Teachers union goes AWOL in fight to keep migrant shelters out of schools


After three years of faculty closures, mandates, studying loss and deteriorating psychological well being, haven’t our metropolis’s youngsters suffered sufficient?

Not in accordance with Metropolis Corridor.

Mayor Eric Adams has actually outdone himself this time, threatening to kick public college children from their gyms and libraries to warehouse newly arrived, unvetted grownup migrants, drawn right here by his proud proclamations of New York Metropolis’s welcoming sanctuary standing.

As many as 20 faculties stand to lose their gyms, with youngsters compelled into metropolis streets for recess and bodily exercise, climate allowing.

Coney Island, Sundown Park and different targets on the mayor’s listing of colleges are primarily in weak black and brown communities that suffered disproportionately from college closures and the mandates that adopted.

However they clearly haven’t paid a big-enough value.

Dad and mom citywide are horrified, however good could but come of it.

The mayor’s reckless resolution has united some unlikely allies, with a bipartisan outcry from Metropolis Council members.


Parents at PS17 protest migrants being housed at the schools gym
Folks protest at PS17 over migrants being housed on the college’s health club.
Gabriella Bass

Teamsters Native 237, which represents school-safety brokers, filed a grievance with town’s Workplace of Labor Relations alleging that security brokers are being “positioned in hurt’s method” and are “not skilled to take care of safety points” related to migrant shelters.

A notable absence from the general public outrage was the academics union, which ought to — in principle — rush to assist overwhelmed members and college students put in danger.

However there was nothing of the type. Whereas college students, households and college directors rallied Tuesday to cease this madness, American Federation of Academics chief Randi Weingarten schmoozed her method across the Writers Guild of America picket line on the Javits Middle.

Pressed Wednesday by “Good Day New York” co-host Rosanna Scotto to clarify what concrete motion the  union would take, United Federation of Academics head Mike Mulgrew spat out, “We’re going to begin a marketing campaign of shaming.”

The union’s plan to guard youngsters and academics is that they don’t have any plan.

The justifications from Metropolis Corridor have additionally been downright insulting: repeatedly saying there isn’t any different area and faculties are a “final resort,” that the Biden administration left them excessive and dry.


Approximately 75 parents and children who attend PS 172 in Sunset Park held a rally today in front of the school
Round 75 dad and mom and youngsters who attend PS 172 in Sundown Park held a rally in entrance of the college on Might 17, 2023.
Gregory P. Mango

Whereas this can be a good evaluation of the White Home, there’s nonetheless no justification for seizing college gyms.

The pandemic taught dad and mom a harsh, much-needed lesson: The well-being of public-school children is an afterthought.

Within the case of migrants housed at school gyms, it feels extra like a heartless political stunt to garner federal funds, with low-income college students getting used as pawns.

New York Metropolis is overflowing with vacant workplace area and storefronts.

Just some months in the past the mayor dismantled tents on Randall’s Island that had been constructed expressly to accommodate arriving migrants, abruptly closing them as a consequence of underuse.

The place are these tents now?

And why haven’t they been reassembled?

There appears to be no will to carry them again or to creatively repurpose grownup areas — and children’ areas are low-hanging fruit.


Parents at PS17 protest migrants being housed at the schools gym
Numerous NYC faculties might find yourself dropping their gyms to accommodate migrants.
Gabriella Bass

Dad and mom are supposed to only belief that their youngsters are secure at school whereas unvetted grownup asylum seekers are housed in adjoining buildings on college property.

Dad and mom are rightly saying no and refusing to ship children.

Chancellor David Banks has additionally falsely reassured dad and mom that faculties wouldn’t be disrupted, but it surely’s too late.

Public-school children have been compelled into streets for recess, routines disrupted simply as life was getting again to regular.

The message to those children: You come final. As soon as once more.

As this administration pretends to care in regards to the underprivileged, it’s as soon as once more utilizing youngsters as human shields.

Kids, who had been least in danger, suffered probably the most restrictive COVID insurance policies, with public faculties, playgrounds and libraries closed for a lot of months, at the same time as grownup areas rapidly reopened.

The end result: studying loss, spiraling mental-health points and rising weight problems, now exacerbated by shrinking widespread areas and decommissioned gyms.

Publish-pandemic public college attendance is plummeting.

Youngsters have misplaced curiosity and engagement from years of getting their wants ignored.


Migrants at the vacant Hungerforsd School arrived by a NYC Transit bus today on May 17,2023.
Migrants on the vacant Hungerford College arrived by an NYC bus on Might 17, 2023.
whiSteve White for New York Postte

Nonetheless, ask a struggling child what his or her favourite class is, and also you’re prone to hear “Gymnasium.’

It’s disingenuous to border the migrant disaster as an either-or state of affairs, pitting youngsters’s rights towards migrant rights.

A very good chief would discover a compassionate, artistic answer for each teams.

It isn’t too late.

Migrants had been set to maneuver from Coney Island’s PS 188 to some location in Manhattan by Wednesday’s finish, sources advised The Publish.

Mayor Adams, please do higher.

Decide to scrapping this harebrained plan fully.

Natalya Murakhver is co-founder of the nonprofit Restore Childhood. She is producing a documentary on college shutdowns, “15 Days. . .” Yasmina Palumbo is a public-school guardian and co-editor of Restore Childhood Substack.