NYC announces reopening of schools

New York City schools are all set to reopen for younger children and children with special needs, weeks after the schools were closed to in-school learning because of the rising COVID-19 pandemic.

The city’s public school system, which shut down physical classes earlier this month, decided to reopen preschool and kindergarten through fifth grade from December 7, especially for children whose parents want a mix of in-school and online learning. 

Students receiving special education in all grades, who have particularly complex needs, can join classes from December 10.

New York City mayor Bill De Blasio announced that school buildings serving younger children and special-needs students would reopen with the coronavirus testing increased from monthly to weekly. It is compulsory to wear masks and maintain social distancing in all city schools. 

“We have facts now for two straight months of extraordinarily low levels of transmission in our schools, our schools are clearly safer,” de Blasio said on radio.

De Blasio has said that middle and high schools will remain all remote at least until after the holiday break.

As many as 190,000 students will be eligible to return to school buildings starting Monday.

De Blasio had earlier announced that public school buildings would close because the city had crossed a threshold set earlier of 3% of all the coronavirus tests performed over a seven-day period coming back positive.