NYC Schools Step Toward Opening With Preschool Invitations

(Bloomberg) -- New York City took its first tentative step toward opening schools in September, sending out about 62,000 offers to parents of 4-year-olds for its all-day pre-kindergarten program, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Opening the schools would represent a big step for the city’s effort to recover from the devastating impact the coronavirus has had upon the city. It remains uncertain whether the schools would reopen with a full five-day in-school program, he said. The pre-kindergarten program, created to serve about 70,000 students, still has seats available, the mayor said. Decisions on whether schools will reopen in September, and in what form, won’t be made until June or July at the earliest, de Blasio said.

“We are four months away from schools reopening, that’s a long time,” de Blasio said during a Wednesday news briefing. “We have to see how successful we can be at beating back this disease.”

The largest U.S. school system, with 1.1 million students, has run all-day universal pre-kindergarten for about six years. It’s a signature program of de Blasio’s administration. School officials are planning new cleaning regimens and other practical steps toward reopening, de Blasio said.

In March, the mayor resisted closing the schools until after unions representing teachers and health care workers insisted that he do so. The ultimate decision to reopen them, and in what form, will be “based on the facts,” de Blasio said.

“Our Plan A is to open schools as normal, and develop Plans B, C, D and E if we can’t open schools fully,” the mayor said.

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