High schoolers are all set for their class acts
City high schools were set to reopen for in-person learning Monday, the latest in a series of steps toward normalcy even as the Big Apple’s COVID-19 numbers remain concerning.
“We’re really excited about this,” Mayor de Blasio said in a video shared on a city-run social media account Sunday. “We have all the pieces we need to bring high school back and bring it back strong and, of course, to bring it back safely.”
Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter pointed to one of few blessings during the COVID outbreak: The virus has infected children at far lower rates than adults. Education Department staff and students tested positive at a rate of 0.57%, according to the latest city stats, far lower than the citywide positivity rate of 6.79%.
About half of all high schools will offer in-person learning five days a week to all their students or a majority of them, Porter said. “We will continue to ramp that up the same way we did with elementary and middle schools,” she added.
Only a fraction of parents chose to sign up their kids for in-person classes — covering about 55,000 high school students, compared with a prepandemic high school population of about 326,000.
High schools are the last part of the system to reopen for in-person learning, after elementary schools started up in the fall — with a temporary closure amid spiking COVID numbers in the winter — followed by middle schools last month.
On the vaccination front, Gov. Cuomo announced a policy tweak Sunday, saying pharmacies could give shots to New Yorkers with comorbidities. Previously, pharmacies could only jab people age 60 and older.
More than 7.5 million vaccinations have been administered statewide since mid-December, Cuomo said Sunday. In spite of the triumphant tone from top officials, concern about the city’s COVID numbers remained high.
Pockets of the city were seeing positive infection rates on par with the worst weeks of the winter. Those included Richmond Hill, Queens, where the latest average infection rate was 14.06%, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn, where the rate was 13.2%, according to the city Health Department.