Students With At-Risk Family Members Fight to Get Remote Schooling Options in

With a 26-year-old son living at home — an organ transplant recipient who is currently battling lymphatic cancer — Ian Yeoh and Lezah Hancock-Yeoh are vigilant about protecting him from COVID-19.

That’s why they asked their school district in Fairfield, Connecticut, to allow his 16-year-old brother to take classes online, just like he did last year during the height of the pandemic.

“The doctors are very adamant. When they blew us away with the diagnosis of Mitchell’s cancer, they also said on the same day, ‘Your other son, Mason, he can’t go back to school,’” Lezah Hancock-Yeoh said.

While the family is hoping for a medical exemption, the school system has denied the request for a continuation of remote learning. It comes as educators, politicians and parents are eager to get as many students as possible back into the classroom after what’s been described as a “lost year” for many young people. Some families say school systems are not being flexible enough.

Connecticut is among states taking a harder line. Several other states are expanding virtual offerings in part to accommodate families with concerns about the virus.

A state law in Connecticut prohibits districts from providing a long-term remote learning option instead of in-person instruction, Fairfield Superintendent of Schools Mike Cummings said.

“We think there’s no substitute for teachers being with their students, both in terms of academic learning and their social emotional learning needs, and we’re prioritizing that and really trying to make that our focus this year,” explained Nathan Quesnel, a superintendent of schools in East Hartford. In his district, virtual learning will be available short-term to accommodate individual students, classrooms or schools that need to quarantine or if there’s a surge in cases.

“Families have to make choices,” he said. “Some families have chosen to homeschool as an option. That’s certainly not something we recommend, that’s certainly not something we’re promoting, but that is an option for families.”

As of now, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that schools will reopen fully in the fall, with masks and social distancing required, unless the CDC alters guidance over the summer. NBC New York’s Andrew Siff reports.

Connecticut attorney Andrew Feinstein, who represents an immunocompromised mother from Fairfield who is challenging her town’s denial of remote learning for her child to the state Department of Education, said “the state has thoroughly abdicated its responsibility” when it comes to these families. Feinstein said the state released “entirely ambiguous statements” which he contends have led some superintendents to wrongly believe they can’t offer them remote learning.

“When I talk to folks at the state Department of Education, they tell me, ‘No, no, no, this is something that local districts can do,’” he said. “They refuse to put in writing essentially what they’re telling me.”

Fran Rabinowitz, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said while districts are unable to offer remote learning for a full 180-day…