NYC School Reopening Delayed to Sept. 21 With Union Deal
NYC Mayor aid he reached agreement with the teachers’ unions that will delay the reopening of in-class learning until Sept. 21.
(Bloomberg) -- New York City avoided a potential teachers’ strike as Mayor Bill de Blasio and labor unions reached an agreement to delay the start of school to Sept. 21 and to make the district safer during the coronavirus pandemic.
The city originally planned to reopen on Sept. 10, but the academic year will start remotely for all students Sept. 16, and schools will open to students who opted for in-class instruction the following week. The additional days will give teachers and administrative staff more time to make buildings safe during the coronavirus outbreak. New York is the only major school system in the U.S. that plans in-person teaching in September.
“There is nothing more precious than taking care of the children of New York City,” de Blasio told reporters Tuesday. “It’s a very complex moment in history, to say the least,” he added. “Real powerful issues had to be discussed, and resolution had to be found.”
With 1.1 million students, New York City is the nation’s largest school system. The district’s purchases and employee personal spending supports 69,000 indirect jobs in the region, creating $4.9 billion of spillover income to the area, according to the Association of School Business Officials New York.
Teachers will report as scheduled on Sept. 8.
The United Federation of Teachers had called for the city to delay reopening until all schools met safety standards, including adequate personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies, improved ventilation and a program of virus testing of adults and students. Labor leaders had said they would consider striking if the measures were not in place.
Officials agreed that every day each school will have a 30-day supply of personal protective equipment, including masks and disinfectant. Once in-person schooling begins, each school will undergo monthly virus testing, with 10% to 20% of everyone in the building randomly selected.
Families should also take advantage of the more than 200 testing locations in the city, the mayor said.
“What we’ve agreed to is to make sure that the health measures are in place, to make sure there is time for the appropriate preparation for our educators, to make sure that we can have the smoothest beginning of the school year even under extraordinarily challenging conditions,” de Blasio said.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, said the agreement should be a national example of “how to get things done.”
“We now can say that New York City’s public school system has the most aggressive policies and greatest safeguards of any school system in the U.S.,” Mulgrew said during the mayor’s press conference.
Richard Carranza, the schools’ education commissioner, thanked the union for “never walking away from the tough, tough issues.”
The agreement will help keep New York City’s school system “open, running and safe,” Mulgrew said.
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