On October 5th , Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered an immediate shutdown of public and non-public schools in nine Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods, affecting 300 schools. As a result, despite painstaking steps that administrators, students, teachers, and parents took to ensure the schools followed New York State and New York City guidelines for reopening, the students were required to return to remote, virtual learning. At the time, 5.5% of COVID-19 tests conducted in the 20 hot spot zip codes came back positive. As of today, the percentage in the hot spot zip codes is down to 3.3%.

Governor Cuomo’s decision to shut down schools first, before he made any other decision on non-essential businesses, places of worship, or restaurants, was due to his belief that schools are worrisome super-spreaders of coronavirus. 

Governor Cuomo repeatedly stresses during his briefings that he uses data and science to make his decisions; “If there’s new data then we should come up with a new law.” Well, there is new data that strongly disproves Governor Cuomo’s original assertion that schools are super-spreaders. Last week, Cuomo tested 1,751 individuals in 56 city schools to find only one positive result. Today, the New York Times reported only 18 positives out of 10,676 tests after three weeks of in-person school in New York City. The article further applauds New York City as an “influential model for school districts across the nation.” It is up to you, Governor Cuomo, to set the standard in our country as many look to you for leadership outside of our state. On a national level, The Atlantic collected data on almost 200,000 students in 47 states from the last two weeks of September to reveal an infection rate of 0.13 percent among students and 0.24 percent among staff. Even in high-risk areas of the country, the student rates were well under half a percent. These statistics have proved similar in Texas, where there was a reported rate of 0.14 for students and 0.10 for staff. Governor Cuomo, there is new data, and therefore there should be a new law; schools are essential. 

Aside from the new data demonstrating that schools are not super-spreaders, children are also proven to have less serious cases even if they are infected. Although some might argue that any risk at all, albeit an extremely low risk, is risk enough to close schools, those individuals are not considering the enormous costs to children from closed schools. The Washington Post reported tremendous learning losses, with pediatricians linking remote schooling to toxic stress. As parents, we are witnessing our children cry each morning as they are being forced to look at a computer screen for over three hours during their day. Children with IEPs are not receiving in-person services, therefore they are falling farther behind their classmates. All of our children are experiencing anxiety, loneliness, and depression as they are facing virtual work alone without face-to-face interaction.

As mothers, our relationships with our children are being harmed as we lose our patience trying to manage multiple children at home while juggling our own professional work. Those of us with young children are forced to stay home because we cannot leave our children home without any supervision. Although daycare is open according to Cuomo’s ruling, daycare is rarely available to children older than 6 years old because they are normally mandated to be enrolled in school. Closing schools is hurting working women in our communities who have sacrificed so much to get to the positions we are in, only to be forced to either quit our jobs or take a temporary leave of absence so we can manage our children’s schooling at home. Mckinsey published a study at the end of September stating that women are the most negatively impacted group as our double shift of a full day of work followed by hours spent at home caring for our children and doing household labor became impossible with the closures of schools. Closing schools is not only greatly hurting the mental health of our children, but is also disproportionately impacting the women of our communities. The study further illustrates that one in four women are contemplating downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce completely.

Governor Cuomo, schools are essential. You defined essential services to include health care operations, child care services, and human service providers who take direct care of patients. Schools are essential for the safety and well-being of our children whose mental health issues are raising at an astronomical rate, far outranking the extremely minimal risks of COVID-19 exposure in schools. They are essential for the sustenance of the working mothers in our communities who have faced countless obstacles to obtain the positions they currently hold. They are as essential, as supermarkets, hospitals, hardware stores, laundromats, law enforcement, child care programs, food banks, and everything else that you included as essential services in March 2020. Provided the new science and data that schools are not super-spreaders, we urge you to create a new law stating that schools are essential and should be open immediately following the health guidelines proposed by New York State. Please, Governor Cuomo, help our suffering children. We believe that you truly care about the people of New York City. Show us we can trust you to protect our children. You can lead the country in safely reopening our schools. 

Signed,

Mothers of New York