NYS schools to remain closed
City and State New York 2 p.m. Update
Friday, May 1, 2020
Schools will remain closed for the rest of this academic year
Weeks after pushing back against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement that city schools would remain closed for the remainder of the academic year – asserting that that decision was his to make – Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that the state would, in fact, keep schools closed for the rest of the academic year. The order applies to K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities.
Explaining the decision, Cuomo cited the difficulty with enforcing social distancing in schools and said state officials didn’t think it was possible to reopen schools this year while also keeping students and staff safe. Remote instruction will continue as it has since schools originally closed in mid-March.
With only two months of the school year remaining, Cuomo’s announcement is hardly surprising. But questions remain about whether summer school – or even the start of the next school year – will have students return to classrooms at all.
While New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has said that there’s only a “50-50” shot that school buildings would open in September, Cuomo declined to provide specifics on a fall reopening on Friday. “There is no decision on the fall because the fall is a long time away,” he said. Cuomo added, however, that he is instructing school districts to start developing reopening plans that incorporate social distancing and other public health measures, such as wearing face masks and having fewer students transported on school buses.
Trump’s latest quid pro quo for state aid: sanctuary cities
What would it take for President Donald Trump to deliver aid to states devastated by the coronavirus? Perhaps more cooperation on immigration enforcement. Earlier this week, the president suggested that a federal COVID-19 bailout for states could be contingent upon states abandoning “sanctuary city” policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. “I think there’s a big difference with a state that lost money because of COVID and a state that’s been run very badly for 25 years,” he said at a meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday. “We’d have to talk about things like sanctuary cities, as an example. I think sanctuary cities is something that has to be brought up where people who are criminals are protected, they are protected from prosecution.”
The threat to deny aid to some of the hardest-hit states, such as New York, its neighbors in the Northeast and counterparts on the West Coast, is not the first time the president has used the resources of the federal government to punish New York for not sharing his anti-immigration.
* Cuomo spotlighted COVID-19’s impact on mental health and domestic violence at his Friday press briefing. Citing the fact that almost half of Americans say that their mental health has been negatively impacted by the crisis, as well as increasing reports of domestic violence in New York over March and April, Cuomo said a focus on mental health services is critical, especially for essential workers. Accordingly, he announced that the state will now direct insurers to waive cost-sharing, co-pays and deductibles for essential workers seeking mental health services.
* In an attempt to glean more information about how and where the coronavirus is spreading, Cuomo also said the state will begin asking hospitals for more specific information about new COVID-19 cases – including where people testing positive live, how they commute and demographics – so that response efforts could become more targeted.
* The temporary U.S. Army hospital set up at the Javits Center Convention Center in New York City will close Friday, the New York Post reports. The 1,000-person makeshift hospital has treated over 1,000 patients since opening in late March, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.
* A higher percentage of New Yorkers than ever now believe that coronavirus-related adjustments to daily life will continue into 2021. Data from the polling firm Elucd shows that 15% of respondents in New York think that social distancing measures will last into next year. In late March, only 5% of respondents answered that way. That percentage is even higher among 18-to-34-year-olds, with 19% responding that they think adjustments to daily life will last that long.
* Nearly 100 residents at a nursing home in Washington Heights are believed to have died from the coronavirus, NY1 reported this week, in what is the latest evidence of the virus’s devastating impact on nursing homes across the state.
Posted: May 1st, 2020 under Education News, Heathcare News, Peru/Regional History, State Government News.