Students probably won’t return to classrooms this school year at all because of the coronavirus outbreak, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday.
“Right now, even though April 20 is our goal to reopen, I can’t see it,” de Blasio said on PIX11 Morning News Monday.
“We’re going to make that judgment as we get closer but at the trajectory we’re on now, I can’t see it.
“I do unfortunately believe the likelihood we’re at right now is that we lose the whole school year which is really really, deeply unfortunate,” he said.
De Blasio finally closed the city’s public schools on March 15, after a growing chorus of parents and teachers called for the measure.
Remote learning for the system’s 1.1 million students starts Monday, but education officials are still scrambling to get laptops and internet connections to hundreds of thousands of kids who don’t have the technology.
“It will not be as good as kids being in a school building, not even close,” de Blasio admitted on 1010 WINS Monday morning.
He said he’s working to help seniors get their diplomas.
“We’re particularly going to focus on our high school seniors to make sure if they can graduate on time we want to really help them do that,” de Blasio said.
