NEW YORK (AP) — New York City is shuttering schools to try to stop the renewed spread of the coronavirus, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday in a painful about-face for one of the first big U.S. school systems to bring students back to classrooms this fall.
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The nation’s largest public school system will halt in-person learning Thursday, the mayor and schools chancellor said.
The city had said since summer that school buildings would close if 3% of all the coronavirus tests performed citywide over a seven-day period came back positive. As the rate neared that point las week, de Blasio advised parents to prepare for a possible shutdown within days.
The mayor said the rate has now passed that mark.
The city’s more than 1 million public school students will now be taught entirely online, as most already are. As of the end of October, only about 25% of students had gone to class in school this fall, far fewer than officials had expected.
In-person school resumed Sept. 21 for pre-kindergarteners and some special education students. Elementary schools opened Sept. 29 and high schools Oct. 1.
At the time, the seven-day positive test average rate was under 2%.
Even as the school system stayed open, more than 1,000 classrooms went through temporary closures after students or staffers tested positive, and officials began instituting local shutdowns in neighborhoods where coronavirus cases were rising rapidly.
New York City has reached the 3% testing positivity 7-day average threshold. Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday Nov. 19, out an abundance of caution.
We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19.
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 18, 2020
New York City’s school system, like others across the nation, halted in-person learning in mid-March as the virus spiked.
While many big U.S. school districts later decided to start the fall term with online learning, de Blasio pushed for opening schoolhouse doors. The Democrat argued that students needed services they got in school and that many parents were counting on it in order to get back to work.
To keep students spread out, the city offered in-person learning only part-time, with youngsters logging on from home the rest of the time.
The reopening date, originally set for Sept. 10, was postponed twice as teachers, principals and some parents said safety precautions and staffing were inadequate, with the teachers’ union at one point threatening to strike.
The city agreed to changes, including hiring thousands more teachers and testing 10% to 20% of all students and staffers per month for the virus.
When high schools finally opened their doors, de Blasio hailed it as “an absolutely amazing moment” in the city’s recovery.
“This is an example of what makes New York City great,” he said at the time. “We did something that other cities around this country could only dream of because we have fought back this pandemic so well for so long.”
America’s largest city is rapidly becoming America’s least educated city.
But at least they’ll all be street smart.
The infection rate is lower in the schools than in the general community so unless the students self isolate they are more likely to catch the virus if they are out of school. Another unwise move by DiBlasio.
Union yes, children no. Up the union, down with the kids.
Deblasio and all Leftists want schools closed so that teens will roam the streets, contribute to more drugs and crimes on the streets and so that teens who are out of school, will be available for more Riots and crime on the streets.
Deblasio, Coumo and all Leftists get their drugged up like, “high”, from their power and control over others and they love being talked about in every household and in the news.
They have done absolutely nothing constructive for NY and so, unless they do crazy things like making everyone’s life miserable with their Nazi like, Dictatorship, no one would ever talk about them or even know that they exist, since they do nothing else.
Democrats believe that their votes come from the uneducated and poor people.
Statistics show that the lower ones education, the more likely they are to vote for the corrupt Democrats.
Smart people don’t do stupid things like voting for corrupt Democrats and don’t vote for criminals.
It’s in the best interest of all Leftists, to get more votes, by having more people uneducated.
The stupider people are, the easier it is to fool them, that the corrupt leadership should be voted in.
This is ridiculous. The state health officials have been saying that keeping children out of school is worse than having them go to school.
Charge those who decided to close the schools with endangering the welfare of the children. The NYC schools have a positive rate of 17.5%, basically 0. SO they are sending the kids from a safe environment into an environment with a rate that 15 times as high.
Fie the teachers that don’t want to teach. Teachers that don’t teach aren’t teachers, just a bunch of lazy bums that want to get paid for doing nothing.
What really interesting is They wIted until after the stolen election to announce this. What next concentration camps