23 Brooklyn public schools will reopen
Nearly two dozen Brooklyn public schools will reopen this Thursday after state officials redrew the boundaries of the areas designated as coronavirus clusters last week, Mayor de Blasio said Monday.
The 23 Brooklyn schools slated to reopen Thursday are in neighborhoods that were previously classified as “red zones” but are now “yellow” zones according to state rules.
Another 22 public schools were shifted from the red zone to the orange zone in Midwood and Gravesend later Monday. De Blasio said the city will keep those schools closed for now, despite permission from the state to reopen them with a strict new testing regimen.
“We’re going to stand back, continue to hope the progress in the red zones takes those areas out of the red zones altogether, at which point we’ll reopen those schools,” de Blasio said Monday.
Originally state officials did not allow municipalities with COVID-19 clusters to reopen schools in areas designated as “red” or “orange” zones. Gov. Cuomo changed that rule on Oct. 30, giving cities permission to open schools in red or orange zones if they test all students and staff before allowing them back in the building and continue to test a quarter of kids and teachers each week after that.
City officials said last week they weren’t going to immediately open red or orange zone schools. But last Friday, state officials redrew the boundaries of the red zone, and 23 schools shifted out of the red and into the yellow zone — meaning they can reopen without the strict additional testing regimen. Officials will still have to conduct some extra testing as long as those schools remain in the yellow zone.
Another 173 were moved out of the yellow zone and now have no additional restrictions. A total of 268 schools are still in a yellow zone, meaning they can remain open with additional testing requirements.