NYC mayor: Public schools will be all in person this fall
In this Monday, April 12, 2021 file photo, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio delivers remarks in Times Square after he toured the grand opening of a Broadway COVID-19 vaccination site intended to jump-start the city's entertainment industry, in New York. Blasio expects the city to “fully reopen” by July 1, with the lifting of the city’s COVID-19 restrictions. He told MSNBC the city will be ready for stores, offices and theaters to open at full strength. He cited improved COVID-19 vaccination rates and decreasing hospitalization rates.[AP Photo/Richard Drew]
New York City schools will be all in person this fall with no remote options, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Monday.
"We can’t have a full recovery without full-strength schools, everyone back, sitting in those classrooms, kids learning again," de Blasio said on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe."
The roughly 1 million students who attend traditional public schools will be in their classrooms with some version of the coronavirus protocols that have been in place in the current academic year, including mask wearing and COVID-19 testing, de Blasio said.
"It’s time. It’s really time to go full strength now," he said.
After closing schools in March 2020, New York City was one of the first large U.S. cities to reopen school buildings in the fall of that year, but the majority of parents chose online-only learning for their children.