This week, with New York City’s public schools about to reopen, parents watched from playground benches as their children chased one another across the rubber turf. They savored a last moment before the hustle of homework, after-school programs and schoolyard drama — and mandated time on screens — returned.
While some families were still scrambling for supplies, these parents had checked back-to-school shopping off their to-do lists. But even they weren’t entirely carefree: with a mayoral election year ahead, new policies including bussing changes and a cell phone ban, looming tests, and — just a week earlier, a shooting in a Catholic school church in Minneapolis — the start of the school year carried more than its usual weight.
Epicenter NYC spoke with parents in playgrounds across four southeastern and central Queens neighborhoods about their top concerns heading into the new school year. Most of these parents had kids in early elementary school, who aren’t directly affected by the new bell-to-bell cell phone policy. However, even here, cell phone and social media worries popped up, a reminder that these issues cut across all ages. Conversations also touched on new school pickup headaches, the mounting testing pressures, the cost of living — and even mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Safety, bias and bullying
The shooting in Minneapolis on Aug. 27 that killed two children and wounded 18 people made national headlines. For some Queens parents, it was a chilling reminder of how fragile safety can feel.
“I know school is safe, but the news about shootings and stuff like that in schools — that’s what scares me the most,” Francisca Rodriguez, a Richmond Hill neighbor, said in Spanish. Her daughter, who bounced beside her mother and baby brother’s carriage, starts kindergarten this week.
Following what happened in Minneapolis, parents like Rodriguez received a reassuring notice from school staff about their safety policy. It helps, she said, to step inside the school and see the safeguards firsthand: no entry without an ID, and no child released without a pickup card. Still, news of any school-related shooting weighs on her.
For another Spanish-speaking mother of a rising seventh-grader in Jamaica, Queens, staff communications temper school-related tragedies. Some NYC public school families have long been wary about the bell-to-bell cell phone ban effective this year due to concerns about being incommunicado with their kids during an emergency. However, the mother from Jamaica, Queens (who asked to be anonymous) said she appreciates how her son’s school sends text alerts quickly during emergencies such as fires.
“The school sends the messages to us, not to the kids — and that makes me feel better,” she said in Spanish.
What’s most concerning to her is the threat of bullying. Her son told her that, on a recent trip to check out uniforms being sold at P.S. 217, a few girls his age threatened to “call immigration” on him. “Imagine that — just another kid their age, from the same school, in the same grade,” said the mother, who works as a nanny. She noted they must have heard this kind of talk from adults in their lives.
“What worries me right now is that there are a lot of people who are racist,” she said.
Soon after President Donald Trump took office, the city’s department of education put out a statement affirming schools are safe and welcoming spaces for all students, regardless of immigration status. However, that hasn’t stopped absenteeism in the city and across the nation due to fears over the Trump administration’s policy allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make arrests at school. It also hasn’t stemmed the reported rise in bullying related to immigration status.
Transportation and school hours
For families in Kew Gardens, the logistics of simply getting kids to school had already shifted. One mother, Chai Chai Wang, said her daughter, a rising third grader, lost access to the school bus because the family lives just under the one-mile eligibility cutoff.
The change may seem small, but losing an extra half hour from work to pick her up adds up. “For those who cannot work from home, I don’t know how people deal with it,” she said, noting the 2 p.m. dismissal time is too early to work for many families’ work schedules.
Testing and teaching pressures
Wang also has secondhand stress from her daughter’s premature concerns about the state tests that are years away. She had heard about the tests from other kids her age. “She’s already asking or mentioning state testing and I said, ‘you don’t have to worry about this. You’re going to be fine either way.’ ” Wang said.
She said she supports using test scores to compare schools, along with teacher-student ratios and diversity. However, she says it’s unfair to judge individual students on them alone. Her neighbor, Paul Brainard, agreed, saying public school testing overlooks skills such as artistic and spatial awareness: “There’s a lot of intelligences and they only hit on math and reading — and, well, the president’s going to get rid of science,” he said.
Brainard said he hopes Mamdani, if elected mayor, “doesn’t take the Bill DeBlasio route with regards to trying to dismiss special or gifted and talented schools.”
Meanwhile, testing culture has drained joy from classrooms and at home, according to a parent and teacher of West Indian descent (who asked to be anonymous so she could speak freely) near a playground in Jamaica. She said students, families and teachers are all overwhelmed by “teaching to the test” policy.
The 37-year-old said today’s schools feel rigid. “It was not like that when we went to school — we learned, we had fun,” she said. “Now, there’s really no unity with the teachers or community with the type of teachers. It’s so micro-managed.”
The prospect of overly strict teachers also loomed for kids and their parents secondhand. In the Kew Gardens playground, moms Anastasia A. and Malika N., who asked to be identified by their name and last initial, said their kids were already nervous about moving into grades known for “yelling teachers.”
They’ve been told the teachers are too strict and have a “yelling voice,” said Anastasia A. She said the chatter kids hear in advance can set the tone for the year.
Costs of school and after-school
Even when tuition is free, public school parents described a steady stream of bills. Some schools offer free after-school care, but not all. At PS 99, which Anastasia A. and Malika N.’s daughters attend, they say after-school programming runs about $1,200 per semester. They appreciate the offerings: homework help and rotating activities like chess and arts and crafts. However, the Kew Gardens parents say they are more introductory than in-depth.
Back-to-school shopping stretched budgets further this year. Rodriguez, the Richmond Hill neighbor, estimated supply costs jumped about 20 percent compared to last year. On his way back from a playground in Forest Park, Gabriel Salazar, a Woodhaven neighbor and father of a rising third grader, said he paid $200 more this year for supplies and uniforms.
Cell phones, social media and technology
If there was one change or school policy that drew broad support among the parents we spoke with, it was the new cell phone ban during school hours. Parents described phones as distractions that fueled cheating, bullying or worse.
“100%, I think they should not be using cell phones, that it’s going to distract them,” Wang said. Brainard agreed, adding that, as a Gen X-er, he’s seen how social media has reshaped young adults’ ability to communicate in person.
At the same time, some parents admitted struggling with their own habits. “I know I’m addicted myself, so it’s really hard to break that circle,” Anastasia A. said.
The increased emphasis on technology in learning also came with caveats. Brainard said AI tools could be useful for adults — for tasks like editing your writing — but worries they might stifle children’s creativity if overused.
Wang said students should build foundational skills before turning to digital shortcuts like AI or even Googling instead of old-school researching. She compared it to brushing teeth, an analogy she had shared with her daughter: “You need to know how to brush your teeth with a regular brush first — then you can have an electric toothbrush,” she said. “Same thing with technology.”
Sin duda volveré.
Good stuff to keep in mind about school year