New York City announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement on a protocol to reopen schools with the main teachers’ union which threatened to launch a strike, deeming the health measures insufficient so far.
The agreement provides for the postponement of the start of the school year from September 10 to 21, time to better prepare for the recovery, announced Mayor Bill de Blasio at a press conference.
Central point of the new protocol, tests for the coronavirus will be carried out in all schools on teachers, supervisory staff and students.
From 10 to 20% of this population will be tested randomly once a month, the aim being “not to wait for symptoms to appear in a school”, explained, during the press conference, Michael Mulgrew, president of the school. United Federation of Teachers union.
The UFT had made the establishment of tests a necessary condition for an agreement with the city of New York.
The union had criticized the initial plan of the town hall, considered partial and vague, and threatened to vote a strike during its general assembly, scheduled for Tuesday.
The UFT claims to represent most of the 75,000 teachers in New York, the largest academy in the United States.
The other major academies in the country, from Los Angeles to Chicago, via Houston, Miami or Philadelphia, have all chosen entirely distance education for this start of the school year.
New York had already planned to split the numbers into two, or even three groups, to limit the number of students in the buildings and to proceed by rotation.
All students, teachers and supervisory staff must wear masks when present in the premises.
Students are expected to spend the whole day in their classroom, without going out, including eating lunch.
The town hall reserves the right to close all or part of the schools depending on the evolution of three indicators of transmission of COVID-19 in New York, in particular the proportion of positive cases among the individuals tested.
The president of the UFT union blasted the inaction of the Trump administration, which did not participate in the development of protocols to reopen schools, while calling on schools to reopen. “It’s a shame,” he said.
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