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Cuomo Closes Dozens More Schools In New COVID Hotspot Zones
By
Sophia Chang
Published Oct 8, 2020
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Governor Andrew Cuomo/Flickr
By
Sophia Chang
Published Oct 8, 2020
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About 130 schools at 170 locations (some schools have multiple campuses, and some buildings hold multiple schools) in Brooklyn and Queens were closed and students switched to remote learning per the state's new restrictions Thursday, according to the city Department of Education.
The DOE released the names of the closed schools Wednesday evening, a day after Governor Andrew Cuomo upended the city’s plans to close schools in nine ZIP codes with spiking rates of COVID-19, replacing it with his own three-zone plan that added more confusion for parents and educators.
Cuomo’s plan has a wider scope than Mayor Bill de Blasio’s initial closure of about 300 private and public schools and about 100 childcare centers in nine ZIP codes with increasing COVID-19 rates. The additional school closures announced by the DOE will affect another 61 public school sites.
The DOE did not release the names of the additional private schools or childcare centers that were affected by Cuomo’s plan. These schools will all remain closed with students in remote learning for at least 14 days -- the earliest possible reopening date would be October 21st, if cases and positivity rates decline.
No specific positivity rate has been set for when a red zone can become an orange or yellow zone, with schools reopening again.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Cuomo said, "These rules will be in effect for 14 days, and then we’ll see where we are and we’ll see the numbers and we’ll adjust from there." (This summer, Cuomo had said his threshold for reopening schools was 5 percent positivity rate.)
The closed schools are in Cuomo’s red and orange zones, which are concentrated in the south Brooklyn neighborhoods, Forest Hills and Far Rockaway. The plan also includes yellow zones around the red and orange zones, where another 308 public school sites will stay open but must have mandatory weekly testing of students and staff.
The DOE has not released information about how the mandatory weekly testing will be implemented, though spokesperson Miranda Barbot said in an email release the state will provide additional details about this requirement by Friday, and expects the weekly testing to begin next Friday.
One area of confusion was that de Blasio closed 16 school sites Tuesday that apparently fall into Cuomo’s yellow zone and would not have needed to close under the new state restrictions. Regardless, those schools will stay closed, the DOE said.
The DOE is also launching its own monthly, random testing protocol at each school Friday, where 10-20 percent of the student body will be selected for on-site testing. The abruptly-closed schools will not be part of the monthly testing for the time being.
Here's a list of the schools affected by the new state restrictions:
Schools in NYC Zones, Octob... by Jen Chung
Sophia Chang
Sophia Chang is a former WNYC and Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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