Brooklyn parents object to school closings

NEW YORK - Sixteen schools in New York City's "yellow zone" halted in-person learning on Tuesday. The mayor's office says they need to stay closed out of precaution.

People rallied across parts of Brooklyn on Thursday to demand answers as to why 300 other schools in that zone could remain open.

"It's not fair to these families, to these parents, who have mounting anxiety," state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, a Democrat, said in part.

At P.S. 682 in Bensonhurst, it was a mixture of anger, frustration and pure confusion, where parents questioned why their kids' schools had to close their doors despite having no confirmed cases of COVID-19.

The feeling was mutual at P.S. 130 in Windsor Terrace, which lies right outside of a hot spot surrounding Ocean Parkway.

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"This community is very separate from what's going on. The people in this community are following all the rules, the school is being incredibly careful," parent Rachel Perlman Szekely told FOX 5 NY.

P.S. 130 is located in an "orange zone," where schools were ordered to close as of Thursday morning. However, parents there are pushing back because positivity rates in the community have consistently remained below 3%.

"We, as parents, came to school under the agreement that the school would shut down on a case-by-case basis," Elena Tavares said. "If there are positive cases, then the school should shut down."

That means it's back to remote learning, at least for the next two weeks, for kids like Zelda Kaplan.

"It's all just so difficult and we actually don't get to see our teachers in person," Kaplan said.

The Department of Education noted that there is no evidence higher transmission rates are necessarily linked to schools staying open but officials said they need to take these steps to help curb the spread of the virus.