The level of demand among the city’s public school students is unmatched anywhere else in the country, and reopening is even more challenging: the majority of New York City students are low-income and non-white, and there are approximately 111,000 homeless students in the city, as well as 200,000 children with disabilities. City officials described a series of conversations over the summer in which one vulnerable group or another tried to determine if classroom instruction should take precedence, but the majority of students were at risk. When asked recently what the city was doing to improve online learning for those students, the principal of the schools, Richard A., said: Corranza said, “It doesn’t sound sexy, it’s not big news, but we really take teachers who share those best practices with other teachers. “In fact, teachers and principals often said it was left to their own devices. Elsa Gilheni, an ascetic at a kindergarten Bronx, spends many mornings packing her laundry bag over her shoulders to replace what she calls a reading superhero. She kicks a round of “pointer power” in which her students point to a word on their screen and make it sound, and “grab the power” when children are asked to quickly identify words. But even with the students and parents involved, Ms. Gilhani said, “It’s very difficult to do this with a computer, rather than physically touching a child with a book.” Nicky Systack, a high school English teacher in Manhattan, said “The Great Gatsby” is in Spanish for parents of non-English speaking students at home so they can follow with their children. She asked students to create a playlist of their favorite songs that Ms. Systock lip-syncs on camera as students enter class. Now, he said, “children are rarely late.” Teachers across the city said they have learned to appreciate advances in virtual learning. That moment came a few weeks ago for Matt Baker, a high school math teacher in Brooklyn, when his students started singing with a song aimed at helping them memorize the double formula. But all of those successes can very rarely be felt. “It’s hard to get a good idea of what you’re doing,” he said. Baker said. “You put everything out there. It’s a lot of hope.”
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