Mayor Bill de Blasio said he plans to reopen middle schools on February 25th, after three months of sixth through eighth grade students learning remotely due to a citywide increase in positive COVID-19 tests.
Officials are asking teachers to come back the day before, and are promising middle school educators priority for COVID-19 vaccines over the mid-winter break from February 15th through 19th.
As part of the reopening plan, officials said the education department will be increasing staffing both for the weekly testing at school sites and in the ‘Situation Room’ charged with tracking and responding to potential cases. Some 62,000 students in sixth through eighth grade have opted to come to school in-person, officials said.
During the mayor's Tuesday press briefing, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said he expects half of the city's 471 middle schools to be able to teach students in-person five days a week.
The return of students to middle schools will be the latest in the school system’s turbulent year of anxious openings and abrupt closures during an ongoing pandemic that has seen over 14,000 confirmed COVID cases among students and staff, between September 2020 and February 7th, 2021.
Middle schools closed to in-person learning along with the rest of the school system on November 19th, when the citywide seven-day average test positivity rate reached 3%. De Blasio said he was following through with a promise he made to educators and families over the summer.
The mayor then reopened early childhood, elementary, and District 75 schools in December, with increased mandatory weekly testing, even as the citywide positivity rate rose steeply, above 5%. Of those that have reopened, many have had to close temporarily due to positive cases. A city website said 177 early education sites, elementary schools or District 75 schools are currently closed for 24 hours or more, as are 585 classrooms.
Research indicates that the rate of COVID-19 cases and transmission appears to increase as children get older; National Geographic reported in December that a “critical shift appears somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12.”
The seven-day positive testing rate for NYC is currently 8.36%. The DOE’s system-wide positive testing rate in public schools has consistently been much lower, and was at 0.54% as of February 5th.
De Blasio said in January that he hoped to announce a middle school reopening plan this month, but there needed to be more robust vaccination and testing capacity first. He said from there he hoped to “work our way up” to high schools.
"I'm excited for in-person learning, but I'm very worried that given the current positivity rates we're in for a rollercoaster of openings and closings," said Michael Perlberg, principal at MS 839 in Brooklyn. "Our building is already closed for 10 days currently and the middle schoolers aren't even back yet." He said the closure is the result of two unrelated cases at an elementary school that shares the building.
Some parents have lobbied fiercely to reopen the school system for in-person learning, citing the relatively low number of cases detected in schools. Other parents and many teachers remain wary, particularly as new variants take hold in the city. The majority of families have chosen to keep children home for virtual learning only this year.
The United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said, "The city has announced that it has created enough testing teams and acquired the necessary lab capacity to reopen middle school grades and buildings. The UFT will be monitoring to ensure that the testing regimen, the presence of personal protective equipment and social distancing requirements are strictly adhered to as new grades and buildings reopen."
He added, "These strict standards, and the requirement that buildings close temporarily when virus cases are detected, have made our schools the safest places to be in our communities during the pandemic. They will continue to be the strongest protections for the health and safety of students and staff."
