Across the city, parents and elected officials — including many who did not initially support the mayor's push to get children back into schools — registered their dismay and frustration over the closure of all the city's classrooms
People protest the closing of New York City public schools, at City Hall park in New York, on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio closed in-person classes at the city’s schools starting Thursday when the seven-day average rate of positive test results rose above 3 percent on Wednesday.
Image: Benjamin Norman/The New York Times
Laura Espinoza took an hourlong subway ride Thursday morning from her Brooklyn neighborhood to City Hall, where she joined several dozen families gathered to protest Mayor Bill de Blasio’s decision to shut down the nation’s largest school system as virus cases have surged across the city.
Espinoza has 6-year-old twins, both of whom have disabilities. They were attending school five days a week, a rarity for city students, but now they will have classes at home indefinitely.
“They don’t adapt to change quickly, all this back and forth has not been good for them,” Espinoza said. She added that remote instruction is also taking a toll on her 15-year-old daughter.
“My daughter can’t go to class because she’s helping me with the twins,” she said. “Remote learning is not working.”
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