NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- New York City is moving "full speed ahead" with its plan to reopen public schools on Sept. 10, despite a host of concerns that it won't be ready to do so by then, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.
One of the fears principals have expressed about reopening stems from an agreement the city reached with the United Federation of Teachers earlier this week, WNYC's Brian Lehrer said in an interview with de Blasio on Friday.
As part of the agreement, students opting for a mix of in-person and remote learning will have different teachers for their "at-home" days and their "in-person" days — a plan that has raised concerns about funding and staffing shortages, Lehrer said.
De Blasio told Lehrer that issue would be addressed by Sept. 10.
"I do hear the concerns of the principals, and that answer is coming to them very very shortly, because as is true before the beginning of every school year, there's a last-minute push to align the staffing levels, get the right people in the right places," he said.
The city will have "thousands of additional teachers available" between Department of Education staffers who don't normally teach in classrooms, including teaching coaches; substitute teachers; and teachers on the city's "Absent Teacher Reserve," he said.
Asked by Lehrer if those staffers would be "trained sufficiently to be remote educators," de Blasio noted that "every single one of them has been doing remote since March."
"It is the reality that every existing teacher in the DOE has had now, four months of remote teaching under their belt. Some of them continued over the summer doing it," he said. "A lot of work has been done to keep training the teachers. It will be ongoing."
And while the city is still working with New York state to sort out school funding issues, that will not impede its ability to reopen schools on Sept. 10, de Blasio maintained.
"Right now, it's just full speed ahead," he said.
