Confusion surrounds in-person school list
4 area schools among districts that say reopening plans were submitted before July 31 deadline
ALBANY, N.Y. » Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in a press briefing on Monday that 107 schools across New York State had yet to submit plans for in-person learning this fall — including 4 from the area.
The announcement, however, caused some confusion, as some school districts listed said they’d already submitted their plans on or prior to the July 31 deadline.
Locally, Troy, East Greenbush and Brunswick in Rensselaer County and Shenendehowa in Saratoga County, all appeared on the list. Yet, all four schools reiterated they had submitted their proposals to the New York State Education Department and the New York State Department of Health for review.
“There are 107 school districts that have not submitted their plan - for those 107 school districts, how they didn’t submit a plan is beyond me. If they don’t submit a plan by this Friday, they can’t open,” Cuomo said in the briefing. “The main arbiter here of whether a school district has an intelligent plan to reopen and whether people have confidence in that district’s plan: It’s going to be the parents and it’s going to be the teachers, and that requires discussion, and that’s going to be a dialogue.
“Parents don’t have to send their child. The parents are responsible for the health and safety of the child, and they’re not going to send the child if they don’t believe the plan makes sense. A teacher is not going to come back into the classroom if they think the classroom is not safe, and that’s right. The school district has to have that
dialogue by the 21st to fully comply with our rules.”
Following the governor’s announcent all four area school districts responded.
“We understand that Troy was listed as a district that had not yet submitted their reopening plan,” said a tweet from the Troy City School District, which plans to hold another reopening panel discussion at 6 p.m. on Aug. 13. “We want to assure you that we submitted our plan on July 31 as required and received confirmation of our submission. We have reached out for additional information.”
On its website, East Greenbush Central School District, which plans on hosting a virtual community forum at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 13, posted the following statement:
“The East Greenbush Central School District submitted its reopening plan to the NYS Education Department on July 30 and received a receipt from the state. We were notified earlier today that our district, among others in the Capital Region, were included on a list that had not submitted a reopening plan. After seeking clarification from the state as to why we were included on this list, we completed a required companion survey and submitted it to the NYS Department of Health. We anticipate being removed from the list of non-compliance.”
Brunswick Central School District, which will hold a virtual reopening parent meeting on Aug. 13 at noon, tweeted a link to its plan, confirming that the school district has submitted its reopening plan to the state.
On its website, Shenendehowa Central School District stated, “Shenendehowa submitted its plan on July 29 to both NYS Education Department and NYS Health Department as well as the NY Forward Business Safety Plan on July 15.”
Jim Malatras, President of SUNY Empire State College, who has also been serving on Gov. Cuomo’s COVID-19 task force, tweeted out the link that school districts were required to use in submitting their plans.
The link on the New York Forward site first asks which category the K-12 school belongs to, school districts and BOCES, charter schools or private schools. Each respective school or district fills out its contact information and then submits its plan into the portal.
On Monday afternoon, Cuomo Senior Advisor Rich Azzopardi, stood by the accuracy of the list put out by the state.
“The list of districts that didn’t file a plan with the state Department of Health is accurate,” he said in a press release. “Despite clear guidance provided to these schools, which included a link to the DOH portal, some districts in follow-up calls said they filed with the State Education Department - which is not an executive agency - but didn’t file with DOH.
“Others filled out an affirmation certifying that they would be abiding by the state’s reopening guidance, but didn’t actually submit their plan, something many of these districts are now rectifying.”
Cuomo also reminded districts they must complete the three to five public sessions with parents and teachers and post their plans for remote learning, testing and tracing on their website by Aug. 21 to be in compliance with standards established by the State.