Bring Kids Back NY lobbies for 5-day-a-week school
Fort Montgomery’s Kristen O’Dell and several other community parents — local members of Bring Kids Back NY, an advocacy group lobbying for children to go back to school five days a week — travelled to Albany on Monday to rally at the state capital.
The group is also encouraging leaders from across the state to create uniform reopening standards statewide and to allocate money in the state budget to reopening efforts.
“We had about 50-60 people at the rally from all over the capital area and Hudson valley,” O’Dell said on Tuesday. “We met at West Capital Park and marched by State Health Department, State Education Department, and then to the concourse of the capital building.”
She added the group had about a dozen children with them.
O’Dell was grateful for the support of a familiar face once she and the group assembled.
“Assemblyman Colin Schmitt marched with us and Assemblyman Michael Reilly met with us and talked for a long time,” she said. “They listened to individual stories of frontline workers who need schools open so they can work, of parents with children who have autism and how virtual learning has caused regressions in any progress they have made, and of parents with kids who have newly developed mental disorders including depression, anxiety, and self harm.”
Most importantly, the group got considerable press coverage, she said, and she hopes that means Governor Andrew Cuomo and Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker noticed them.
“It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed meeting leaders in this movement from all over our state,” she said, commenting that she rang a school bell as she walked which she felt was very appropriate.
“In my speeches I called attention to how the children, specifically, were here because they have no in-person learning,” she said. “But, of course, they should be in school on a Monday.”
O’Dell acknowledged that as the HF-FMCSD continues with its reopening plans, her oldest son will return to school five days per week after Spring Break,
“Many are confused at why I continue advocating. But I rally for every child in New York — not just my own,” she said.
O’Dell, who has already announced she is running for a seat on the Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School Board this spring, encouraged others rallying to do the same.
“I encouraged parents to run for their School Boards and local and county legislation so we can be in positions of decision-making so this never happens again,” she said.
Last week, the CDC issued guidance allowing three feet between students’ desks, relaxing a strict six-foot distancing mandate.
O’Dell said her group members were happy to hear that.
“While we are ecstatic that the CDC lowered their spacing guidelines from 6 to 3 feet, we want New York’s Department of Health to adopt them and for the governor to make an executive order for schools to open,” she said. “We need the guidance because County Health Departments are all doing something different with opening and quarantine guidelines. There needs to be better guidance from the top down. The discrepancies between counties and districts is unacceptable.”
Social distancing guidelines, combined with space constraints, have been the most significant hurdle for districts trying to bring students back full time.
Earlier Monday morning. O’Dell had appeared on the Fox News morning show, interviewed along with several other parents about why she formed the group.
