NEW YORK — As New York City schools came back into session Monday after more than a week of winter break, many started the day with a basic math problem: how to keep classes running with scores of staffers out sick because of surging COVID-19 cases.
The principal of one Brooklyn elementary school unilaterally shut her building down Sunday night because of staff shortages while administrators across the city reshuffled schedules and combined classes to manage the coverage gaps.
“We are concerned today about staffing,” said United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew at a press conference Monday morning outside P.S. 347 in Manhattan, where roughly 30% of teachers were absent.
“We’ve seen throughout the metropolitan area for the last week there’s been high absenteeism in all industries,” Mulgrew added.
Newly-sworn-in Mayor Eric Adams and education Chancellor David Banks, meanwhile, emphasized that the staffing situation is under control and that they remain committed to keeping schools open for in-person learning.
“The safest place for our children is in a school, and we are going to keep our schools open,” Adams said outside Concourse Village Elementary School during his first school visit as mayor.
Banks said the Education Department is launching a new “Command Center” to handle principals’ staffing concerns and manage the deployment of substitutes to schools with the greatest needs.
“Principals and district leadership can immediately address and escalate any issues they need help with, including ensuring that our buildings have the staff that they need to safely operate. This escalation protocol will support our school leaders across the city and help to keep our doors open,” Banks said.
At P.S. 58 in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, principal Katie Dello Stritto notified families Sunday night that she was closing the building because too many staffers were out with COVID cases or staying home with infected family members, according to a copy of the email obtained by the Daily News. She added that “the remainder of our staff is not reporting to the school building” Monday, but didn’t explain why.
Dello Stritto wrote in the email that she’d asked the Education Department for permission to call an “operational closure” but never heard back, so she decided to act unilaterally.
P.S. 58 was the only school Mulgrew knew of that was closed due to staffing shortages.
Adams said of the P.S. 58 closure: “when you’re dealing with over a million school children, and you’re dealing with such a large number of plans ... you have things that will slip through the cracks and we’re gonna find out what happened there.”
But even for schools that were not forced to close, staffing shortages were causing logistical headaches.
At P.S. 347 in Manhattan, roughly 30% of classroom teachers were out, according to dean of students John Marro, forcing the school to switch lunch from the cafeteria to individual classrooms and ask teachers to fill in for missing colleagues.
“It affects us a lot,” Marro said. “Teachers are going to be working a little harder, no question about that.”
One dad dropping his 3-year-old daughter off at P.S. 347′s preschool program, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his family’s privacy, said he appreciated the huge logistical challenges the school is confronting — but also felt deeply grateful the school was open for in-person class.
“[I’m] so relieved,” he said after dropping off his daughter. “Not because it relieves me but because there is a notable difference between…when she is in school and when she is out of school. She’s a different kid.”
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