Gov. Cuomo gave the green light to reopen every New York state school district this fall — if they first earn passing grades from the state Health and Education departments.
“We are probably in the best situation in the country right now,” Cuomo said in a Friday conference call with reporters. “If anybody can open schools, we can open schools and that’s true for every region in the state.”
The gubernatorial go-ahead still requires approval of each district’s specific plans from state Health and Education officials before students return to class for the first time since schools were mandated by executive order to close by March 18. The other caveat for the September openings, a positive coronavirus test rate below 5% in their region, was met statewide as of Friday.
While each district will enjoy wide discretion on setting up reopening plans, Cuomo acknowledged he was already “deluged” with calls from anxious parents and teachers skeptical of whether schools can pull off a safe reopening.
“They have to deal with their parents and teachers, which is going to be a more complicated issue than I think many of them appreciate,” he said. “There is a significant amount of anxiety and concern.”
New York City parents’ are feeling double the anxiety and concern, because Cuomo’s edict doesn’t provide firm answers about whether five-borough students will be returning to school this fall. Mayor de Blasio has said he won’t open school if the city’s positive test rate, currently at 1%, tops 3%. And state officials still have to approve the city’s specific reopening proposals.
The city Education Department submitted its 32-page document to state health officials last week, outlining a plan to bring kids to school in shifts to keep in-person numbers down, among other measures.
State health officials will reply to districts on their reopening plans by Monday, Cuomo said. Classes may not be able to resume if a district’s plan receives a failing grade, the governor said.
Districts are also required to submit plans to the state Education Department that layout how classes will work at each individual school.
City officials turned in their plan Friday evening to the Education Department, a 109-page document covering the blanket policies for reopened schools.
A more detailed proposal that includes individual schedules for the city’s more-than-1800 schools will be submitted by next Friday, officials said. Those schedules will depend in part on how many families choose to keep their kids at home for remote learning this fall — a decision city parents were supposed to make no later than Aug. 7.
“As Governor Cuomo noted, parents and teachers must be confident that schools are safe before they can reopen,” said United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew. “In New York City that is still an open question.”
City principals union chief Mark Cannizzaro agreed, noting the governor’s announcement didn’t amount to an approval of the city’s reopening plan.
“We believe that NYC school leaders do not yet have enough information and guidance from the DOE to reopen their buildings properly,” Cannizzaro said.
Cuomo said winning the trust of teachers will be a major task for districts including the city, and reopening plans won’t work if educators feel coerced.
“Teachers have to feel safe, they can’t teach if they don’t feel safe. You can’t order a teacher into the classroom…they’re not going to be able to teach in that environment,” he said.
Cuomo said districts will be required to create and publish separate plans on how they will test students and staff for infections, how they will conduct contact tracing, and how remote learning will be structured to reduce inequities.
City officials published a test and trace plan for schools that would trigger an automatic building-wide closure if two or more cases emerge in different classrooms.
Officials are strongly encouraging the city’s 75,000 teachers to get tested for COVID in the week leading up to the first day of school — currently planned for Sept. 10. Teachers will get priority at the city’s 34 public Health and Hospitals testing locations and get expedited results, officials say.
Once the school year starts, the city Health and Education Departments will begin “rolling” regular testing of school staff, according to the city plan.
Students and staffs are required to check for symptoms each day at home, and schools will take the temperatures of a random sampling of students each day.
Large districts will be also required to hold at least five town halls with parents before the school year begins. And if virus rates spike before school begins in September, reopening approval from the state could be revoked, Cuomo warned.
