More District 13 Students Opt Out Of In-Person Learning: Data

BROOKLYN, NY — The number of students in Prospect Heights and Bed-Stuy's District 13 planning to learn from home has grown since the school year started, data shows.

As of Monday, 58 percent of students in the Central Brooklyn school district had opted to attend all their classes virtually, according to newly-released Department of Education data.

That number is 8 percent more than the 50 percent of students who had planned to learn at home when the school year began in late September.

The district — which stretches over Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and parts of Bed-Stuy and Park Slope — has one of the largest shares of students signed up for all-remote learning of any city school district, according to Department of Education data.

Between 45 and 55 percent of students had opted for the remote learning in neighboring districts 16, 15 and 17, which span the rest of Bed-Stuy, Park Slope and Crown Heights, respectively.

District 26 in Northeast Queens, where 67 percent of students have chosen all-remote learning, still had the largest share of any of the city's school zones, as it did when the year began.

The district-level numbers reflect a citywide trend of more families opting for remote learning as the school year continues. This summer, the percentage of all-remote students stood at roughly 30 percent.

Families can opt into all-remote learning at any time under New York City's school reopening plan.

The latest enrollment numbers reflect a week of mixed news on New York's fight against the coronavirus. Localized coronavirus "red zones" in lockdown garnered concerns while the city announced early rounds of random in-school COVID-19 tests only uncovered a handful — 18 as of last counting — of cases out of roughly 10,000 tests.

In Brooklyn, the lockdown zones reach only as far as the southern end of Prospect Park. But, ZIP codes in Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Fort Greene and portions of Bed-Stuy have been on the health department's watchlist for coronavirus surges.

Reporter Matt Troutman contributed to this report.