The city’s public elementary schools will return to partial in-person learning Dec. 7, Mayor de Blasio announced Sunday — just 10 days after sending students home amid rising coronavirus cases.
Middle- and high-school students will remain all-virtual for now, the mayor said.
Kids in grades K-5 and pre-K programs — whose parents have already signed them up for hybrid learning — will be allowed back to classroom because there “is less concern about the spread” of
COVID-19 among younger children, while the demands of all-virtual learning on their families are greatest, de Blasio said.
Special-ed students will be allowed to return to hybrid learning Dec. 10, he said.
De Blasio shuttered in-school learning Nov. 19 after the city hit a seven-day rolling average 3 percent positive-test rate for the virus.
He came under fire at the time for sticking with that threshold even though tests showed lower coronavirus rates in the city’s schools than in their surrounding communities.
In his sudden about-face Sunday, de Blasio said that while the Big Apple’s latest rolling average is 3.9 percent, the city is still reopening schools because “we have so much proof now of how safe schools can be” amid the contagion.
“This has come from real-life experience in the biggest school system in American, right here in New York City,” the mayor said.
He didn’t elaborate on what data was gathered by the city in the past 10 days that was different from the weeks before that.
In another change, the mayor said that the city is pushing for five days a week of in-student learning where possible, rather than the existing model where students spend part of the time at school and part at home.
“As we open schools in phases, wherever possible, we will, in schools that have the ability, go to five day a week for instruction,” de Blasio said.
“For any school that does have the space and ability to move to five-day-a-week in-person instruction, for those kids, that will now be the preferred model,” de Blasio said.
De Blasio said the total figure of those students eligible to return to school in early December is around 190,000 — although they must have consent forms for testing signed by their parents before they enter buildings.
The mayor said it is unclear when the older students might return to the classroom.
“We look forward to the day we can reopen [the middle and high] schools. But we’re just not able to do that yet,’’ de Blasio said on a phone call with reporters.
He added that 20 percent of students and staffers involved in in-person learning will now be randomly tested weekly instead of the current monthly.
Some parents said Sunday the sudden course reversal was confusing.
“My head is whipping trying to figure out what is what,’’ said Millie Gondor, 42, who has two kids in the system.
“They don’t make it easy,’’ she said of city officials.
Betta Buffallomonte, 37, who has a child in public school, added, “De Blasio is not very decisive. Open them, close them — doesn’t give you much faith in that they know what they’re doing.”
The mayor said the planned increase in student and staff testing would help ensure safety.
Last week, de Blasio acknowledged he closed down the schools without any reopening plan in place.
“The better situation would have been, clearly, to have that plan all worked through in advance,” de Blasio admitted to reporters at the time.
As of now, New York City students can no longer opt in to in-classroom learning through the end of the school year.
De Blasio, asked about possibly offering parents another chance to opt in before then, responded, “When the health situation clearly improves, that is obviously the right time to do another opt-in.
“But a lot has to be worked out before then,” he said.
Gov. Cuomo on Sunday hailed the city’s move to reopen at least some of its schools.
“I think that’s the right direction,” Cuomo told reporters on a separate conference call.
“We do have new facts and new information on schools,” he said.
“It’s literally safer for the child and teacher to be in the school than in the community.”
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers union, was also supportive of the change.
“We are supportive of a phased reopening of schools in other neighborhoods as long as stringent testing is in place,” he said in a statement.
Additional reporting by CJ Sullivan