NYC schools to reopen amid surge

Mayor had announced a shutdown 2 weeks earlier due to rising number of virus cases

New York City will reopen its school system to in-person learning, and increase the number of days a week many children attend class, even as the coronavirus pandemic intensifies in the city, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday.

The announcement marks a major policy reversal for the nation’s largest school system, less than two weeks after de

Blasio announced that schools were shutting down because of a rising number of COVID -19 cases in the city.

Some elementary schools and pre-kindergarten programs will resume classes Dec. 7, a week from Monday, the mayor said. Others will take longer to reopen.

School programs serving special-needs students at all grade levels will open to in-person learning starting Dec. 10, de Blasio said.

The plan for reopening middle and high schools is still being developed, de Blasio said.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, said he supports de Blasio’s school reopening plan.

New York City’s public schools opened to in-person learning in September for students whose parents had chosen bricks-and-mortar schooling. School buildings closed again Nov. 19 amid rising COVID -19 infections in the city.

Masks and social distancing were mandatory during the weeks that schools were open, and class sizes were a fraction of the pre-pandemic average of up to 25 to 30 students.

About 190,000 students will be eligible to return to classrooms in the first round of reopening, just a fraction of the more than 1 million total pupils in the system. The great majority of parents have opted to have their kids learn remotely by computer.

De Blasio said many of those returning in person will be able to attend five days of class a week.

Students attending in person will be required to undergo weekly testing for the virus.

The mayor said the city was doing away with its previous trigger for closing schools, which was when 3 percent or more of the virus tests conducted in the city over a seven-day period came back positive.

“The idea of the hard number made a lot of sense back in the summer when we had not yet experienced all this,” de Blasio said.

Since then, de Blasio suggested, relatively low numbers of positive coronavirus tests at schools show that it’s possible to keep schools open even with a citywide test positivity rate over 3 percent.

Schools that are in COVID -19 orange zones designated by Cuomo because of rising infection rates will reopen according to rules set by the governor, de Blasio said.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said the union supports the reopening plan as long as stringent testing is in place.