NEW ORLEANS — The beginning of August means another new school year is here and this year, New Orleans public schools are juggling several concerns.
"We will not lose a generation of children in this pandemic," Superintendent Dr. Henderson Lewis, Jr. said.
Like the rest of the state, NOLA-PS' test scores suffered during the pandemic, a concern to pediatric experts.
"Clearly, as has been echoed by the American academy of Pediatrics and many other organizations, that is also a health crisis," said Dr. William Lennarz, System Chair of Pediatrics, Ochsner Hospital for Children.
Test scores experienced a 6% drop in mastery of English and a more than 10% drop in mastery of Math.
The school board plans to rectify learning loss by keeping students in the classroom and teachers hard at work.
"We're going to take this information and use it in a very meaningful way as baseline information for every student so that our educators can clear a path for our students to succeed," Lewis said.
At Thursday's press conference, NOLA-PS Medical Advisor Dr. Ben Springgate reiterated their COVID safety recommendations and regulations.
"Vaccinations first and foremost, distancing, wearing masks, identifying sick people and having them quarantine. These types of things make a tremendous difference when layered on top of one another in reducing the risk of transmission," Dr. Springgate said.
But, as the delta variant continues to claim the lives of children, a group of parents have put together a petition asking the board for the option to keep their kids in virtual learning.
"If it's that much more dangerous to children, then why did they take that option away from us?" Daniel Zimmerman, a NOLA-PS parent, asked.
Though Zimmerman says his two children struggled with virtual learning in the beginning of the pandemic, he says they caught up.
While it's true that some groups of students were and would be more impacted if virtual learning continues, Zimmerman says he just wants the option before he has no options for his children.
"I trust the science the CDC says that proper and constant masking will help us. That's fine. I don't trust the schools to be able to implement that," Zimmerman said.
Orleans Parish public schools aren't mandating vaccines, they're leaving it up to each charter school to decide.
As of Thursday, 23 of the 77 public schools in New Orleans will require vaccines and testing to participate in after-school activities.
The board says they will be tracking vaccines and infection rates and the should have access to those numbers starting Monday.