22 FEBRUARY 4, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
EDUCATION
De Blasio to introduce
plan for reopening NYC
middle and high schools
File photo by Jeenah Moon/Pool via REUTERS
BY ALEJANDRA O'CONNELLDOMENECH
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
The city will reveal a plan for
reopening middle schools in
Febraury, Mayor de Blasio said
on Friday, Jan. 29.
After middle schools successfully
reopen in the spring, officials will
work on reopening New York City
public high schools shortly afterward,
the mayor said.
“Obviously, the big factors here
are what’s going on with the variant,
what’s going on with the vaccine,”
de Blasio told reporters. “We want
to keep vaccinating teachers and
school staff and we want to deepen
that effort but also it’s about testing
capacity.”
Public schools were forced to
shutter their doors again in November
after the city’s COVID-19
positivity rate based on a seven-day
rolling average reached de Blasio’s
reopening threshold of 3 percent.
The city reopened 3-K, pre-K, and
elementary schools and District 75
schools, which serve handicapped
children, the next month requiring
that 20 percent of all children and
adults in schools be tested weekly
for the virus.
Since Jan. 28 alone, 127 classrooms
have been closed due to a COVID-19
case resulting in 37 24-hour closures
and 36 “extended closures” with 137
students and 95 staff testing positive
for the virus.
Pre-K, 3-K, and elementary schools
continue to close temporarily. Under
Department of Education guidelines,
a classroom is closed if a student,
teacher, or staffer tests positive
for the virus. If two or more positive
cases arise and are not linked
by classroom or cohort the school
is placed under investigation and
temporarily closed for anywhere
between 24 hours to 10 days while
contact tracers asses the virus’
spread.
The mayor has not specified how
or when middle schools and high
schools will reopen for weeks suggesting
earlier this week that perhaps
middle and high schools would
not fully reopen until September.
De Blasio’s goal is at odds with the
president of the United Federation
of Teacher union Michael Mulgrew
who has urged a slower approach to
reopen schools that would require
ramping up testing at schools in a
Daily News op-ed.
“In-school testing that should
provide an early warning system
for rising infection rates is already
strained, making it unlikely that the
system could meet the challenge of
testing a significant number of
reopened middle or high schools,”
Mulgrew wrote. ” New York can’t
let its success in re-opening its
schools be undermined by trying
to open more schools beyond the
city’s realistic testing capacity, or by
keeping schools open in the face of a
significant increase in community
infections.”
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