In an important reversal announced this weekend, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he plans to partially reopen the city’s public elementary schools starting next week.
De Blasio should never have agreed to reclose the city’s schools in the first place, but at least he is taking steps to right this wrong. In-person learning for pre-K and elementary school children will begin once again next week, with special education students set to return to the classroom shortly thereafter. Middle and high schools will remain closed for now, but hopefully not for long because de Blasio has also heeded the advice of his city’s public health officials and discarded the 3% infection threshold that teachers unions had demanded.
“Whatever happens ahead, we want this to be the plan going forward because we now believe we know what we didn’t know back in the summer,” de Blasio said during a press conference on Sunday. “We know if you put a heavy emphasis on testing and you continually reinforce those health and safety measures … we know we can keep our schools safe.”
He’s right. Studies show that schools are not the coronavirus superspreader sites many feared they would be. In fact, New York City’s public schools had extremely low positivity rates throughout the first eight weeks they were open. The New York Times found that out of the 16,438 staff members and students randomly tested in the first week of schools reopening, there were only 28 positive cases. Eight of those positive cases were students.
Given this data, there was no reason for New York City’s schools to close again — especially when the consequences for doing so are so severe. The academic decline caused by remote learning will haunt students for years, as will the effects of social isolation. Yet, thousands of school districts across the country have not even attempted to reopen their doors.
New York City now has the opportunity to set the example and prove that children can learn in-person during a pandemic without serious risk to themselves and others. But de Blasio must remain committed to keeping his city’s schools open — even if case rates spike once again and even if the teachers unions demand otherwise. Hopefully, the rest of the country will follow suit.
