NYC principals are calling for state takeover of schools

NEW YORK — The union representing New York City’s principals said Sunday that it had lost confidence in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to reopen schools and called on the state to seize control of the school system from the mayor — a drastic move that raised new obstacles to the city’s fraught reopening effort.

The mayor has twice delayed the start of in-person classes, and the vast majority of the city’s 1.1 million students have already started the school year remotely. Hundreds of thousands of students are set to report back to classrooms this week, with elementary school children expected to start in-person classes Tuesday, followed by middle and high school students Thursday.

But Mark Cannizzaro, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, said the city still does not have enough teachers to staff city schools and that lastminute deals hammered out between the teachers union and the city had further undermined principals’ trust in the mayor and their confidence in the reopening plan.

The union’s executive board cast a unanimous vote of no confidence against de Blasio and schools chancellor Richard Carranza on Sunday.

Miranda Barbot, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of Education, defended the reopening effort Sunday.

Emily DeSantis, a spokesperson for the State Education Department, said the department was “aware of the situation” and was “monitoring New York City’s reopening.”

Cannizzaro said that the principals union had not been informed about an eleventh-hour agreement on staffing made between City Hall and the United Federation of Teachers on Friday that allowed more teachers to work from home if they are teaching students learning from home.