Some public high school students in New York City will be allowed to return to classrooms starting on March 22, Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced.
The New York Times reports that the decision to bring back high school students — a vast majority of them low-income, Black and Latino — will be viewed as an important precedent. The city’s public school system is by far the largest in the nation.
About half of the city’s 488 high schools will offer full-time instruction for most or all of their in-person students, while the other half will offer hybrid instruction. The city will also restart high school sports for all students starting next month.
Even with the return of as many as 55,000 high school students who signed up for in-person classes last fall and have not been in classrooms since November, only about a third of all city students will be receiving any in-person instruction. The remaining 700,000 or so students in the city system have chosen to receive instruction remotely, in large part because of lingering concerns about the health risks of the coronavirus.
Only students who signed up for in-person classes last fall can report to classrooms. De Blasio says the city is not yet ready to offer another opportunity to opt into classroom learning, because of concerns about new virus variants and the logistical challenges inherent in redoing school schedules to accommodate more students.
De Blasio says parents and educators should expect a full return to school come fall.
Middle and high school students were able to attend in-person classes for only about six weeks last fall before rising virus rates forced the system to shut down again in November.
