around the city, including Brooklyn Technical High School, Bronx High School of Science, Stuyvesant High, New Utrecht High, Fort Hamilton High, and Bronx Academy of Science and Engineering, organized a walkout yesterday afternoon to protest the fact that they are still doing in-person learning during this ongoing catastrof-ck of a pandemic, particularly now that the more contagious variant known as Omicron has become a dire concern for everyone, and are demanding for remote learning at home to become an available option for all of them to take advantage of in order to remain healthy and safe.

These first two tweets about the student walkout that got much of Twitter’s attention came from NY1’s education reporter, Jillian Jorgensen.

Brooklyn Tech is considered to be one of the most well-known and prestigious schools in all of New York City, so the fact that students at this school said “F-ck this!” and literally walked off school property to make their voices heard grabbed the attention of many, both on and off social media.

Even Vincent D’Onofrio, a.k.a. The Kingpin of Crime, expressed his support for the student walkout.

And Jillian Jorgensen tweeted this to anyone who felt the need to hop into her mentions to talk sh-t about these students:

Despite that warning, it didn’t stop people from shaking their heads and expressing their disapproval of the student walkout. Some of them thought that the walkout had nothing to do with concerns about COVID, and that they were simply doing this to cut class and play hooky so they could stay home and mess around with Tik-Tok and video games all day. And those cynical tweets were immediately shot down by others who pointed out that the students at a school like Brooklyn Tech (which is extremely selective when it comes to which applications are approved, and out of 30,000 applications that the school receives from prospective students every year, only 1,900 make the cut) are incredibly hard-working and mostly stressed-out because of the fact that they’re students at Brooklyn Tech, and to think that they’re so lazy and uncaring about their education that they would do something like this on a whim is absolutely ridiculous. (Not surprisingly, much of the negativity online was expressed by people who most likely got Ds in all of their classes, including lunch; who believe that kids are being brainwashed to wear masks and who are losing their ability to socialize with one another because of their need to wear said masks; and who gather most of their knowledge about science and about the pandemic from the misinformation that they read every day on Facebook) Many a former Brooklyn Tech student have pointed out how huge the school building is (12 stories high, and covers over half a city block), and the number of students who are there on a daily basis, which makes social distancing damn near impossible.

According to this Reddit post, this anonymous student at Bronx Science High shared their thoughts last week on what it was like to do in-person learning, and how it drove them and numerous other students to coordinate this walkout.

Dora Chan, a senior at Brooklyn Tech, was interviewed by Chalkbeat New York, as to why this walkout was occurring.

Why are you planning a walkout, and not some other form of protest?

I think a walkout is the best way to show the unity of the students. Because we’re all at school. We’re all trapped in this area, and we’re gambling with our lives. And so in response to that we’re showing the school and the city: We’re not going to deal with this anymore. And if we walk out and that’s symbolic in the sense that: We’re sick of this, and need a change.

Why do you think a walkout is necessary, and what exactly are your goals?

The main goal is to grab the attention of the mayor. And to get there, we hope that the press can circulate the story and provide us a platform to talk about what we want from the mayor. The ultimate goal is to shut down schools temporarily, to get the cases under control. We also brainstormed alternative goals, knowing that he’s adamant about keeping a school open. Alternative goals that we thought of are planning remote options, blended learning. We did that last year; we can do it again this year. More frequent and diversified COVID testing for students and the staff, both vaccinated and unvaccinated - so everyone.

And finally, we hope that the [Department of Education] health screening is improved. The DOE health screening is kind of just this way to filter out people who have COVID from going to school… but there are cases where you’re exposed to people who have COVID or you live with people who are at risk. And all these little circumstances are not accounted for currently in DOE’s health screening.

Actress Cynthia Nixon, who ran in New York’s gubernatorial race in 2018, is one of many people who brought attention to this redacted e-mail that was sent out to students who participated in the student walkout, and she also pointed out that punishing and lecturing children for demanding better and safer learning conditions because they don’t want to get sick from COVID is really not a good look.

Twitter user @LuckyTran also pointed out that at least one school had attempted a lockdown to prevent students from leaving to participate in the walkout.

It wasn’t long before David Banks, the chancellor for New York’s Department of Education, that he was willing to parlay with some of the students in order to figure out a solution and prevent any further walkouts, though he made damn sure to avoid using the “W” word when saying that on Twitter.

The Twitter account for NYC Student Walkout for COVID Safety later responded with this:

And they received support for their cause, while also being reminded that just sitting down for a meeting with the Chancellor was not enough.

It shouldn’t be difficult for anyone to understand why these teenagers have no desire to put their health and their lives (and that of their loved ones) at risk because the city refuses to provide better and safer solutions for them to get the education that they need and want. And yet, that hasn’t stopped other students and parents from expressing their own frustrations about this walkout and the fact that it even happened. Some of them don’t see the point in a walkout, since there’s a strong likelihood that nothing will really change, and everything will remain exactly the same, regardless of how many people test positive for COVID. Others (particularly lower-income, minority households) would rather not see schools shut down and resort to in-person learning because if that happens, who will look after their kids who aren’t old enough or mature enough to look after themselves without any parental supervision? And if the parents/guardians need to stay home with the kids to watch over them, who is going to go to work in order to bring home money that will keep the bills paid and the lights on? (There’s also that not-nearly-as-small-as-you-think percentage of parents who really don’t want to go back to the early days of the pandemic, when remote learning was happening because it was the only available option, and kids were staying home all the time, and these parents actually had to be around their kids all the damn time and could never catch a break) There are no easy answers when it comes to kids and in-person learning vs. remote learning. And there are also no easy answers when it comes to teachers who would prefer remote learning instead of in-person learning, and who organized their own walkout when they felt that their concerns about staying safe from COVID weren’t being listened to by a mayor who just announced that she has tested positive for COVID. But as more students in other cities like Boston and Oakland organize their own upcoming walkouts in the days to come, it’s becoming clearer every day that something needs to be done, and massive change needs to be made.

The children are our future, as both Whitney Houston and Randy Watson once said, and they are leading the way, but they’re also letting us know that the adults are f-cking things up very badly. And when you see those adults saying things like “Go back to your office and work, because the air in your office is so much safer to breathe than the air in your home,” and “Low-skilled workers like cooks and dishwashers and messengers and Dunkin’ Donuts need to work because they don’t have the academic skills to sit in a corner office,” where exactly is the lie?