Mayor Bill de Blasio (Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
Nov. 18, 2020 By Allie Griffin
New York City public schools will close in-person classes starting Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today.
Public schools will switch to fully remote classes beginning tomorrow — until further notice. The move comes as New York City’s COVID-19 positivity rate reached 3 percent over a seven-day rolling average, de Blasio announced via Twitter.
De Blasio had warned that once the 3-percent benchmark was breached, the city would shut down public school buildings.
“New York City has reached the 3 percent testing positivity 7-day average threshold,” de Blasio tweeted. “Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 19, out an abundance of caution.”
City health officials set the 3 percent threshold as the marker to close down public school buildings when they first unveiled the Department of Education reopening plan at the start of the school year.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: starting tomorrow, all @NYCschools buildings are CLOSED for in-person learning until further notice. All students who were learning in school buildings part of the week will transition to remote learning every day. Visit https://t.co/a6osApfhy7 for more. pic.twitter.com/LhuVmiGTYi
— NYC Public Schools (@NYCSchools) November 18, 2020
De Blasio decided to stick to the 3 percent yardstick, despite evidence that shows COVID-19 transmission has remained low at city schools. The city’s random testing program at public schools returned just a 0.23 percent positivity rate out of 140,434 students and staff tested for the seven days ending Nov. 16.
City officials have not said how long public schools will be closed — just “until further notice.” However, previous rules state public schools would close for a minimum of two weeks should the city reach the 3 percent mark.
De Blasio is expected to announce further details soon.
Featured Events
11 Comments
The city needs strategies to promote Equity and Culturally Responsive Teaching in the wake of COVID-19 during remote learning.
Closing schools will have a domino affect on single parent’s household that just found work unless the government will pay parents to watch their own kids.
It’s called public assistance.
Problem is. Many of these parents either dunt watch their children or don’t know how to watch them.
If they had time to rally, they have time to stay at home and help their children learn. Or go to work. Or get in with their lives.
Lives. This is what he’s saving! Children’s lives.
Children’s lives matter.
Hashtagger as Debra and Maria- How many people actually post on this site? Four, five ?
Go to all the other subs divisions of this paper… Astoriapost…
No one posts on stories. We’re by far and away the most active paper.
Who was watching your kids on their remote days???
I worked part time.
Tops. Two weeks, they go twice. One week they go once.
I am a NYC public school teacher and i am off to my beach house in LI! Happy Holidays everyone.
Now i stay home. I have no one to watch my kids. And can not afford a babysitter. We need a rent freeze now!!!