NYC’s Empty School ‘Reopenings’

Mayor de Blasio is making a fair show of reopening city schools, but the reality is another story entirely. Local Catholic and private schools have been doing in-person instruction since September with no signs of significant outbreaks. Meanwhile, about 70 percent of public-school students are still remote-only, because . . . Why?

It’s nice that 25,000 students signed up for in-person learning in the first two days after de Blasio reopened the opt-in window. But that’s a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands stuck in remote-world, falling further behind every day.

Notice that the city announced an opt-in deadline of April 7 for families wanting inperson learning but hasn’t yet set an actual return date for these kids.

De Blasio defends the delay, citing “a lot of details to work out” — which has to mean getting the United Federation of Teachers on board, because that’s the only significant difference between public schools and all those been-open-six-months private and Catholic schools.

Heck, “opened” New York City public schools are all too often not very open. Protocols insisted on by the UFT have closed hundreds of public-school buildings for up to two weeks at a time, simply because of a couple of positive tests. And some “in person” classes are led by remote teachers.

Scientific study after study shows that open schools are not COVID-transmission hot spots. Younger kids almost never get the virus; with vaccinations moving rapidly, and educators at the head of the line for jabs, adults in schools are as safe as anyone. But many UFT members don’t want to go back, so the union claims to see real dangers.

“New York City does not have the authority to change its policy for public schools on its own,” crows UFT boss Mike Mulgrew to his members. If de Blasio really cared about the kids losing ground every day they’re stuck in remote classes, he’d be calling out the UFT’s outrageous games — not enabling them.