Pastors Offer School-Reopening Help

How will kids whose parents have to work or who don’t have internet access at home be able to attend school online if they prefer?

A group of New Haven pastors floated an idea: Let kids learn remotely inside churches.

Rev. Steven Cousin of Bethel A.M.E. Church and Rev. Boise Kimber of the First Calvary Baptist Church pitched the idea at a press conference outside Kimber’s Dixwell Avenue church in Newhallville on Wednesday morning. They were joined by Rev. John Lewis of Christ Chapel New Testament church, Nijija-Ife Waters of the Citywide Parent Team, and other community leaders.

They gathered, in part, to share concerns about plans to reopen Connecticut schools in the fall during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The state of Connecticut has asked that districts allow students to return to school five days per week. Superintendent Iline Tracey has outlined three contingency plans for reopening schools, per the state’s ask, including one for the state-requested five days of in-person learning per week, one for a hybrid week of in-person and remote learning, and one for entirely remote schooling. In every plan, the district is allowing all students the choice to attend school entirely remotely.

The pastors sketched a vision in which students choosing the remote option could attend online classes in a socially distanced manner within churches. Cousin said that such a program would allow parents who have to work and are unable to supervise their kids during the day to go through with a remote learning option. Kids in need of access to WiFi while learning from home would also benefit, he added.

Cousin said that he does not feel personally comfortable sending his son to in-person classes in the fall. He will be able to supervise his child’s online education due to the nature of his job, he added. But not everyone is in that position.

“What can I do to ensure that children who may not be my own children have a safe place to learn?” he asked.

“We are in this together,” he said. ​“We want our kids to be safe. We want them to be educated.”

According to a survey conducted by the superintendent’s office, 55.19 percent of K‑8 families said they would send their kids to in-person classes, while 44.81 percent would opt into remote learning. Among families of high school students, 57.4 percent said they would send their kids to in-person classes, compared to 42.55 percent who would choose remote learning. (These results, as of Monday evening, account for 9,853 students.)

Rev. Kimber asked rhetorically about the school system’s plans to retrofit schools for Covid-19 protection, provide personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer to students and staff, and transport kids to school buildings safely.

He called for more clarity and communication from the superintendent and the Board of Education on the plans. ​“Share the plan with the community,” he said.

Read more about the district’s plans for reopening New Haven schools with social distancing measures here. Read the plans in full here.

Several speakers criticized the state’s emphasis on five days of in-person learning per week.

“It’s very scary,” said Nijija-Ife Waters, who was part of the ​“Tiger Team” committee that assisted in developing reopening plans for the district. ​“We can’t do this and guarantee our parents safety.”

“It seems that we are trying to emphasize jobs over safety,” said Cousin. ​“No parent should have to choose between educating their kid and keeping their job.”

Tracey said she wanted to learn more details about the idea to have churches host students learning remotely before commenting.

“I’m glad others are looking for ways to ensure our kids get the services they need. We want to work collaboratively with others,” wrote Board of Education President Yesenia Rivera in a text. ​“I can say we are looking for ways to get WiFi into all of our neighborhoods so that all of our students are able to receive the instruction should we have to go back to online learning.”

Board of Ed member Larry Conaway stressed that families should have the ability to make decisions about their kids’ education based on their particular needs. ​“If they feel that the library, or a church, or sending their kid to school, or an individual tutor is best for their children, I think that the school has a responsibility to make that a possibility,” he said.

“I love the idea of the community coming together,” said fellow Board of Ed member Darnell Goldson. ​“The question is about social distancing. If a parent is concerned about their child’s safety going to a school, why would they not similarly be concerned about their safety inside a church?”

He said the idea would be worth exploring if opening churches would help reduce density in schools.

At the press conference, the pastors also spoke about upticks in unemployment and crime over the summer.

Rev. John Lewis addressed a recent wave of shootings in the city.

“People are coming from outside to come in and stop us from doing harm to ourselves,” he said, alluding to the police. ​“They owe us assistance, but we owe ourselves to stop doing that to one another. Ain’t nobody coming to rescue us. We are the rescuers.”

He linked recent gun violence to an economic downturn brought about by the pandemic, underscoring the need for more jobs for Black community members.

Rodney Williams, a Newhallville resident who runs Green Elm Construction, elaborated on the need for the city to hire more Black contractors, including at projects like the Q House community center on Dixwell Ave. The project has given opportunities to contractors from the ​“suburbs that don’t look like us,” he said.

“Everything we’re talking about is interrelated,” said Cousin. The speakers called for a reinvestment of resources into Black communities and neighborhoods in the form of job opportunities and social services.

Cousin spoke of the historic role of Black churches as sites of community power and education, from the Underground Railroad to the founding of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). ​“We started schools in our own churches,” he said.