NYC Mayor de Blasio Announces School Closure For Year - Gov. Cuomo Says Not Mayor's Authority At This Time - Wants Multi-State Agreement

During a press briefing early on Saturday morning, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that he had decided to keep schools closed through the year. The New York Post reported on the announcement, saying that the mayor characterized the decision as “‘painful’ but said keeping the schools closed is the way to keep the coronavirus from spreading.”

When asked about this decision hours later during New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefing on 4/11/2020, the governor answered that no decision on school closures had been made, and that at this time, the final decision resided with the governor. Watch the briefing here on Twitter, and the response is at minute 28.

Reporter Jesse (we didn’t catch a last name) asked: “Are you saying it’s your legal authority to close New York City schools, not Bill de Blasio’s?”

Gov. Cuomo answered: “It is my legal authority in this situation, yes. That's why when we closed them, we closed them statewide. We closed at the same time the island, then the suburbs, and we coordinated all upstate.”

Important to Gov. Cuomo is connecting businesses opening with school opening. During today’s briefing, Gov. Cuomo said: “I think you have to coordinate the business with the schools. Schools do education. Schools also do daycare, effectively, for a large percentage of the New York City population. How can you say to people: I think you can go back to work in May, but schools are going to continue to be closed, so figure out what to do with your children during the day, but you're going to have to go to work.”

With regard to officials in New York City and the White House saying they want businesses to open in May, Gov. Cuomo’s response was in part: “I accept it. I hear it. I'm not prepared to act on it. I have talked to all the County Executives. Some people believe the businesses will open in May. [Cuomo added that it was the mayor of NYC who thinks this.] Some people think we open in two weeks. Some people until June. I hear it all. We'll discuss it; we'll coordinate it.”

The governor has given no indication that businesses will open in May, and in fact, chastised Broadway’s announcement that it would open in June. During a press briefing this week, Gov. Cuomo responded to a question from a reporter about Broadway: “I wouldn’t use what Broadway thinks as a barometer of anything.”

Whose Authority Is It, Anyway?

Reporters were quick to focus on the whose-authority-is-it angle, with several followup questions and subsequent articles, but the fact remains, New York schools are closed until Wednesday, April 29, at least.

Gov. Cuomo presented his regional school closure strategy: “At the end of the day, the decision must be at minimum for the metropolitan area, hopefully statewide, ideally regional, with Connecticut and New Jersey. That's my goal. Coordinate school and business.”

Melissa DeRosa, the secretary to Gov. Cuomo, explained to Reporter Jesse how statewide school closures work in the executive order: “When we did the executive order with the 180-day waiver,” she explained, “school districts need a waiver if they are going to have less than 180 days of school. We said we are setting them all at the same time. Everyone is on the same schedule. NY PAUSE is extended through April 29. Everyone is on the exact same schedule, and when we extend that, that’s when we extend the 180-day waiver.”

Other States Have Closed Schools For The Year

New York would not be the first to close schools for the year, if this were to happen. California announced a school closure for the year on April 1. Kansas, in fact, was the first state to announce in-person school closures for the year back near March 18. Washington state announced school closures for the year on April 6. So far, Ohio has not announced a school closure for the year, and has extended it to May so far.

The governor went on to explain his rationale, that he is connecting school closure or opening with when businesses open, about which no decision has been made, now that we are in the apex that has plateaued, depending upon human behavior of maintaining social distancing.

If you want to make a prediction, like if a predicted snowfall is going to result in a snow day, you could follow A Little Beacon Blog’s snow day methodology, which includes keeping an eye on Ohio for weather patterns. Will COVID school closures follow?

Gov. Cuomo Extends NYS PAUSE To April 15; Schools Stay Closed Until April 15. Beacon's Superintendent Responds.

Photo Credit: Screenshot from the New York Times.

UPDATE 3/30/2020: The president issued a directive to extend social distancing to April 30.

Last week, Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended New York State’s PAUSE status to April 15, 2020. During his morning briefing, he stated that he is evaluating in two-week increments. This means many things, including that, “All non-essential gatherings of individuals of any size for any reason are temporarily banned,” according to the state website.

Family Dinners (Outside Your “Sphere Lock”)

On Sunday, Gov. Cuomo emphasized that this includes dinners and gatherings related to the upcoming religious holidays, like Easter and Passover. The Governor took Sunday’s briefing, 3/29/2020, to tell people how he does his normally large Italian Sunday Dinners at 2 pm - with “Mom on Skype,” he noted.

