NYC Schools to Close as Virus Rate Reaches 3% Trigger Point: De Blasio

New York City shut down in-person schooling as the citywide test infection rate for Covid-19 hit 3%, forcing parents of hundreds of thousands of kids to find alternative child-care arrangements or adjust their work schedules.

Schools will be closed as of tomorrow “out of an abundance of caution,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday on Twitter.

De Blasio agreed with parents and teachers months ago to set the 3% rate that forces a temporary halt to the largest U.S. school system’s blended program of classroom and remote instruction. The move forces almost 300,000 students who had been participating to join the rest of the city’s 1.1 million public-school students in all-online instruction at home.

“It’s crazy. We’re looking at Plans B through Z, because my husband and I both must work outside the home, and I have three weeks left of reduced paid leave,” said Kanika Ingram, a Verizon field technician whose husband is a U.S. Postal Service manager.

The announcement came amid confusion among public officials. De Blasio, initially scheduled to give a 10 a.m. virus briefing, postponed it until 11:30 p.m; more than three hours later, he rescheduled it for 3 p.m. In the meantime, Governor Andrew Cuomo held his own virus briefing, where he announced that New York City’s latest average positivity rate was 2.5%.

Cuomo also noted that a 3% rate would put New York City in a state-designated orange zone that would have to shut indoor dining, gyms and other “high-risk,” nonessential businesses. It was unclear if de Blasio’s announcement on Twitter, which came as a surprise to Cuomo, mean the additional restrictions mentioned by Cuomo would be made.

The schools shutdown begins days after the deadline for parents’ one chance to switch their children from all-remote to the blended program. Educators say face-to-face learning is more effective than at-home instruction, especially for the younger and special needs students. Tens of thousands remain without mobile devices and adequate broadband service, a problem school officials say may not be fixed until later in the school year.

Ingram, the working mom, said her two youngest children repeatedly get knocked off their internet connections on days when they stay with their grandmother receiving remote instruction, she said. Her older son, who just started high school, stays home where the internet is better on remote days, but hasn’t yet been assigned an English or social studies teacher. “It’s a struggle,” she said.

The order doesn’t apply to the city’s private schools, some of which have been offering in-class instruction to their youngest learners.

City health and school officials said the decision to shut down in-class instruction was made out of caution even though the virus has been absent from most classrooms, and the infection rate from conducting tens of thousands of random tests in city schools has remained below 1%.

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