Schools are not only critical to student learning, but also to community well-being, as they serve as hubs for neighborhood activities and socialization. Yet the closure of many schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic has left families without access to these vital services, and has disproportionately impacted communities of color. School reopening is therefore an important policy priority.
To reopen schools, districts must put in place policies and procedures that enable safe school operations and ensure that students receive the education to which they are entitled. This includes equitably distributing school funding, implementing public health practices during in-person learning and remote learning, adopting flexibility in measures of student engagement and assessment, and providing equitable access to educational resources and supports for students with special needs.
New York City has been able to reopen schools and keep them open for in-person learning since late September 2020 by investing in multilayered mitigation strategies, including universal masking, COVID-19 testing, and contact tracing. These measures reduce the risk of in-school transmission and allow NYC to identify, isolate, and quarantine individuals who have transmitted the virus to their peers and loved ones. The department’s reopening strategy also integrates support from the NYC Test & Trace Corps, which has worked to quickly detect and confirm cases of student-to-student, staff-to-staff, or student-to-staff transmission and communicate this information to the Department to inform school and building reopening decisions.