Mayor de Blasio: NYC schools will reopen at 100% capacity with no remote option in September

The mayor’s press secretary Bill Neidhardt also posted the news on Twitter, saying in part “We’re back!”

News 12 Staff

May 24, 2021, 11:59 AM

Updated 1,229 days ago

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Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday New York City schools will be back at 100% capacity on Sept. 13, and said there will be no remote option.
De Blasio said there will still be health and safety measures in place at city schools with social distancing and masks required in the buildings, as per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Anybody with COVID-19 symptoms will be told to stay home.
Students and teachers will also have to fill out daily health screenings, and school buildings need to have a nurse, working ventilation system and on-site COVID testing.
The Department of Education is also planning on hosting open houses in June to show parents what the buildings will be like.
"We reopened our schools and we proved they could be safe, we're going to do that again, we're going to support kids, we're going to support the whole family, we're going to show that we're going to do new things for each kid academically and to address their emotional issues, but it only works if everyone is back in person, the way education was meant to be," de Blasio said.
"This will be the return to our new normal: To learning, to friends and everything else the school community has to offer our children," said New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter.
The United Federation of Teachers released a statement that reads in part that while there's no substitute for in-person learning, they still, "Have concerns about the safety of a small number of students with extreme medical challenges. For that small group of students, a remote option may still be necessary."
Only about a third of New York City students returned to buildings following the last round of students being able to opt into in-person learning in April.
While the mayor has previously said classes will go remote on snow days, it is unclear if students will keep their devices given by the Department of Education and if they will still have access to them.