Teachers across NYC have stopped giving live instruction amid lockdown

Live instruction has been abandoned in virtual classrooms across the Big Apple after the Department of Education’s transition to remote learning — and the teachers’ union is backing members who choose to pull the plug.

While some educators have gamely managed to conduct video teaching in some form during the coronavirus lockdown, many parents say their kids rarely interact with their instructors — sometimes for more than a week at a time.

“This is a problem,” said Yiatin Chu of Community Education Council 1 in Manhattan and the PLACE advocacy group. “We are hearing it from a lot of parents from all socio-economic backgrounds. There are a lot of disparities.”

The DOE initially backed the use of video conferencing application Zoom for conferencing before prohibiting its use due to security concerns.

Some city teachers have transitioned to other platforms, but others have opted out of the practice and are relying on worksheets and assignments without direct instruction.

The United Federation of Teachers has told teachers that they are under no obligation to conduct live teaching, even if administrators press for it.

“The DOE policy regarding live instruction recognizes that educators know their students and families the best and that they use a variety of instructional strategies every day to connect with their students,” said a UFT spokesperson.

“Educators know what their students need, whether that is now, with distance learning, or in their traditional classrooms.“

The availability of live instruction can vary from classroom to classroom even within the same school.

Some parents at highly-regarded Forest Hill elementary school PS 196 said their teacher has gone weeks without personal interaction with their child or group activity.

“There is no teaching happening,” the father said. “We are expected to do everything right now. We sent emails for weeks asking for at least an hour a day or anything and got no response. What exactly are they doing?”

The parents said they complained to the school’s principal who acknowledged the issue but said UFT rules bar her from intervening.

Yet other parents in the very same school said their kids are getting quality live instruction.

A union source said that many educators have thrown up their hands on live teaching because only some kids have the resources to participate while others still don’t.

“If you can’t connect with a bunch of students in your class then they are being excluded,” one Brooklyn middle school teacher told The Post. “Are you supposed to do it for some and not others?”

Other teachers, a DOE source said, simply don’t have the technical savvy to conduct live instruction and are relying on emails and assigned tasks to cling to engagement.

Both the UFT and DOE have signaled that some form of remote learning is likely to continue at least temporarily next academic year.

In a statement, the DOE said: “Our teachers are thinking creatively about ways to keep their students engaged during remote learning, and we encourage both live instruction and pre-recorded lessons. We’ve given guidance to regularly reach out to students in a manner that makes sense for them and stay in contact to continue supporting students and families.”