Ironic fallout from @DOEChancellor's Friday decision to derail the remote learning plan 75k teachers have worked to implement for 1.1m NYC public-school students. Pulling the rug out from under us will bring terrible consequences for students, teachers & parents. 1/

The DOE decided to end the use of Zoom due to privacy/security concerns despite a simple measure teachers can take to avert infiltrators/Zoombombers: set up a "waiting room" where only approved users (ie, their students) can enter. 2/

Plan is to move to a Microsoft platform that requires schools to throw out well-planned strategies and start over—getting students, teachers & parents up to speed on a new system no one has used requiring new credentials & that is, by all accounts, clunkier & less flexible. 3/

I'm a teacher and a parent of three NYC public-school students. I'll do what I need to do, but with no transition time built into the plan—and now w/o even a day of spring break, per @NYCMayor—the DOE is throwing schools into a new boat in rough waters without a paddle. 4/

Our Kindergartener's Brooklyn school developed an amazing program w/ Zoom: live morning mtg & reading group 5x/week & STEM, art, PE & theater each 2x/week. The principal just emailed to say that everything is on hold now to give the school time to figure out the new system. 5/

In lieu of online school tmrw, then, a group of parents in her class is organizing our own renegade morning meeting using Zoom. My wife, who is not a teacher, is trying to dream up a lesson plan since the school—through no fault of its own—is unable to educate for now. 6/

So to the irony of the situation: the governor and mayor have asked NY schools to work through the upcoming spring break to occupy students and keep them inside during the pandemic. Yet at that very moment, schools are unable to continue the work they've been doing. 7/

Which means many or most NYC students will be at loose ends starting tomorrow, just as the government wants them occupied and off the streets. The left hand might want to have a glance at what the right hand is doing. 8/

Here's the solution. The chancellor should abandon this misguided plan that benefits no one & throws a massive wrench into the education of NYC students at the worst possible moment. Train teachers to use Zoom responsibly to avoid security breaches. Keep calm, carry on. END 9/9