NYC to reopen high schools

New York City will reopen public high schools on March 22, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday. Many Asian American families, however, reportedly are choosing to have their children continue to be taught remotely.

"We have all the pieces we need to bring high school back and bring it back strong, and, of course, bring it back safely," de Blasio told a news conference. "We are bringing our schools back fully in September, period."

About half of the city's 488 high schools will offer full-time instruction for most or all of their in-person students, while the other half will offer hybrid instruction.

Although 55,000 high school students in New York City signed up for in-person classes last fall, only about a third of all city students will be receiving in-person instruction. The remaining 700,000 or so students in the entire city system have chosen to receive instruction remotely.

Only a fraction of the city's parents have chosen to send their children to school for in-person classes when given the option. Among them, Asian American families are choosing not to send their children back to school at disproportionately high rates, according to The Washington Post.

In New York City, Asian American children make up the smallest share of children back in classrooms — just under 12 percent — even though they represent 18 percent of all students.

Some Asian families are afraid that their children will face racist harassment at school, some are concerned about the health risks of the coronavirus, and others are pleased with online learning and see no reason to send their children back to school, the newspaper reported.

In New York City's Chinatown, 95 percent of students in Yung Wing School P.S. 124 are Asian. Only 160 students are having in-person instructions; the remaining 75 percent of students are taking virtual lessons, said school Principal Alice Hom.

"There are some parents who are concerned about traveling because they're coming by subway, they're coming by bus, and there is that awareness of … racist comments and physical assault," Hom said. "There are concerns about the virus, and whether teachers are getting vaccines or not.

"There are families who are struggling, because their primary parents may be out working, so they are not there to supervise their children," she said. "Students are with their grandparents or another family member who is unable to speak English. They don't have the support in English to help them continue their work virtually.

"They don't get to practice the language with someone. They would in school where they could talk to classmates in English and hear more frequently. It's a gap that we need to think about when they come back in person," Hom added.

According to the Pew Research Center, nearly 30 percent of Asians in the US live in multigenerational households, almost double the percentage of white households. And AAPI Data, a publisher of demographic data and policy research on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, shows that about a third of Asians in the US have limited English proficiency.

Meanwhile, many Asian communities are facing poverty, the same kind of challenges that hold back black and Latino students. In New York City, more than 1 in 5 Asians live in poverty, the second-highest of any racial or ethnic group, according to city data.

"Lower-income families are more likely to keep their children home. In the US, not everyone has access to health care. For black Americans, they are confronting a lot of racism, coronavirus has hit their communities the hardest, and they are the least likely to get good healthcare. There's a reasonable fear," said Amy Hsin, an associate professor at the sociology department at Queens College, City University of New York.

"It is now happening in lower-income Asians, too. They don't trust the government to be able to provide them with adequate healthcare, that's reflected in the data," Hsin said.

Although Chinese New Yorkers had lower test-positivity and hospitalization rates, they had a mortality rate of 37 percent, and were nearly 1.5 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than white patients.

Not sending children back to school will impact learning, Hsin said, noting that larger disparities in learning and inequalities will be built up. "This is a major problem confronting schools in New York, but also in the US," she said.