FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM SEPTEMBER 3, 2020 • HEALTH • THE QUEENS COURIER 27 health
New York City public school opening delayed
until Sept. 21 as mayor and UFT avert strike
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELL-
DOMENECH
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
City offi cials announced on Tuesday
that in-person classes will be pushed back
until Monday, Sept. 21.
Th e announcement comes the morning
the United Teachers Federation was
threatening to hold a strike authorization
vote if the city did not delay the reopening
of school buildings.
Th e agreement, reached between the de
Blasio administration, the Department
of Education, along with the United
Federation of Teachers and the Council of
School Supervisors and Administrators,
averted a potential job action over the
safety of public schools during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Th e school year had been scheduled
to start on Sept. 10. Now, teachers will
be given four preparation days on Sept.
10, 11, 14 and 15. Teachers will meet
their students during a remote orientation
from Sept. 16-18, according to the
Department of Education. But teachers
will be required to be in school buildings
beginning Sept. 8. for blended learning
training.
“It’s not going to be easy, but I am very
proud to say that we did this at this very
moment,” said UFT President Michael
Mulgrew, who joined Mayor de Blasio
during his daily morning press conference.
“But now it’s up to all of us to be
there to support each other, to support
our kids and to make sure that we are the
ones keeping the largest and best school
system open, running and safe.”
Earlier this month, the UFT threatened
to strike or go to court if the city reopened
schools without meeting a list of union
demands. Th e union wanted mandatory
antibody or COVID-19 tests for all students,
teachers and staff planning to enter
school buildings to for union representatives
to allowed to inspect the status
of personal protective equipment, cleaning
supplies and ventilation systems in
schools. If schools could not be brought
up to snuff by the city’s original fi rst day
of school, Sept. 10, the union demanded
the city delay in-person classes.
Th e UFT executive board was scheduled
to vote on a strike authorization on
Monday. But de Blasio told reporters during
his daily morning press conference
that he did not think the job action was
on the table. Tuesday morning, de Blasio
told reporters that city agreed to delay the
start of the school year aft er both the UFT
and the principals union, the Council of
School Supervisors and Administrators,
expressed concern that teachers and principals
did not have enough time to adequately
prepare schools for a safe reopening.
For weeks, Mayor de Blasio and Schools
Chancellor Richard Carranza have
ignored repeated calls to delay the start
of in-person learning from parents and
teachers claiming that schools would be
equipped with adequate personal protective
equipment by Sept.10 and that the
city had checked all school ventilation
systems. Tuesday’s sudden shift comes
aft er union leaders, including Mulgrew,
came out in support of the mayor’s call to
Albany to allow him to borrow $5 billion
to cover the city’s $ 6.6 billion gap in next
year’s budget.
“We have a huge obligation to get the
health and safety part right which is why
we have literally set the gold standard,” de
Blasio said. “We have said that New York
City is taking the best practices, the strongest
methods from all around the world
to and applying them here in our public
schools.”
As part of the deal, the city will roll out a
“medical monitoring program” beginning
Oct. 1 which will involve testing between
10 and 20% of students and school staff
at each building at random every month,
according to de Blasio’s senior advisor on
public health Dr. Jay Varma. Th e test will
be a self-swab test which requires a person
to insert a long q-tip into the nose instead
of a thin piece of plastic, according to de
Blasio. All COVID-19 tests will be free to
students and staff and results will be available
in 48 hours.
Parents and guardians will need to provide
consent before their child can be tested.
If a school has not received parental
consent for a student selected for testing
that student will be moved to a remote
learning cohort, according to a statement
from the UFT. Any school staff member
that chooses to participate in random testing
will be placed on unpaid leave.
Schools will switch to full remote
instruction if the percentage of positive
COVID-19 cases in the city reaches 3%
or higher using a 7-day rolling average.
Any zip code reporting at least 3% positive
COVID-19 cases or higher using the
same rolling average will receive additional
testing and tracing eff orts like testing
vans, pop-up testing sites, door-to-door
canvassing and robocalls for at least two
weeks, according to city offi cials.
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