A New York elementary school announced it would not open for classes on Monday due to what it claimed were Covid-related staffing shortages, despite not receiving authorization from the Department of Education.
Principal Katie Dello Stritto of PS-58 in Brooklyn sent an email to parents on Sunday night saying the school would remain closed because there weren’t “enough staff to open the building safely,” claiming the school did not receive a “clear response” from the DOE when it asked for guidance. However, the DOE said in a statement that the school did not receive permission to remain closed.
“All of the data shows that the safest place for children is inside a school and we’re working with our school leaders to ensure they are fully prepared to welcome back students and staff safely in-person on Monday,” a DOE spokesperson told a local NBC affiliate on Monday. “We have robust measures in place to immediately address any staffing issues to keep our doors open.”
PS-58 is still scheduled to reopen on Tuesday, according to a local CBS affiliate. Teachers emailed parents a list of demands to reopen including “short-term transition to remote learning when needed” and universal testing to return to school, according to Reason editor Matt Welch.
The news comes after the United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew told members in an email that the union had asked Mayor Eric Adams to postpone a return to in-person learning by one week, amid a rise in coronavirus cases driven by the Omicron variant. A group of teachers within the UFT filed a restraining order last week in an attempt to halt a return to in-person learning.
However, DOE chancellor David Banks insisted that schools were safe environments in a press conference on Monday with Adams.
“All indications are that we’re in a pretty good place right now,” Banks told reporters regarding reports of staffing problems at schools.
“We’re really excited about the opening of our schools. We want to be extremely clear: the safest place for our children is a school building,” Adams said at the same press conference. “The remote learning aspect of it was terrible for poorer communities.”
Schools struggled to reopen for in-person learning in the first half of 2021 after months of remote learning conducted amid the coronavirus pandemic, in part because of opposition by teachers unions.