NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he "would have a lot of questions" before sending his children to New York City public schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.
On the "Today" show Friday morning, Craig Melvin asked the governor, "If you had school-aged children in New York City, would you send them to a New York City public school?"
"Well, they're still working out what the plan would be," Cuomo responded. "I would have a lot of questions. Parents do have a lot of questions."
The governor continued: "This is a risky proposition no matter how you do it, Craig, let's be honest. You're bringing a lot of people into a congregant setting. Do you have the testing? Do you have the tracing? Do you have the social distance requirements? How are you going to handle it?"
Asked if he was confident that the city's schools are ready to reopen, Cuomo said, "Fingers crossed on all of this."
"We've gone from the highest infection rate in the United States to the lowest infection rate, as you know. If there's any state that can reopen schools, it's us," Cuomo said, adding that the state currently has a 0.7 infection rate. "On schools, we have the infection rate that says you can open schools."
The governor said decisions about reopening schools for in-person learning are being worked out "school district by school district": "We have 700 school districts. I'm sure we're going to have 700 different answers in New York."
"What I've said from day one is if the parents aren't happy and confident and if the teachers aren't confident, then you don't have a school district reopening," Cuomo said. "You can't open a school district without parents and teachers. We're working through that now and we'll make different decisions in different districts. From my point of view, as long as they're safe and smart, whatever local district wants to do, our infection rate is low right now."
After Cuomo made the comments Friday morning, his senior advisor, Rich Azzopardi, responded to a New York Post headline, "Gov. Cuomo admits he's not sure he'd send his own kids back to school."
"Context: From day 1 he's been saying that teachers and parents need to be on board with each district's reopening plan and the district much communicate with both groups," Azzopardi tweeted.
