New York City to Close Public Schools Again as Virus Cases Rise

In a big setback for the city’s recovery, Chancellor Richard Carranza announced that the school system, the nation’s largest, would return to all-remote learning.
A school crossing guard in Brooklyn the week before Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s schools would be shuttered. Schools had been open for in-person instruction for just under eight weeks.
A school crossing guard in Brooklyn the week before Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city’s schools would be shuttered. Schools had been open for in-person instruction for just under eight weeks.Credit…Anna Watts for The New York Times
Eliza Shapiro

By Eliza Shapiro

Nov. 18, 2020, 2:09 p.m. ET

New York City’s entire public school system will shutter on Thursday, Chancellor Richard A. Carranza wrote in an email to school principals, in a worrisome signal that a second wave of the coronavirus has arrived. Schools have been open for in-person instruction for just under eight weeks.

The shutdown — which was prompted by the city reaching a 3 percent test positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average — is perhaps the most significant setback for New York’s recovery since the spring, when the city was a global epicenter of the outbreak.

It was also a major disappointment for Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was the first big-city mayor in the country to reopen school buildings. Moving to all-remote instruction will disrupt the education of many of the roughly 300,000 children who have been attending in-person classes and create major child care problems for parents who count on their children being at school for at least part of the week.

Virus transmission in city schools had remained very low since classrooms reopened at the end of September, and the spike in cases does not appear to be caused by the reopening of school buildings.

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Still, the city is choosing to end in-person learning while allowing indoor dining and gyms to remain open at reduced capacity. Nonessential workers are also continuing to use public transportation to commute to offices.

That dynamic has infuriated parents run ragged by fluctuating school schedules and frustrated public health experts who have been pushing for more in-person instruction. It has also led to calls for the mayor and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to make keeping classrooms open their highest priority.

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Across much of Western Europe, bars, restaurants, theaters and much else are closed while elementary schools at least have remained open.

Case numbers are rising so quickly in New York that more restrictions appear likely. Mr. de Blasio has said that indoor dining should be reassessed; only Mr. Cuomo has the authority to close indoor dining rooms.
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ImageMayor Bill de Blasio said this month that it was also time to reassess indoor dining.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said this month that it was also time to reassess indoor dining.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

New York is home to by far the nation’s largest school system, with 1,800 schools and 1.1 million students. The city’s public school families, the vast majority of whom are low-income and Black or Latino, have endured roughly eight months of confusion about whether and when schools would be open or closed.

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Mr. de Blasio had put school reopening at the center of his push to revive the city, and he has repeatedly said that remote learning is inferior to classroom instruction. But many teachers and parents have said that the city has not done nearly enough to improve online learning.
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The mayor has said that closures will be temporary, but cautioned that schools would not automatically reopen the moment when the seven-day positivity rate dipped below 3 percent again.

He said it would be too disruptive for children and educators to toggle between open and closed schools every few days, suggesting he would wait until community spread of the virus had stabilized at a lower rate. He has also said the city would soon release details about how it was planning to reopen schools.

The mayor and teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, have faced intense criticism as the 3 percent closure threshold drew nearer. Mr. de Blasio has said repeatedly that the union had not pressured him to set the threshold; instead, he called the metric a “social contract” during a recent radio interview, arguing that it was a symbol of how seriously the city had approached school safety.
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City officials said the number was agreed upon by the mayor’s public health team as part of a package of safety measures that they set out to be the strictest in the world.

The mayor set the 3 percent threshold over the summer, when average positivity rates were hovering around 1 percent or below. He has been explicit that the number is less of a strictly scientific measure and more of a symbol intended to reassure parents, educators and the union.

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In recent interview, Michael Mulgrew, the union’s president, said he thought the 3 percent threshold was sound. He cited warnings from experts that even if there was low transmission in schools, infection could still spread from the broader community into schools, increasing the likelihood that students and staff members might carry the virus into their homes and neighborhoods.

Mr. Mulgrew said he was dismayed that schools were closing so soon, and asserted that expressions of frustration about a shutdown from some New Yorkers seemed hypocritical.

“We had a lot of criticism from people when we were opening schools,” he said. “They didn’t want them open. A lot of that came from the very same people who are yelling now that they want them open.”
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Me: Trump wanted you all back at school ASAP and look what happened because of that.