New York City Schools Close: Governor Cuomo Needs ‘A Different Formula’ To Reopen

New York City publics will be closed starting Thursday following a rising number of positive COVID-19 cases.

On Wednesday, Richard A. Carranza, the schools’ chancellor, sent an email to principals revealing that the public schools around the five boroughs would be closing the following day, The New York Times reports.

“As of this morning, November 18, the City has now reached this threshold of test positivity citywide and, as a result, the DOE will temporarily close down all public school buildings for in-person learning, Thursday, November 19,” Carranza wrote in the email.

Prior to public schools reopening the Department of Education and teachers union came to an agreement that schools would be shut down if there was a 3% infection rate over a seven-day rolling average.

Shortly after Carranza’s announcement, Mayor Bill de Blasio shared a tweet revealing the plan to close public schools less than eight weeks after reopening.

“New York City has reached the 3% testing positivity 7-day average threshold. Unfortunately, this means public school buildings will be closed as of tomorrow, Thursday, Nov. 19, out of an abundance of caution. We must fight back the second wave of COVID-19,” de Blasio tweeted.

During a press conference on Wednesday, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed they will have to come up with a better plan to keep the rates down so schools can reopen and stay open.

“If New York City hits 3%, it makes it an orange zone. If New York City wanted to reopen schools, we’d have to design a different formula for New York City, because, by volume, we couldn’t test every student in New York City,” Cuomo said.

Hours later, Mayor Bill de Blasio gave a press conference where he appeared to echo the governor’s previous statement about creating a better plan that will keep everyone safe.

Although de Blasio is hoping to reopen NYC public schools as soon as possible, he did not share when that will be.

The mayor believes the best chance of reopening the schools is to set higher safety standards for both faculty and students.