NEW YORK – New York City high school students will restart in-person classes on March 22, after more than four months at home, city officials said Monday.
Nearly 500 city high school buildings — the last remaining shuttered schools in the city — will welcome back an estimated 55,000 students and 17,000 staff. Before the coronavirus pandemic struck, city high schools had about 326,000 students.
Only a fraction of the city’s parents have chosen to send their kids to school for in-person classes when given the option. And thousands of city school staffers, including about 26% of teachers, are working remotely on medical accommodations for the remainder of the school year.
The move comes four months after the entire system was shuttered in November amid rising COVID-19 rates in the city. Other parts of the school system have gradually reopened with increased COVID-19 testing and city officials cite a cumulative positive test rate of .57% in schools since October as evidence of little disease transmission in schools.
City officials said they will also restart the Public Schools Athletic League in early April, though didn’t give a specific date. School sports have been shut down for nearly a year since the coronavirus began to spread across the city last Spring.
Practice and training will resume in April for school sports and games will start in May and extend throughout the summer to ensure there is time for a full season.
School sports will be open to both students registered for face-to-face classes and those signed up for remote learning.
State officials have permitted all school sports, including higher risk ones like basketball, since the beginning of February but city officials hadn’t yet given a sign-off, prompting mounting calls for a return date from some cooped-up student athletes and frustrated coaches.
City officials say athletes will be required to wear masks and get tested each week for COVID-19. Spectators will not be allowed.
Newly reopened high school buildings will be required to test 20% of kids and staff each week for the virus and to continue with masking and physical distancing requirements.
Staff will return to their buildings on March 18 and 19. Buildings are required to shutter if two or more COVID-19 cases turn up within a week and to stay closed for 10 days if contact tracers can’t determine the origin of the cases. Nearly 300 school buildings were temporarily shuttered Monday.
City officials have encouraged schools to offer five days a week of in-person classes to as many of their students as possible but some schools have continued to bring students to school in shifts because of space and staffing limitations.
Roughly half of the high schools opening later this month will bring the majority of their students into the building five days a week, officials said.
Newly reopened high schools will close again March 29 — a week after they reopen — for a week of spring break.
