NYC in-person classes delayed

Mayor announces new timeline due to staff, supply shortages

NEW YORK — New York City’s ambitious attempt to be among the first big cities to bring students back into classrooms closed by the coronavirus suffered another setback Thursday, as the mayor announced he was delaying the start of in-person instruction for most students due to a shortage of staff and supplies.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new timeline that will keep most elementary school students out of physical classrooms until at least Sept. 29. Middle and high school students will learn remotely through at least Oct. 1.

“We are doing this to make sure all of the standards we set can be achieved,” de Blasio said.

The latest delay came just days before students across the nation’s largest school district were set to resume in-person instruction Monday. Now, only prekindergarten students and some other special education students will be going back into physical classrooms next week.

The mayor announced the decision to delay alongside union leaders, who had sounded alarms in recent days that schools weren’t ready to reopen.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said it wouldn’t have been safe to open all the school sites next week.

“If we are going to do this, we must make sure that we get this right,” he said. “We want our school systems up, running and safe and we want to keep it up, running and safe, because that’s what the families, the children of this city deserve.”

The city’s reopening plan, which has now been delayed twice since it was announced in July, is for the majority of the more than 1 million public school students to be in the classroom one to three days a week and learning remotely the rest of the time. Public school students began an online orientation Wednesday.

Reaction to the latest delay was a mixture of frustration, concern and relief.

The announcement exasperated parents like Dori Kleinman, who said the hiatus from in-person learning is affecting the development of her fourth- and eighth-grade children.

“If it were up to me, I’d send them five days a week,” she said. “I feel like we’ve got to rip the Band-aid off here.” In other developments:

■ California companies must pay workers compensation benefits to any employees that become infected with the coronavirus and they must warn employees of any potential exposure to the virus under two laws that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed

Thursday. Business groups have criticized the measures as “unworkable.”

■ Hawaii public schools will start combining stay-at-home and inclass instruction during the second school quarter, which starts Oct. 12. The teachers union is vowing to fight the plan announced Thursday.

■ Georgia has surpassed 300,000 confirmed coronavirus infections amid indications a decline in new cases may be leveling out. As of Thursday, Georgia is close to 301,000 confirmed virus cases, with 6,474 deaths from COVID-19.

■ Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt has reiterated that he will not issue a statewide mask mandate despite a recommendation from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. The governor noted Thursday that he has argued all along that an order requiring the use of face masks is unenforceable and adds: “I’m not going to mandate something that I don’t think you can enforce.”

■ Gov. Greg Abbott is easing some coronavirus restrictions in Texas but says bars will remain shut. Abbott says restaurants, gyms and retail shops can expand to 75 percent capacity starting next week.

■ Graduate students who teach at the University of Michigan returned to classes Thursday after voting to end a nine-day strike.