In this blogger’s house, we take the PAUSE to mean we go on “Sphere Lock,” a term we made up in our house. It means you only are within six feet of people in your house. If your family member lives in a different house, and you aren’t on the same social distance patterns, seeing the exact same isolated people, then it’s best to not get together for a big dinner or driveway house party, or to be close with people who don’t share your Sphere Lock rotation. We can be together, but we bring walkie talkies or phones in case our six-foot distancing becomes too far to hear each other.

The reminder of Sphere Lock is illustrated by this tragic story of the family who lost family members after a big dinner, reported on 3/20/2020 by CNN: “Coronavirus kills 4 family members and sickens others after a dinner in New Jersey.” Just because you are close friends or are in the same family, doesn’t mean the coronavirus will recognize that as immunity.

New York State Schools Extended Closure Until April 15, 2020

While New York City schools are closed until Monday, April 20, the rest of the state does not have that mandate. However, Mayor Bill de Blasio thinks that even April 20 is too early. As reported in Politico: “Our first attempt to reopen public schools will be Monday, April 20,” de Blasio said. “We may not have the opportunity to reopen them in this full school year.”

Reported last week by The New York Times was the “first known death” of a New York City public school staff member: Dez-Ann Romain. She was the principal of the Brooklyn Democracy Academy, and was 36. According to the article: “‘She was one of the most innovative school leaders I’ve ever worked with — her students just adored her,’ said Courtney Winkfield, a New York City schools official who mentored Ms. Romain.”

Beacon Superintendent Matthew Landahl also anticipates a later school reopening, and issued that expectation in a letter to parents issued March 18, 2020. In the letter, he gave two scenarios. The second scenario is the one he is leaning toward:

“Scenario 2- The Governor issues another executive order closing schools in New York State for an additional period of time farther into April. Based on the current state in New York and our country, this seems like the more likely scenario. We need to be prepared for a longer school closing than April 1. This is just my opinion.”

The Technical Usage Of PAUSE Pandemic Days

According to the superintendent’s letter: “The Governor ordered schools to use their remaining snow days, snow makeup days, and spring break during this closing. We have 4 unused snow days and 6 makeup days which includes 4 days of spring break,” he said. Beacon’s Spring Break would have begun on April 6, 2020.

Distance Learning To Be Developed By Beacon City School Teachers

This is the daunting, yet exciting part. A distance learning program does not yet exist. Parents are grappling with the feeling of needing to educate our kids, yet knowing that there is no curriculum at home to do this, while the teachers desperately miss our kids, and both teachers and parents are trying to figure this out. Coupled with the fact that parents are working the hardest they ever have at jobs they may still need to do, and doing this with all family members in the house at once. It’s the blind leading the blind, but right now, it is all OK. We’re in this together.

Dr. Landahl told parents in his letter that the teachers will begin to hunker down to develop a plan. Most likely this will be done with parent input, because the teachers don’t know yet what the assignments look like on the other side. For instance, one of our teachers was trying to connect with students to get signed up for a class. I didn’t even know what getting signed up for a class meant. I asked if she could call me, and she happily did. We fumbled our way through, came up with some ideas, and carried on.

In the letter, Dr. Landahl said that he is working with teachers to find “a common understanding of distance learning, develop professional development, and develop a plan.” Throughout this process, Dr. Landahl has quickly navigated to changes that happen at the state level day by day, such as the Meal Plan that is currently being distributed to all kids in Beacon.

As for the future of distance learning, he said: “We have about 100 more questions we need to answer about how we will pull this off, but we are committed as a district to making this happen. I will provide updates on this work on a regular basis throughout this time. A huge thanks to our teachers for dealing with all of the curveballs the last few days.”

Personally, I am excited to be part of the experiment in developing this new distance learning plan, which can hopefully be used by parents when they have kids who are the least bit sick, or when one kid is sick in a multikid house, and you don’t want to send the rest of your kids to school knowing that they might be carriers.

All year this year, my kids’ noses have been dripping with mucus. We had been nebulizing day and night. Now that we are on PAUSE, and are in our Sphere Lock, those noses are clean. We aren’t using as many tissues as I bought (so far). It’s good to look at upsides, wherever they can be found.