New York City teachers threaten mass ‘sickout’ as schools stay open amid coronavirus

A growing revolt by teachers raised the prospect of a mass “sickout” in New York City classrooms on Monday, even as Mayor Bill de Blasio continued to defend his controversial decision to keep schools open.

Entire school districts in more than a dozen states have shut down operations for more than 15 million students until the coronavirus crisis has passed. Just over the Hudson river from New York the city of Hoboken, in New Jersey, has gone so far as to enforce an overnight curfew.

But New York remains an anomaly, prompting a backlash from teachers unions who have attacked the decision as “irresponsible”.

De Blasio, however, remains determined to keep classes in session for the school district’s million students.

“My blunt fear is if the schools shut down they will be done for the year, done for the school year, maybe even for the calendar year,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union.

“So I’m very reticent to shut down schools for a variety of reasons, not just that it’s where a lot of kids get their only good meals, but they get adult supervision, especially teenagers who otherwise would be out on the streets. There’s health and safety ramifications to that.

“Those first responders, those healthcare workers who depend on the schools, they can get to work and we need those workers desperately.”

De Blasio said he believed the crisis could last at least six months, and the situation was escalating daily.

“Because of community spread [coronavirus] is clearly widespread already in New York City and will continue to grow,” he said.

“We had 25 confirmed cases on Monday, we have 269 this morning and that’ll grow today, we’ll clearly have a thousand cases probably not too far into next week. That doesn’t mean people should be overwhelmed. It means people have to be smart about listening to guidance from healthcare professionals.”

The mayor did concede, however, that schools could close quickly if he felt the situation warranted it.

“It is literally a day-to-day reality. If we can keep our schools open we will, if at any point we feel it doesn’t make sense we will make a move,” he said, adding that preparations were in hand to care for the children of essential workers.

“A variety of contingencies are being set up. They are far from perfect, let’s be clear, the distance and difference between a functioning school system program for a million kids versus creating alternative centers feeding kids of healthcare workers, that kind of thing.”

De Blasio’s stance has angered teachers in the nation’s largest school district, who have watched a steady stream of classroom closures in other sizeable districts, including Los Angeles, Boston and entire states including Florida.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents about 150,000 educators in New York city schools, said De Blasio’s failure to fall in line risked students’ health.

“Because of his irresponsible decision to keep the public schools open, Mayor Bill de Blasio can no longer assure the health and safety of our students and school communities,” Mulgrew said in an email to parents.

“We have a small window of time to contain the coronavirus before it penetrates into our communities and overwhelms our healthcare system’s capacity to safely care for all the New Yorkers who may become gravely ill.”

The Movement of Rank and File Educators, a faction of the UFT, has urged its members to call in sick on Monday as a protest.

“Transmission is clearly already happening in the schools and the sooner it stops the fewer people will die,” the group said in a statement.

The faction has sent out several tweets with the hashtag “sickout”, one stating that: “If de Blasio won’t #closenycpublicschools to protect students and their families, teachers will.”

Some parents have taken the decision to keep their children home.

“It would be a hardship if they closed the schools, but I think it’s a necessary one we need to take in the space of this emergency,” said Anna Gold, who pulled her third-grader and kindergartner out of public schools in Brooklyn.

In contrast to New York’s relative freedoms, meanwhile, neighboring Hoboken has imposed a 10pm to 5am curfew on residents to try to keep coronavirus at bay.

Mayor Ravi S Bhalla announced on Saturday night that exceptions would be made for emergencies and people required to work, adding that restaurants can only offer takeout and delivery services.

• Material from the Associated Press was included in this report