Brooklyn Principals 'Gravely Concerned' About School Reopening

BROOKLYN, NY — More than 30 principals in Brooklyn are among the growing number of school staff who are warning the city against reopening schools in September.

A letter sent this week signed by 34 principals from District 15 — which stretches from Carroll Gardens to Sunset Park — contends that New York City's school system is nowhere near where it needs to be to resume in-person learning amid the coronavirus crisis.

"It is becoming abundantly clear that our schools cannot open safely and effectively on September 10th," reads the letter, which is addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.

The Brooklyn letter was sent the same day as a similar warning from a nurse's union and just a day before another letter from a union representing 6,400 school leaders.

All three urge the city to postpone reopening schools until questions are answered about how students and staff will be kept safe from the coronavirus.

"We are gravely concerned the the central response to opening has been piecemeal and many of the most important questions about health and safety, space usage, academic policy, Special Education police and policy for Multilingual Leraners still remains unanswered," the Brooklyn principals wrote. "We can’t plan properly if we don’t have these answers now."

Mayor Bill de Blasio and The Department of Education first announced that they were planning on reopening schools in July and have unveiled some details about scheduling and cleaning plans since.

But, many of the specifics were delayed until schools heard from parents how many kids would be returning for in-person classes. The Chancellor's office met with principals for the first time on Aug. 6 and gave them four working days to complete their individual school plans, according to the principals' union.

Teachers also return to classrooms on Sept. 8, giving them "frighteningly little time for the preparation and training necessary" to welcome students back into an unprecedented post-coronavirus school situation on Sept. 10, according to the letter.

In the Brooklyn letter, principals remind officials about the bleak picture of schools during the beginnings of the coronavirus crisis.

"Many of us lived through outbreaks in our school communities last March and saw overloaded isolation rooms, nurses without face shields and PPE and no central response for providing these for us...We have windowless classrooms and ventilation systems that have not been updated in decades," they wrote.

"The level of distrust of our city since the botched decision on school closures in March has not been healed or even addressed. Many of our staff lost loved ones and watched their families become incredibly sick. The DOE lost at least 79 employees, many of whom contracted the virus in school."

The Brooklyn principals propose starting the year with all-remote learning until at least Sept. 18, with phased-in blended learning starting in late September and early October.

They also listed demands for a safe reopening, including definitive delivery dates for PPE, meetings with custodians, ventilation inspections and responses to backlogged requests for supplies.

"We desperately want to return to schools, we know that kids and parents need schools open and rely on us for critical services, but we cannot let that cloud our judgement and push for a hastily planned unsafe return that delivers a mediocre educational experience," they said.