New York City schools have reopened 100% for the first times since March 2020. We should all celebrate! Normalcy has returned to even the most heavily regulated places in America!
Not so fast.
The New York Post reveals the shocking truth about the inhumane requirements, the anti-scientific mandates, and removal of children’s fondest childhood activities from school, even at the elementary level.
Karol Markowicz reports: “My son’s Brooklyn elementary school has let us know that water fountains will remain closed. No group projects, no field trips, no parties. Outdoor recess will be masked and distanced. Forget tag or sports.”
Anything that will require children to move, interact, or breath will seemingly be struck or severely limited from their education.
She referred to a New York State Education Department health guide, which says
“Due to increased exhalation that occurs during physical activity, some sports can put players, coaches, trainers and others at increased risk for getting and spreading COVID-19. Close contact sports and indoor sports are particularly risky. Similar risks might exist for other extracurricular activities, such as band, choir, theater and school clubs that meet indoors.”
In summary, the New York Department of Education wants to restrict educational and extracurricular activities because children may breathe too much. This makes little sense. The reason children are forced to wear masks during school is to mitigate risk of the virus spreading to their classmates and teachers. The American public has been told from the beginning to mask up and trust the science. So if the masks work, why would children need to stop their physical activities to slow the spread?
Markowicz continues, “Kids all over the city will be eating lunch only outdoors while sitting on the ground. Some schools proscribe speaking during lunch.”
Hyperbole? Nope. This is happening.
The children will no longer interact with their own friends in the most basic way, when eating lunch. How sanitary is the outside ground for children who are eating? What about cold days and snow? This is New York, after all.
“One Manhattan elementary school sent parents a survey asking what they should do in case of inclement weather.” New York’s answer: “Kids are resilient.”
So kids are resilient enough to withstand the harsh elements of New York weather and the inner-city bacteria that is on the ground, but not withstand the barely tracible effects of Covid-19 on healthy children? Seems inconsistent.
With these extreme guidelines in place for the youth of New York, some questions that come to mind are: How will these children stay healthy if they are not encouraged to play outside with their friends? How will they suffer socially long term if they have to muzzle themselves and refrain from conversation? Will this make learning more effective? Who gave this department the authority to turn schools into prisons for children?
The list could go on.
