Coronavirus had been spreading in New York City at a noticeable pace. While the Mayor's Office demanded cancellation of all gatherings of 500+ people and after school activities which may even not reach the amount of 500 people at all, public schools are still functioning in the regular form. Especially in New York City, many public schools are carrying thousands of students from all kinds of neighborhoods every single day. Here we are not even talking about 1,000 or 2,000 people, but mostly 4,000 or 5,000.

In the face of such numbers, the Mayor only paid his attention to somewhere else with 500 people or so while thousands of children are trapped in their schools with serious risk of being infected. Even though absences are excused in most schools considering the spreading virus, as long as the schools keep functioning as schools for one day, there will still be a large group of students who risked their health to go to school just for avoiding missing classes. Meanwhile, many elderly teachers are still working and teaching as normal. While the Mayor's office had been calling for precaution by the elderly because they are more vulnerable and easily infected, the Mayor did not even consider the elderly faculties in public schools and the tremendous amount of children who have to contact with them day by day.

At this time, the Mayor chose not to mention the risk that children are taking, but kept stressing the food and child care that many parents need for their child. Indeed, those may be very essential resources that schools usually provide, however, in the face of infectious diseases, the most effective solution is definitely not still putting children in crowds at a daily basis.

Turning schools into shelters that provide food and child care is a wiser choice. It is non-negligible that because many businesses and companies have already closed their workspace and started distance working, many parents are working at home at this point. That means a considerable amount of children do not need out-of-home child care or food anymore. But again, the only reason for this kind of students to still go to school is that they do not want to miss class or left behind by their peers. The mere solution right now is to let schools stop functioning as an educational environment but shelters that provide necessary resources for families in need.

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