NYC students walk out of classes en masse over allegedly unsafe learning conditions, demand remote learning. City leaders offer wholehearted support.



Hundreds of New York City high schoolers staged a mass walkout Tuesday in protest of supposedly unsafe learning conditions in the city's schools. Meanwhile, city leaders — rather than discouraging the students from leaving — offered them their "wholehearted support."

What happened?

At 11:52 a.m. on Tuesday, scores of students across New York City's five boroughs got up from their seats and exited their school buildings to "urge NYC to offer the necessary remote learning options and safety precautions as COVID cases rise."

The "NYC Student Walkout for COVID Safety" demonstration was the result of a coordinated campaign planned by activists on social media.

According to the Gothamist, a day before the walkout, on Jan. 10, the city reported 11,825 COVID cases among students, amounting to about 1.2% of the 930,000-person student body, and 2,298 cases among staff.

Though it was not immediately clear how many students participated in the walkout, the New York Daily News reported that an estimated 600 teens poured out of Brooklyn Technical High School, the city’s largest school. Hundreds more from other schools also participated, according to local news reports.

Hundreds of kids walked out of Brooklyn Tech today to protest the continuation of in person school during the Omicron wave and to call for a remote optionpic.twitter.com/0HMVAFM2YC
— Jillian Jorgensen (@Jillian Jorgensen) 1641921716

“It doesn’t feel safe to be in school, to be honest," one sophomore student told the Daily News. "In my classes, half the classes aren’t there. Some have COVID, some are afraid of COVID, and the school just isn’t doing anything about it.”

Another 16-year-old student told the Gothamist, “Students like me that have parents that are immunocompromised, students that are themselves immunocompromised, I can't imagine how anxious they are to go into a building and feel like they're putting their lives at risk every day."

Still another student shared the participants' demands with the Gothamist in a phone interview, saying, “The main goal we have is to have a temporary shutdown of schools in NYC and a hybrid option for students who have food insecurities or who need child care. We also want more COVID testing for students and staff and an improved [Department of Education] health screening."

It was not clear whether that student, Samantha Farrow, reportedly a junior at Stuyvesant High School, was one of the student leaders in charge of the campaign.

What was the reaction?

One would think the adults in the room (city) would step up amid the walkout to make it clear to students that they aren't the ones in charge. But instead, some education officials took the opposite approach.

In a statement, the NYC Department of Education said officials “wholeheartedly support civic engagement among New York City students.”

“Nothing is more important than the health and safety of our school communities, and we’ve doubled in-school testing and deployed 5 million rapid tests to quickly identify cases, stop transmission, and safely keep schools open," said department spokesperson Katie O’Hanlon in a statement."

She added that "student voice is key and we’ll continue to listen to and work closely with those most impacted by our decisions — our students."

NYC Schools Chancellor David Banks echoed a similar sentiment in a tweet posted after the walkout, offering to meet with student leaders to work on a solution.

We understand the concerns of our school communities during this crisis. The best decisions are made when everyone has a seat at the table\u2014I\u2019m inviting student leaders to meet with me so we can work together for safe and open schools.
— Chancellor David C. Banks (@Chancellor David C. Banks) 1641932269

Some students across the city were reportedly warned prior to the demonstration not to take part in it. Others were given detention for walking off school grounds and cutting class. But most reportedly received no punishment at all.

Canadian school health policy counts all sick students and staff who decline COVID tests as if they're COVID-positive



A public health official in Canada recently announced a head-scratching new policy relating to schools and the COVID-19 pandemic that is sure to spark controversy among the public.

What are the details?

While speaking to reporters last week, Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw indicated that moving forward, all individuals who are absent from school due to illness but decline to take a COVID-19 test will be counted as if they had tested positive for the virus.

"So we do have that framework where schools, if they see that there are an increased number of children who are ill because of respiratory illness — or teachers or staff — they can work with Alberta Health Services," Hinshaw said. "In some ways that is adding an additional layer of protection, because if individuals choose to not get tested for COVID but are home with an illness, they're now counted in the list as part of that outbreak."

"And so it's less dependent on needing a test to be a part of identifying where there is an issue," she added.

Alberta Chief Health Officer Deena Hinshaw: Going forward, we’re counting all sick people who decline Covid tests a… https://t.co/06k6LLIJN7

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) 1632750812.0

"In schools, again, we are taking the approach that an illness that fits that definition — a respiratory illness — is treated the same way whether its someone who has been diagnosed with COVID or not."

Hinshaw noted that her team is working with education officials to determine if any adjustments need to be made to the approach.

What else?

The policy appears to be part of a new government initiative to help schools track whether an outbreak is under way on their campuses and consequently whether a shift to increased online learning is needed.

According to CBC, Alberta's return-to-school plan, released in August, ended contact tracing in schools and no longer required schools to notify each other of known COVID-19 cases. But that decision angered some members of the community who argued the government is not doing enough to protect educational institutions.

So in response, Alberta Health Services now instructs schools to alert them if 10% or more of their student and staff population are absent with a respiratory illness, regardless of whether or not it is confirmed to be COVID-19. In the event an outbreak is declared, a medical officer may then recommend additional safety measures to the school.

But CBC reported that the policy is not going over well: "Parents and staff now say that they're receiving vague notices about outbreaks that don't specify whether or not cases of COVID-19 are present in the school."

"This is going to create misunderstandings on the part of parents, that they may underestimate the risk at school if they receive this letter and return," one parent told the news outlet.