With only a few weeks before 1,700 New York City public schools are set to reopen, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday announced that all schools, including charter, private and religious, would be allowed to use outdoor space as part of an effort to diminish transmission of the coronavirus.
"We know outdoors is one of the things that works," de Blasio said, during a press conference.
School principals have until this Friday to submit a plan to the Department of Education if they will to receive an approval by next week. The areas that can be utilized include school yards and other school property. In certain cases, schools may also request permission to close off streets and hold classes in city parks, de Blasio said.
All schools have been promised a response by next week. The mayor said the DOE would focus on 27 neighborhoods that have been hardest-hit by COVID although he did not offer specific details.
The mayor's outdoor plan, which he hinted at last week, comes after weeks of intensifying criticisms that the city has not provided adequate protection or confidence that schools can safely reopen. The debate has become especially pitched around the issue of ventilation amid increasing evidence that the virus is airborne and spreads best indoors. School advocates and elected officials, including Brooklyn Councilmember Brad Lander, have argued for weeks that schools should try to hold classes outdoors as much as possible. Many of the city's public schools are located in aging buildings that have outdated ventilation systems or, in some cases, not enough windows.
Following the mayor's announcement, Councilmember Lander praised city leaders for listening "to our pleas for this common sense plan to increase the footprint of our schools at this urgent moment."
The city has created open-air classrooms during health crises in the past.
An open air school in NYC circa 1900.
But with less than five days to survey outdoor space, critics complained that the plan did not leave schools with much time to prepare. Nor was it clear how they will manage obtaining resources like tents.
After the press conference, the administration said the deadline would be rolling and that schools could still submit outdoor learning applications after Friday.
The head of the principals' union, Mark Cannizzaro, issued a statement criticizing the mayor and DOE for issuing a plan "far too late and haphazardly." He described the guidance as "short-sighted."
"Furthermore, without funding, this plan will exacerbate existing disparities," he said.
Meanwhile, Michael Mulgrew, the head of the teachers' union, released a one-sentence statement in response to the mayor's outdoor learning proposal.
"The mayor's reopening plan continues to fall short, particularly in terms of necessary testing," he said.
Unions for teachers and principals have both called on the mayor to delay the start of school, which is tentatively scheduled for September 10th.
Mark Treyger, a Brooklyn City Councilmember who chairs the education committee, agreed with the principals' union.
"It is clear that the mayor is winging it," Treyger said in a phone interview.
He has recommended a scaled-back reopening plan for city schools.
Asked about funding outdoor learning during the press briefing, de Blasio said, "A lot of what you’d need to do really won’t cost much at all," adding that most of the initiative could be done easily.
Richard Carranza, the city schools chancellor, urged parent teacher associations—whose disparate fundraising practices have long reinforced public school inequities in New York City—to consider donating to less privileged schools.
"We are in the midst of a global pandemic," he said. "If there’s any time for us to come together and help each other, this is the time."
Treyger called the administration's suggestion that PTAs should fundraise to buy the supplies needed to keep students and teachers safe "appalling."
He added: "That is further evidence that they don’t have the money. That is as clear cut of a case as you’ll get."
De Blasio on Monday once again signaled that he was firmly sticking to his hybrid learning plan, which would make New York City the only major school district in the country to hold some in-person classes.
The city's positivity rate for coronavirus testing has been at or below 2.2% for more than two months, marking one of the lowest positivity rates for testing in the country.
Saying that the city had looked at widely hailed school reopening plans in Japan, Germany and Norway, he asserted that New York City has "one of the best standards in the entire world."
The DOE is asking teachers and staff to get tested before the start of school and at least once a month after that. But the testing regimen falls short of a mandate, something which the mayor has said needed to be negotiated with the teachers' union.
Last week, Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest school district in the country, said it would test nearly 700,000 students and 75,000 employees before resuming in-person classes. To carry out the initiative, the district plans to collaborate with the University of California, Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Microsoft and the insurers Anthem Blue Cross and Health Net. The plan has received the backing of the teachers union.
Appearing on WNYC's The Brian Lehrer Show on Friday, de Blasio roundly dismissed LA's school testing effort, calling it "a very vague, if not noble vision."
Treyger argued that the NBA's successful experiment with creating a bubble for their players showed the importance of frequent testing along with fast turnaround, two components that the city currently does not have in place for schools.
Between August 4th and August 11th, only 50% of all citywide tests were coming back within a median of 3 days, according to the city's Department of Health. For more than a month, New Yorkers have complained about testing delays, which have the potential to undermine the validity of the results. Tests received after a week may not accurately reflect the recent health status of individuals.
"In order to defeat the virus, you have to know where it is," Treyger said. "The mayor is again in the clouds on this."
