City schools flunk health
Web screening glitch on Day 1 of class
Nearly 1 million New York City students headed back to the classroom Monday morning — but no extra credit was given to the city Department of Education’s health Web site when it quickly failed its first test of the year.
The COVID-19 screening page, where teachers and students are required to complete forms each day before entering their buildings, either loaded slowly or not at all.
“The DOE Health Screening tool is back online . . . Our apologies for the short period it was down this morning. If you are having issues accessing the online tool, please use a paper form or inform school staff verbally,” the DOE tweeted from its account, @NYCSchools.
Mayor de Blasio addressed the glitch, telling reporters, “First day of school, a million kids, that will overload things.”
Staffers at schools across the city were getting parents to fill out paper copies of the health screening as their children waited in line to enter.
“It happened to us,” Alicia Lombardo said at PS 118 in Park Slope. “It just didn’t load. I was able to fill it out, but I couldn’t submit it. But the school was ready. They had all the forms ready to be filled out by hand.”
For many students, Monday was the first time they had been back in a classroom in 18 months after the pandemic shut the nation’s largest school system in March 2020.
De Blasio gave students celebratory fist bumps on their first day back at PS 25 in The Bronx.
“We want our kids back in school. We need our kids back in school. That’s the bottom line,” the mayor said outside the school.
“We need parents to understand, if you walk into a school building, everything’s cleaned, the ventilation is taken care of, everyone’s wearing a mask, all the adults are going to be vaccinated. It’s a safe place to be.”
Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter conceded that some students were still being kept home because their parents were worried about COVID-19’s Delta variant.
The preliminary attendance rate for the first day was 82.4 percent, up from 80.3 percent last year
The city reported that 33 students tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday and that 80 classrooms were closed. Those figures include charter schools. Fifty 50 staffers also had positive tests.
Angie Bastin, who dropped her 12year-old son off at Brooklyn’s Erasmus school on Monday, told The Post that she had fears about the dangerous virus.
“The COVID is coming back. We don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m very worried,” she said.
Meanwhile, Dee Siddons — whose daughter is in eighth grade at the school — said that while she, too, was concerned about COVID-, she was happy for her kids to get back in the classroom.
“I’m excited that they’re going back to school,” she said. “It’s better for their social and mental health and their social skills, and I’m not a teacher, so I’m not the best at home.”