New York Post

The NYPD needs to “rethink” its new “Digidog,” Mayor de Blasio said Wednesday — a day after a clip of the robotic dog in action went viral and sent tongues wagging.

Hizzoner hesitated when he was questioned about the video, which been viewed more than 8 million times and left some to compare the programmable pooch to an episode of “Black Mirror.”

“I haven’t seen it, but I certainly share the concern that if in any way it’s unsettling to people, we should rethink the equation,” de Blasio said at his daily press briefing. “I don’t know what is being done to test it — I’ll certainly talk to the commissioner about it. I don’t want people to feel that something is happening that they don’t know about. So we’ll work that out.”

The clip showed the “Digidog” casually strolling out of a housing project in Manhattan following the arrest of Luis Gonzales, 41, an NYPD rep said Tuesday.

Cops arrived to the scene to find Gonzales sequestered inside an apartment with a mother and baby, who exited unharmed, the NYPD said. Gonzales was apprehended after about two hours of negotiations.

The NYPD has not disclosed the cost of each “Digidog,” Kallos said.

“People are already concerned about militarizing police, and this is stopping them before they get any further,” he said.

“We passed a bill back in the city council that they were supposed to disclose that they were using these robots, and they didn’t. So who knows what’s in store?”

He is also exploring ways to limit NYPD use of aerial drones, which are regulated on the federal level.

“Whether it’s robots or drones, we need to move away from overpolicing communities and get back to the basics of investing in people and giving people the resources they need,” Kallos said.

A City Councilman wants the Department of Education to spell out which schools are providing healthcare support to their students.

Councilman Ben Kallos is re-introducing legislation this week that would compel the DOE to reveal which schools offer services like vision care and HPV vaccines.

“We should know exactly which health services are available to which public schools so that we can ensure all 1.1 million public school students have access to the health services they need,” Kallos said.

The Manhattan Democrat said the DOE has not been adequately transparent about healthcare resources in city school buildings and should be legally obligated to do so.

City Councilman Ben Kallos, who also pushed for the program, called for its reinstatement.

“The faster we bring the program to more francophone families that need it, the better off the children will be,” he said.

After ignoring an offer from school bus companies for months, the city will finally explore whether the vehicles can be used to deliver Wi-Fi to students living in homeless shelters who can’t connect to online classes, officials told The Post.

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Mayor de Blasio has committed to a long-term plan to provide Wi-Fi service in all apartments in existing and planned homeless shelters that serve families with children But that project is complicated because many shelters lack cables. Completion is not expected until summer — after the current school year ends.

Councilman Ben Kallos suggested hooking up Wi-Fi to TV cables in a shelter’s common area, but officials say the COVID-19 crisis raises health and safety concerns.

The city will have to give a laptop loaded with “culturally responsive” textbooks to every student under a bill to be introduced next week by Council Members Ben Kallos and Farah Louis.

The measure was prompted by a Department of Education official’s stunning testimony at a recent City Council hearing that 77,000 students still lack internet-equipped iPads needed for remote learning.

“Every student should have a computer and internet as part of their public school education. The homework gap was bad before the pandemic and has only gotten worse for low-income students of color who don’t have the internet or a device with a keyboard in their home,” Kallos said.

Students in city schools get both fully remote and blended instruction, a mix of in-person and online classes.

While the DOE recently ordered 100,000 iPads in addition to 300,000 it distributed during the COVID-19 shutdown, the bill emphasizes laptops with keyboards — especially for older students.

“It’s really hard to type out a 1,000-word essay by hunting and pecking each letter,” Kallos told The Post.

The bill would require that all students get laptops or tablets loaded with “culturally responsive” textbooks which reflect student diversity. The books can be obtained for free, Kallos said.

The legislation also would require the DOE to give an annual report on the number and cost of devices distributed, as well as the housing status of students receiving them. Even with Internet-equipped devices, many students living in homeless shelters don’t have access to WiFi.

Kallos and Lewis plan to introduce the bill on Thursday.

In-person learning is now supposed to start Sept. 29 for those in kindergarten through fifth grade and to Oct. 1 for older students after de Blasio made an 11th-hour decision to delay the opening.

Councilmen Ben Kallos, who joined Councilman Brad Lander in July saying the program fell far short of the number of slots needed, said the city had done a poor job of explaining exactly what Learning Bridges provided and how to apply.

“I would just say it’s a total mess,” Kallos said.

City Hall could not provide much in the way of answers including how many children had been offered slots.

Remote learning has been a near-disaster for city school kids, but City Councilmen Ben Kallos and Robert Cornegy hope it can bring at least one plus.

The lawmakers want the city to expand its Gifted & Talented program online, letting more kids take advantage of the higher-speed, more intense instruction.

Limited funds and space have long left the city unable to offer G&T classes to all who can benefit. But online learning doesn’t require more classroom space, and may be cheaper per student than in-person teaching.

Thousands of New Yorkers were forced to go to the polls after not receiving their requested ballots, while thousands of more votes were discarded because the Post Office failed to postmark them or because voters failed to sign the correct portion of a confusingly-designed ballot envelope.

“It is the party chairs for the Democratic and Republican Parties that have filled the Board of Elections with patronage to the point where it can no longer function,” said Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan), who sits on the committee that oversees the embattled state-sanctioned agency.

“The party hacks rule and it has to end,” Kallos said. “They think there’s nothing anyone can do about it and it has to end.”

The City Board of Elections claimed that it has an “excellent working relationship” with its state regulators and that the Kellner snub was nothing more than a scheduling conflict.

A pair of City Council members is urging the de Blasio administration to use remote learning to better “desegregate” the district — including by offering more gifted and talented programs.

In a letter to schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday, Councilmen Ben Kallos (D-Manhattan) and Robert Cornegy (D-Brooklyn) said online instruction frees the district up from building space and cost restraints.

That means remote learning can be molded to suit individual student needs — and even offer G&T-level instruction for kids in areas that don’t have the coveted programs, the pols said.

“The virtual schools within this new district would be organized around learning style, enrichment, and even common interest,” the letter stated. “Enrichment programs like Gifted and Talented or those tailored to specific interests and remote-learning styles could finally be offered to every student who qualified.”

Cornegy and Kallos argued in their letter that educational opportunity is distributed unevenly across the city — often on racial and socio-economic lines — and that remote learning can help to address that imbalance.