5-Day In-Person Classes Now At 250 NYC Schools, De Blasio Says

NEW YORK CITY — Youngsters slated for in-person learning are now sitting in classrooms five days a week in 250 schools citywide, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

De Blasio’s update Monday follows the reopening of schools last week for 3-K, pre-K and kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

He said 878 schools reopened last week.

“We're also going to systematically move those schools to five-day-a-week education for as many kids as possible in as many schools as possible,” he said. “Each school will be different but we're going to keep you updated each week on how that progress is going. We're one week into it and this week we'll have about 250 schools where kids will be going five days a week; either all kids, or most kids, or, at minimum, the priority kids we've talked about — kids who live in shelters, kids who live in public housing, kids with special needs.”

Public schools closed in mid-November after the city’s coronavirus positivity rate ticked over 3 percent.

From there, de Blasio and education officials retooled the standards for reopening schools with an aim to avoid another disruptive shutdown.

They also hoped more-definite attendance information with the reopening and lower-than-expected numbers of students opting for classroom learning would allow more schools offer five-day-a-week classes.

De Blasio said the goal is have the maximum number of those 878 reopened schools with classes five days a week for most or all students.

Those numbers will improve in the days leading into the holiday break next week, he said.

“The thing to envision is when we come back on Jan. 4 you’re going to a big jump up of the number of schools that are doing five-day-a-week education,” he said. “And we’ll keep going from there.”

This article originally appeared on the New York City Patch