Classroom attendance in September will be limited to only one to three days a week in an effort to continue to curb the outbreak, the mayor said.
The decision to opt for only a partial reopening, which is most likely the only way to accommodate students in school buildings while maintaining social distancing, may hinder hundreds of thousands of parents from returning to their pre-pandemic work lives, undermining the recovery of the sputtering local economy.
Still, the staggered schedules in New York City schools for September reflect a growing trend among school systems, universities and colleges around the country, which are all trying to find ways of balancing the urgent need to bring students back to classrooms and campuses while also reducing density to prevent the spread of the virus.
Under the mayor’s plan, there will probably be no more than a dozen people in a classroom at a time, including teachers and aides, a stark change from typical class size in New York City schools, which can hover around 30 children.
Educators widely consider online learning to be a poor substitute for the classroom, especially for younger children and those with special needs. The shift has also created enormous challenges for parents who have struggled helping their children learn even as they have had to maintain jobs from home or, if they are essential workers, had to scramble for child care.
In New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has authority over when schools across the state, including in New York City, can reopen. Mr. Cuomo and Mr. de Blasio have long feuded over schools, and Mr. Cuomo could still halt the mayor’s timeline for reopening. The governor did not contradict Mr. de Blasio on Wednesday.
The vast majority of the city’s public school students are low-income, and many of their parents and caretakers are essential workers who had little choice but to report to work even at the height of the pandemic. A Department of Education survey of about 400,000 parents found that about 75 percent of families are tentatively willing to send their children back to school.
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Perhaps the biggest unanswered question of the reopening effort is how working families will find child care for the days when their children cannot be physically present in school.
Finding ways to plug the enormous gaps in child care is sure to be a citywide effort that does not rely solely on the Department of Education, since school buildings will be fully occupied by September.
The city will have to find other public and private space to accommodate thousands of children a day. The city Board of Health recently authorized the reopening of child care centers, but those centers have only a tiny fraction of the capacity the city will need come September.
Many of the city’s school buildings are over a century old, with poor air ventilation and cramped classrooms and hallways. Drastic budget cuts have left many schools with less money to hire teachers and staff — all while the city estimates that about one in five current teachers will receive medical exemptions to work remotely.
Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza said Wednesday that the city would try to bring as many Department of Education employees with teaching certificates into classrooms as possible.
Though union leaders have raised alarms about whether schools will have enough personal protective gear and nurses to safely reopen, the city has said it will deep clean schools each night and have sanitizer and disinfectant in all classrooms and common spaces. Some teachers have said they did not have enough resources to keep schools clean when the virus was spreading in March.
Michael Cohen arrested after refusing gov’t demand to not publish Trump book during sentence.
The fixer is back behind bars.
Michael Cohen was thrown back in prison on Thursday after refusing to sign a home confinement agreement requiring him to not publish a tell-all book about President Trump for the duration of his sentence, according to Lanny Davis, his friend and former attorney.
Cohen was presented with the hush contract while sitting down with a probation officer in downtown Manhattan for a meeting that he expected to be about fitting an electronic surveillance bracelet to his ankle, Davis told reporters on a conference call.
In addition to not publishing a book, the agreement stipulated that Cohen not use social media or talk to any journalists for the remainder of his three-year sentence, according to Davis, who wasn’t present but said he got the play-by-play recounted to him by Cohen attorney Jeffrey Levine
.
“That was a point that disturbed him because he pointed out that he was able to talk to the media while he was in Otisville,” Davis said, referring to the upstate New York prison where Cohen was doing hard time. “He said, ‘But the book is already done and I’m not giving up my First Amendment right to talk to the media, to use social media and, of course, to publish my book.’”
After Cohen made clear he wouldn’t sign, the probation officer left the room, Davis said.
“The next thing that they saw coming out of an elevator was three U.S. marshals holding shackles,” Davis continued.
During his furlough from prison, Mr. Cohen was photographed on July 2 having dinner at a sidewalk table outside Le Bilboquet, a French restaurant near his Park Avenue apartment, according to The New York Post, which published the photograph. The authorities did not contact Mr. Cohen after the episode and he did not believe it violated the terms of his release, Mr. Davis said.Mayor Bill de Blasio on Thursday extended New York City’s prohibition on large public gatherings through Sept. 30, adding the West Indian American Day Parade, the Dominican Day Parade and the Feast of San Gennaro to the list of popular events to be scrapped this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Antibody results from walk-in medical offices in New York City appear to present the starkest picture yet of how infection rates have diverged across the city. In Corona, a working-class Latino neighborhood in Queens that was among those hit hardest, 68 percent of people tested at a CityMD clinic had antibodies. But in a wealthier, whiter neighborhood a short distance away, only 13 percent of people tested positive.
N.Y.C. Paints ‘Black Lives Matter’ in Front of Trump Tower
New York City painted “Black Lives Matter” in large yellow letters on the street outside Trump Tower on Thursday, the latest flare-up in a yearslong feud between President Trump, who rose to fame as a Manhattan real estate developer, and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who once sought to replace him.
Mr. de Blasio, who briefly joined activists and city workers to paint the block of Fifth Avenue between 56th and 57th Streets in Manhattan, made his intent clear before he grabbed a roller.
“Black lives matter in our city, and Black lives matter in the United States of America,” he said. “Let’s show Donald Trump what he does not understand. Let’s paint it right in front of his building for him.”
The mayor went on to help fill in the bottom of the “L” in “Lives,” as a number of people surrounded him chanting “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace” — though a few others nearby also shouted insults critical of him and his administration.