New York City public schools will remain closed until the end of this school year due to coronavirus concerns, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a press conference early Saturday morning.
De Blasio said reopening schools for a few weeks is unrealistic because of the amount of preparation that is needed to do it safely. He said bringing students back until June does not provide much reward academically, and if buildings did reopen, many of them would have to close again because of individual coronavirus cases.
City officials will be working with the state of New York to meet state regulations of how many hours students have to be in the classroom. Student classrooms hours will be consistent with social distancing guidelines, the mayor said.
The mayor laid out a five point plan to help students:
*Complete deliveries of internet enabled digital devices by the end of April. The city distributed about 66,000 devices already, but will need to get 240,000 more devices in the children hands over the next few weeks, the mayor said.
*Expand parent help line and tech support hours and staffing. De Blasio said the city will be adding more educators to provide more coaching for parents.
*Launch new online activities and programs. This includes free programing to help families get through this, de Blasio said. He also mentioned they are working with New York media companies to accomplish this.
*Graduate our seniors. There are about 75,000 students set to graduate. The mayor said he doesn’t know if there will be a ceremony, but want to make sure they graduate on time –– a full plan will be out next week.
*Be ready to reopen in September and combat learning loss. The mayor said the city is working now on a comprehensive plan to reopen schools. This includes focusing on mental health, de Blasio said.
Attendance is being taken once a day at virtual schools, the New York City chancellor said, as he cautioned they are getting in contact with students that have not been in contact with them.
When asked if summer school would happen this year, de Blasio responded, officials won’t know about summer school “until we have a lot more answers.”
The New York City school system is the largest school district in the US with 1.1 million students, according to the city’s Department of Education.
