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. @NYCMayor will be discussing the city's test-and-trace protocol for public schools, which he and @DOEChancellor announced last night.
De Blasio points to benefits of being in-person in school like food, health care and emotional support students receive. But he says it has to be done safely.
De Blasio says they're using blended learning/full-time remote learning for families. He also says there'll be social distancing guidelines in every part of school and free priority testing for everyone in the community — teachers, kids and staff will have PPE for free.
De Blasio says they won't reopen schools unless the city infection rate is below 3 percent. Says NYC has been under 3 percent since June 10 — six weeks in a row. "We know we can do it but I wanna hold that very, very tough standard," he says.
Carranza says they will ask staff to be tested in the days before school starts. There'll be a 24-hour turnaround time for results for tests at city-run testing locations.
He also says school-based staff are encouraged to opt into monthly COVID-19 testing. And he says they're opening schools with physical distancing and cohorting of students.
Carranza says the goal is to have kids in a given class stay together as much as possible.
The city has said decisions to quarantine classrooms or close schools will be based on the facts of each investigation. Here's a breakdown of how they will act in different situations.
De Blasio is asked about the risk of someone coming down with something and is asked if he's holding his breath going into this.
"It's an amazing undertaking...but i'm gonna say the most obvious thing — this is a city that is no stranger to big challenging heroic tasks and this is what it's going to take," he says. Says he has faith in educators and school staff "that they are up to this challenge."
He notes that the report from the last 24 hours on cases shows 312 cases for all of New York City, of which only a handful required hospitalization.
"This city has beaten back this disease to an extraordinary degree," he says. "Now we must go farther."
De Blasio is also asked if @UFT is on board with all of this as there's a lot of fear among teachers, especially the older ones.
"We've made it an absolute cardinal rule that all these specific plans have been talked through with the teachers union constantly," he says, noting they've been in constant contact with UFT and @FollowCSA.
"We have to do this the right way, it has to be health and safety first and you can only do that by talking to people who do the work," he says, noting they'll make accommodations for people with preexisting conditions.
De Blasio says he has workshops with the heads of those unions on occasion for four-plus hours with teams from each of their organizations going through minutiae, though he says, "Do we agree on everything? Absolutely not."
Carranza says that on a weekly basis, he has conversations with colleagues of the 10 largest school systems. Just two weeks ago, of all of those, Chicago and New York City were the only ones considering going back to school, he says.
He also says NYC is the only school system maintaining that low rate. "These kinds of conversations are very localized," he says. "There's a lot of activism that's happening, for good reason."
De Blasio: There'll be schools with exceptional situations because of their huge size or b/c education approach might fit better with online but overwhelmingly, model is blended approach w/2-3 days in school each week. There'll be special situations and DOE will consider those.
Carranza says there's a process for schools to seek an exception to established models but that the DOE has not received any exceptions. Says they welcome schools submitting requests.
