City parents won’t know if schools will reopen in September until right before the start of the academic year, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday.
While he previously vowed to throw open the doors on schedule, de Blasio was more circumspect during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Hizzoner said the city’s current coronavirus trends should allow for a partial revival of the nation’s largest school system, but cautioned that circumstances could shift given the nature of the pandemic.
“We’re going to make that judgment when we get right up on the beginning of school in September,” he said. “It’s got to be about safety first. So from my point of view, you do everything possible to make the school environment safe, social distancing in the schools, face coverings, constant cleanings and a lot of kids will stay home.”
De Blasio also indicated that full-time classes won’t resume until the development of a coronavirus vaccine.
“The day we get to the vaccine is the day we’ll really go to full, five-days-a-week normal instruction in our schools,” he said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has previously stated that his office will assess the state of the coronavirus crisis in the first week of August before deciding the fate of schools.
De Blasio announced earlier this month that the system would reopen with kids alternating between campus and distance learning to enable social distancing.
The Department of Education said a poll revealed that 75 percent of city parents wanted school buildings to open on schedule in one form or another.
“The first thing we did is we asked the parents what they wanted and we did a survey and got 400,000 responses, he said. “That tells you something about how passionate people are on this topic.”