Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks to the press. | Drew Angerer/Getty De Blasio: NYC schools will close as of Monday, may not reopen this year

NEW YORK — New York City schools will shut down Monday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday after a week of mounting pressure from parents, unions and other elected officials to shutter the schools amid the rapid spread of the coronavirus.

“It is time to take more drastic measures,” de Blasio said during an update at City Hall Sunday evening. “This is a decision I have taken with no joy whatsoever."


Both New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and de Blasio have resisted calls to shutter schools for weeks, warning that forcing health care workers to stay home and supervise their children would cause a drag on a hospital system already bracing for an overwhelming influx of patients. That calculation changed Sunday afternoon after the health care workers’ biggest union, 1199 SEIU, changed its position to voice support for closing schools.

Cuomo said Sunday afternoon he wanted the schools in the city — as well as in Westchester and on Long Island — to close, and de Blasio described the immediate steps the city was taking during a City Hall press conference.

“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.”

The city is currently making preparations to provide remote learning and care for the students who may not have supervision during the day throughout the five boroughs. Over the next five days, schools will be open for families who need them to pick up meals for their children.

The city will be transitioning to remote learning for grades kindergarten through 12th grade on March 23 and the mayor said teachers will be trained on how to teach remotely over the next few days.

“We’re gonna have to teach these teachers quickly,” he said. “We need you [teachers], these children need you, these families need you.”

De Blasio did not say what led specifically to his about-face on schools, but said the growing ferocity of the outbreak was a significant factor.

As of Sunday afternoon, five New Yorkers have died from the coronavirus and 329 had been infected, de Blasio said.

De Blasio also announced that the March 24 special election for Queens borough president will be postponed. He said he would sign an executive order to cancel elective surgeries at city hospitals as they brace for a massive influx of patients.

The mayor said he was weighing more aggressive steps such as curfews or shutting down bars and restaurants if people continue to gather socially.

“We’re going to be making day-to-day, hour-to-hour decisions,” he said. “I’m not ruling anything out. We’re going to make each announcement the second it's ready. Every option is on the table.”

He said he would not prevent people from going outside their homes yet, but added "we may say that very, very soon."

For now, dealing with the immediate future of 1 million school children is the biggest challenge facing the city, after managing the outbreak itself.

New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, principals and teachers will be required to come to school for training in remote learning. On Friday, training will take place virtually.

"We will practice social distancing but it's gonna be critical because we are going to be distributing training, giving guidance on what the remote learning will look like over the next four weeks," Carranza said.

He said students will be learning remotely from home or an alternative location but it will “look different in different places.” He noted the DOE website has about 10 days worth of K-12 materials, assignments and activities.

“We’re flying the plane as we’re building the plane," he said. "So the next steps are to translate those materials into a number of languages.”

Carranza said about 300,000 students are in need of digital devices but the city is prepared to provide them with the technology. He also said the DOE would prioritize students in temporary housing, students in poverty and other students who do not have digital access.

Starting on March 23, “regional enrichment centers” will be available for the children of health care workers, first-responders and other affected groups, but the city is still developing those plans.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers which was pressing for closures, said the administration “made the right decision” and that the union would be working with the de Blasio administration in the coming days to ensure there are programs in place to provide children with support.

In an earlier interview with POLITICO Sunday, Mulgrew said the city should have been developing contingencies much sooner.

“Normally [what] would happen would the city would be working with us as a partner,” he said. “So when people try to say that those things will be gone is a little misleading because those are the very things we should have been working on for the past week — on putting that plan in place.”

The mayor said the closures were a last, "horrible" resort, and one he made reluctantly.

"We had to in the last 24 hours get to the point where we were certain … that we needed to take these very radical steps right now," the mayor said. "There is definitely more coming."