
2020
COURIER L 10 IFE, NOV. 27-DEC. 3, 2020
Forging ahead
Mayor defends schools closure, promises
more ‘stringent’ standards for reopening
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Nov. 19 defended
his decision to abruptly close
the city’s public schools to in-person
classes, saying his administration
was working on a set of of tougher
standards to reopen classrooms while
battling a second wave of COVID-19,
without giving many specifi cs beyond
increased testing for the virus.
“We can’t just stand pat with a
strategy that worked before when conditions
are changing, we need tor reset
the equation. We need to come up with
even more stringent rules to make
schools work, and testing is going to
be absolutely crucial,” de Blasio said
at his daily press briefi ng on Nov. 19.
Hizzoner confi rmed New York City
schools would go back to remote-only
instruction Wednesday afternoon
amid a rise in coronavirus infections,
following a leaked email by Schools
Chancellor Richard Carranza to principals
and a heated press conference by
Governor Andrew Cuomo, who yelled
at reporters when asked whether the
nation’s largest public school system
would close the next day.
The closure will be at least through
Thanksgiving, and the mayor’s decision
came after the city surpassed a sevenday
average infection rate of 3 percent,
a number the administration, health offi
cials, and the teachers union agreed
on before schools reopened in September,
along with measures like cleaning,
better ventilation, and mask wearing.
De Blasio said that the threshold
was a conservative “gold standard” to
ensure parents, teachers, and staff felt
safe to return to school buildings at
the time, but that school offi cials we’re
working on stricter guidelines to reopen
amid the threat of a second wave.
“We want to look at geographical issues,
test positivity levels, we want to
look at a lot of things,” the mayor said.
“We’re looking at anything and everything
that can contribute to making it
safer in an atmosphere where the positivity
levels around us are growing.”
De Blasio added it was “just a matter
of time,” before the city enters
the state’s Orange Zone designation,
which would mandate the closure of
indoor dining, gyms, hair salons, and
cap gatherings at 10 people.
That would be triggered if the
state’s measurement for COVID-19 positivity
across seven days reaches 3 percent,
which on Nov. 18 was still below
at 2.5 percent. By the city’s measurements,
Nov. 19’s seven-day rolling average
infection rate was 3.01 percent at
1,255 reported cases.
Several city elected offi cials slammed
the mayor Thursday for providing such
short notice about the closure, saying
he and Cuomo needed to work together,
rather than sow confusion.
“We see bickering from two executives,
the same type of bickering we
saw at the beginning of March that did
not bode well for us,” said Public Advocate
Jumaane Williams at a virtual
press conference. “What we’re seeing
being displayed is the worst dysfunction,
I believe, of our government at
the worst possible time.”
The City Council’s Education Committee
chairman, Coney Island Councilman
Mark Treyger, lambasted de Blasio
and Carranza for failing to provide tablets
and computers to some 60,000 students
who have requested them ahead
of the shutdown, leaving them without
a means to access remote learning.
“The only thing worse than over
60,000 kids still without a device in
November is entering the school year
knowing that thousands of children
are still without a device and reliable
internet,” Treyger said during the
presser. “For a mayor who ran on a
platform of ending the Tale of Two Cities,
that tale is fully wide open right
now.”