New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio agreed to delay the start of in-person classes until Sept. 21 as part of his effort to negotiate with the city’s teachers union.
The Democrat announced on Tuesday that in-person classes will begin nearly two weeks later than the original start date of Sept. 10 to allow teachers and schools enough time to prepare for students to return to class safely during the coronavirus pandemic.
The mayor said that teachers in New York City will return to schools on Sept. 8, as scheduled, but remote learning for students will not begin until Sept. 16.
The various labor unions involved in the school district were considering a strike if they were not given more time to prepare for the reopening. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, had demanded that teachers have increased access to testing and more time to get ready for the blended learning teaching model that the city planned to use. Both of Mulgrew’s demands were met.
“Nothing is as powerful as in-person learning so that will begin on Monday, Sept. 21,” de Blasio said during a press conference. “The point that I raised earlier about safety, one of the reasons we’re confident in our ability to keep everyone safe is we now have over 200 testing locations in New York City, many of which are very near our public school buildings. Some of which are literally across the street from a public school building.”
“But we will be augmenting that with mobile testing vans, with testing tents at school sites. We’re going to make testing available every month in every school. And it’s going to be made available in a way that maximizes the ease for everyone in the school community to get tested,” he added.
Mulgrew commended de Blasio for working with the union and said it should be a standard for how other cities work with teachers to “get things done” and keep schools “open, running, and safe.”
