NYC Mayor de Blasio tells Al Sharpton that it’s Safe to Open Schools
In an interview with MSNBC’s Reverend Al Sharpton today, Mayor de Blasio was asked if it was safe to reopen schools.
In a nutshell, the Mayor said that when the times comes, in about six weeks, if the health metrics are just as they are today then yes, it would be safe yet with plenty of precautions.
Below is the exchanged between the two which comes courtesy of the Office of the Mayor of the City of New York.
Reverend Sharpton: Let me ask you about school reopening. We’re seeing in parts of the country people are demanding the schools reopened. Others are saying it is not safe. Many of us being cautious on many things we’re doing in various parts of the city and of the country. When do you think it is safe or do you think it’s safe to reopen schools in New York City?
Mayor: Right now, I do think it’s safe Rev. We’re about six weeks away and we’ve had extraordinary success in New York City over the last month or two pushing back this disease really limiting it. People of New York City have been heroic with the amount of just strength and discipline and helping each other and wearing the masks and social distancing. It’s been absolutely outstanding. So, our health indicators tell us, yes, if we were dealing with the same exact reality today as we are on the first day of school, we would be able to open schools, but with lots of precautions. Social distancing of the schools, everyone wearing face coverings, kids, adults, handwashing stations, hand sanitizer everywhere, a host of precautions, and unfortunately, without the ability to have kids in school five days a week, because we just don’t have the space and Rev, any parent who wants to keep their kid remote, they can do that. We would give them that right, 100 percent. But what we found, an amazing fact Rev, we surveyed the parents of New York City public schools, 400,000 of them answered – that tells you how passionate they are, and 75 percent of those that answered wanted to see school come back. So we owe it to them to do everything we can to make it happen. But the final decision as we get close to opening in September will be based on the health conditions. Are we doing as well as we are now, are we may be even doing better? Or if we’re dealing with new challenges, we got to make a decision based on the actual facts. That thing you never see in Washington, and unfortunately, in some other states in the country decisions based on facts and data, that’s what we’re going to do when it comes to making decisions about the New York City public schools.
