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As the first day of school approaches, New York's poorest - often uninsured families - face a risky choice: send kids to school where they could contract coronavirus, or keep them home for online classes, potentially compromising their academic progress and preventing parents from working.
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New York, the largest school district in the United States with 1.1 million students, is the only major city nationwide to offer in-person classes.
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Maria - a Mexican domestic worker who lives in Queens, who asked for her last name not be used as she is undocumented - decided to send her children aged seven and 14 to class, despite much uncertainty over protocol.
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"Are schools equipped to safely welcome children? What days will they go? They talk about classes outdoors - what happens when it rains?" asked the 35-year-old mother during a weekly free food distribution in the borough's Corona neighborhood.
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The city's poorest families, generally black or of immigrant origin, cannot afford to hire tutors to support their online learning, as many children of wealthier families are doing. | A man receives a package during a food distribution in Queens.
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And, like Maria, most parents of modest means must leave the home to work - if they did not lose their jobs to the pandemic, that is.
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Many cities, such as Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Miami, opted instead for the virtual model. New York is the only major city to offer a hybrid option, as long as the infection rate stays below three percent.
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Currently it is hovering at 0.9 percent, far lower than the national average. But after a dispute with a prominent teachers' union - which called for more safety measures and threatened a strike - in-person classes were delayed from September 10 to September 21.
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Many low-income New York parents - who were disproportionately hard-hit by coronavirus, suffer more from chronic diseases and often lack health insurance - do not want to send their children to school.
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More than 365,000 public school students, or 37 percent, opted to take classes solely online, according to the city's government.
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Both the mayor and education experts have urged children from low-income families to attend school in person, to avoid falling behind their wealthier peers.
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