These 169 NYC School Sites Closed Today For At Least 2 Weeks

By Christina Veiga, Alex Zimmerman, and Sam Park, Chalkbeat New York

An additional 33 New York City public schools are affected by closures starting Thursday, due to coronavirus upticks in the surrounding neighborhoods, the education department announced Wednesday night.

In total, 124 city-run schools are impacted, following a previous wave of shutdowns that started this week. The campuses will remain closed for at least two weeks.

Schools that were shuttered on Tuesday will remain closed, according to the education department, despite conflicting directives from the state.

Students at the affected schools will transition to learning fully online.

The campuses span more than 20 ZIP codes and include much of Brooklyn and parts of Queens. As some schools are spread across multiple sites, including many pre-K programs and those for students with disabilities, a total of 169 city-run sites are closed. Some schools might have one site that may open and another that must be shuttered.

Another 308 public school sites will be required to conduct weekly testing of students and staff because they are in areas bordering the coronavirus hot spots.

News of the latest shutdowns came after Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a tangle of last-minute restrictions prompted by a rise in coronavirus cases. On Monday, the governor approved school closures across entire ZIP codes, only to release another set of maps, outlining restrictions and school closures in areas experiencing increases in coronavirus infections. But the state maps did not neatly match the city’s.

Sixteen schools that are part of the city’s list of closures were not in the state’s restricted areas. Still, those schools will remain closed.

The closures come as a blow to students, educators, and families who began returning to classrooms just two weeks ago, when New York City, home to the country’s largest school system, became the first major district to reopen classrooms for in-person learning. To account for social distancing, students attend classes about one to three times a week and learn from home the rest of the time.

On Tuesday, about 200 private schools and 100 city-contracted child care and pre-K programs were ordered to close. The education department did not say how many more such schools and programs are required to shut down as of Thursday.

Below is a list of the schools that will be closed for at least two weeks.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.