NYC parents blast Election Day remote classes as ‘busywork’
They flunked it all up.
Big Apple parents blasted school officials for their decision to go remote on Election Day Tuesday — saying the virtual courses were a waste of time and marred by technical glitches.
Parents said the glitches forced them to have to work while their kids ate Halloween candy and learned little.
The city designated Tuesday a remote instructional day for all public school students, rather than the Election Day break students normally receive, since many school buildings serve as polling places.
But parents blasted the online arrangement as “absurd” busywork that families were stuck overseeing.
“My ten year old is 30 minutes into zoom school today—which I think is absurd,” one mother tweeted. “So far, they said the pledge of allegiance which was very charming, and then my son ran out to the living room to get candy from his Halloween bag. When I said ‘what are you doing?’ he said, ‘don’t worry, I turned off my camera.’”
The school system had warned families to make sure their children had working devices, functioning internet and access to their student accounts.

But one parent said their child’s fifth grade class experienced technical difficulties that meant the whole class could not log into Zoom or Google Classroom.
“One would think they’d have it worked out by now. They’ve had 6 years of practice starting with covid!” the parent, who asked to remain anonymous, ranted to The Post.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said TeachHub, which connects kids to various remote learning platforms, “experienced slower than usual response times.
“In response, NYCPS added a re-direct page ensuring families and educators were able to log in directly via Google Classroom, Teams, Zoom, and other platforms without delay,” the spokesperson said. “Slow response times on TeachHub, which have been fully resolved, did not impact students’ ability to learn or log on to remote learning platforms.”
Still, another parent reported that their children’s teachers couldn’t figure out mute settings.
“Almost a million kids on Zoom today, including both of mine, one in each room, fighting over who gets to show the cat on screen while the teachers battle with mute settings,” the parent tweeted.
Some parents wanted more challenging work for their kids — even those with young children.
“Don’t pretend making my kid trace letters is equivalent to a day of school,” a kindergartener’s parent fumed online. “Instead of my kid going to some random vacation camp so I can work I have to sit at home with her and supervise remote kindergarten?
“This farce is a burden on families,” the parent added.
Many of the parents blamed Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has made childcare a priority for his administration, for the remote learning decision that left them juggling childcare with their own workday.
“@NYCMayor a remote learning day is not a great showing that you actually care or understand parents’ childcare needs,” a parent posted.
“Other districts give everyone Election Day off. Why can’t NYC? It’s hard enough to juggle work and childcare. Adding remote learning just makes a tough day harder for families @NYCMayor,” another tweeted.