Mayor De Blasio to Re-open Younger Grades Tomorrow, for the Duration of the Pandemic

By Yehudit Garmaise

  Mayor Bill de Blasio is re-opening public schools tomorrow for 3-K, Pre-K, and elementary school children, who have consistently show almost negligible COVID transmission rates, although he previous had said that he would keep schools closed when the city’s COVID-positivity rate exceeded 3%, which it did on Nov. 18.

   District 75 special education students will return to class this Thursday, but the dates on which middle and high schools will be reopened have not yet been announced. 

  The mayor had set the 3% limit over the summer with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) over the summer, after almost 80 public school teachers lost their lives to COVID-19. In response to widespread criticism over the mayor's closing of the schools, he said several time, “I picked a metric [of 3%], and I am going to stick with it.”

   But the protests of mothers of public school student outside the Gracie Mansion, and other widespread criticism that bars, restaurants, and gyms stayed open, while public schools remain shuttered may have influenced the mayor to create new and improved health protocols to being reopening the schools tomorrow morning.

   “Whatever happens ahead, we want this to be the plan going forward,” Mayor de Blasio said at a news conference. “We know what we didn’t know over the summer, we know what works from actual experience.”

     Experts and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who supports the mayor’s plan to re-open the public schools, have been nearly unanimous that not only children’s educations suffer from constant online school, but the social and emotional health of children suffers as well.

   In fact, Gov. Cuomo has said several times in press conference that “children are much safer in schools than they are out in the community.”

    Among the mayor’s “re-imagining,” as he calls it, of his plan for schools to remain open for the duration of pandemic are weekly, instead of monthly testing for students, parents keep consent-forms on file with schools, and health protocols will be increased and enforced.

  Although the UFT has clashed with the mayor before on testing, the New York Times reported that the powerful teachers' union supported the mayor’s plans to re-open schools, as long as the Department of Education kept up with its plan to conduct rigorous virus testing in the schools.

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.

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