April 11, 2020 By Michael Dorgan
All public schools will remain closed for the remainder of the current academic school year and will reopen again in September, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced this morning.
The mayor said it was the right decision to keep them closed since it would help stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives. He said that if the schools were to reopen prematurely there would be a risk that they would have to be shut down again.
“It would create so much disruption and confusion,” De Blasio said at a press briefing. “The risk did not outweigh the reward.”
De Blasio shut schools down on March 16 in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 and students began online learning the following week.
All students, he said, will continue with online learning and the city will increase its staffing levels and support hours to help parents with online teaching.
New online teaching programs will be rolled out and the mayor stated that it was a primary objective for senior students to graduate on time this year.
“We do not want to see these seniors robbed of their future, robbed of that joyous moment when they graduate high school,” the mayor said.