Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, good morning, everybody. I hope everyone had a joyous and safe Thanksgiving. And even though this Thanksgiving was definitely different, I hope you got to feel the warmth and the love of your family and friends. However, you did that, I hope you got to feel it, and I hope it will help sustain you in the weeks ahead. We're here today with a major announcement regarding our school system. And I want to start with just a moment of reflection on what we have been through up to now. You go back to the summer, Chancellor Carranza and I were adamant that we believed reopening our schools was the right thing to do, that our kids needed it. Parents had a lot of concerns. Educators and staff had a lot of concerns. A lot of people said it could not be done, but we believed it could be done and it could be done safely. And we became one of the few major cities in America to reopen our schools, in fact, by far, of course, the biggest school system in America. What we did a lot of people looked at with amazement and that's a credit to our educators and our staff, everyone at the Department of Education, our custodial services team, food services, school safety, everyone who was a part of that. They believed they could do it. And they did. And we kept our school safe and we did it in real-life conditions. We prove that schools could be extraordinarily safe because we put a tremendous number of health and safety measures in place, created that gold standard of combined health and safety actions that worked. What we didn't know back in July and August, we do know now that these steps work, and they keep kids safe and they keep the whole school community safe.
But we also said at the time that we would set a strict standard and we would live by it. And if we hit three percent, we'd have to reevaluate the whole situation. We did, of course, hit three percent. We did a temporary closure of our schools. And then we went about the work immediately of resetting the entire equation and trying to determine a path that would be sustainable. Regardless of the challenges we faced, we needed something sustainable that could link us up to the time when we would have the vaccine widely distributed. And so, we focused on increasing the health and safety measures, doubling down on the things that work, making them even more stringent and exacting. Had conversations with our stakeholders, conversations with the State. I've had a number of conversations with the Governor. We've been working through, how do we take all those good lessons of health and safety and amplify them with new measures? So, that is exactly what we now will put in place. We will have testing that is going to go from monthly in every school to weekly in every school. We will have a consent forms required for attendance. I want to emphasize this. Students will not be able to attend school unless they have a consent form on record period. This is something for everyone's health and safety. And as we open school in phases – and I'll go over to phases in a moment – wherever possible, we will, in schools that have the ability, go to five-day-a-week instruction. This is for the students who already were in blended learning or the ones who opted in recently. For any school that does have the space and the ability to move to five-day-a-week in-person instruction, for those kids that will now be the preferred model. So, we'll have in-person instruction for those who are part of that approach, remote for all other kids.
The situation room will also, of course, continue to do its extraordinary work. And this has been one of the big X-factors. The situation room has allowed us to keep each individual school safe with very exacting follow-through on every reported case and quick action to address what the ramifications of the case would be. Whether it means in some cases, the classroom needs to be closed for a period of time or even a whole school. That approach has worked, that will stay strong. Obviously, all the social distancing rules, mask wearing everything that's worked before, but with these new measures. So, that is the basic approach. And now here's the important news. Beginning the week of Monday, December 7th, New York City public schools will begin to reopen. We will begin with elementary schools K-5 and our pre-K, 3-K public school centers. And then later that week on Thursday, December 10th, our District 75 special education programs. So, New York City public schools will be reopening in phases starting on Monday, December 7th.
Now, we are focusing on the younger grades – let's be clear – focusing on the younger grades on that Monday, all K-5 programs, whether they're standalone or part of a bigger school, those grades will come back. And those pre-K, 3-K centers. Why? Because we know, first of all, studies consistently show that younger kids are having less of a negative experience. And there's less concern about the spread when it comes to younger kids. Also, the demands that our parents are going through. And I feel for all our parents who are experiencing so many challenges right now, how important it is for them to have their younger kids in school, how important that is at that age, both educationally and socially, but also in terms of how parents juggle all the challenges in their life. And then District 75, they have a little bit of extra work to do to get District 75 programs back up and running. But as I said, Thursday, December 10th, District 75 schools, special needs programs. So crucial. We want to be there for those kids and their families that go through so much. We've heard from those families, they need this back. So, we will get that up and running. Now that's going to be the vast majority of the city, those levels. We're going to address in the future of middle school and high school, but we're not ready for those yet. That's just the plain truth. We will work to get to that day, but we're not there yet.
I do want to address schools that happen to be in the orange zone areas of the city, and that’s just a small part of the city right now. But we will work to open those schools as well. Following the very clear State guidelines. The State guidelines require a lot. We will work to meet those goals and reopen those schools as early as the week of December 7th. Some particular work that has to be done there, but we're going to go to that work immediately and see what we can do to get as many of those open as possible. Look, whatever happens ahead, we want this to be the plan going forward, because we now believe we know what we didn't know back in the summer. We know what works through actual experience. And we know that if you put a heavy emphasis on testing and you continually reinforce those health and safety measures, you monitor carefully with the situation room, we know we can keep our schools safe for the duration and link up to that day when we have the vaccine that changes the whole reality for all of us.
Here to speak about why this is so important and how we are going to make it work, someone who believed from the beginning that we could reopen the nation's largest school system and has been a strong voice throughout for finding the way to keep it open and do it the right way, our Chancellor, Richard Carranza.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. When we made the painful decision to close schools temporarily, we did it with the health and safety of our students and staff at the forefront of our minds. We are seeing cases rise across our city, which is why we're increasing testing in tandem with continued rigorous interventions. And as you've mentioned, our situation room is performing heroically to act on positive cases when they do arise. Our schools have been remarkably safe and it's important that we're taking good care to keep them that way while New Yorkers do everything we can to stop the spread. Getting our children back in school buildings is one of the single most important things we can do for their wellbeing. And it's so important that we do it right. With these new measures in place, I and the entire team is confident that we're on track to safely and successfully keep our schools open for the duration of this pandemic. I, once again, will add my voice to yours, Mr. Mayor, and implore upon all New Yorkers, please follow the medical advice, please limit your interactions, please wear your mask. If you want schools to open and stay open, it's upon all of us to do our share, to keep them open. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor: Thank you very much, Chancellor. And we're going to be talking about that a lot. A lot of people have been saying, rightfully – a lot of parents, we've heard your voices loud and clear, you wanted schools back open, but we're going to ask everyone to be a part of that, everyone to participate to make it work. And we'll be talking about that this week and beyond.
Okay, now, in that very same vein, what can you do? Every parent, we need you to get that consent form, for testing, in. I want to be very, very clear for any child to be in a classroom going forward they either will have to have a testing consent form on file or an appropriate medical exemption from a doctor. If folks have a concern, they need to talk to a doctor, we will facilitate that through Health + Hospitals. But literally every single student who will be in person will need that. We'll get you the exact number, but it's in the neighborhood of about 330,000 kids who will qualify to be in person, but it can only work if everyone has a consent form on file. So, parents, if you are one of the parents that really wants your kid back in school and you already were in blended learning, or you signed up during the opt-in period, here's what you need to do. You have to go online, please do it right away. Go to mystudent.nyc, fill out that testing consent form. The other acceptable option is for the child to bring it on their first day of school when we come back. But we need this to happen to keep everyone safe. This was a crucial part of resetting the entire equation that this would be a strict rule. And every parent who cares about getting their kid back in the classroom, help us by getting that form in.
Okay, let's go over today's indicators. One, the daily number of people admitted to New York City hospitals for a suspected COVID-19, threshold 200 patients. Today's report, 130 patients. Confirmed positivity level of 48.12 percent. Number two, new reported cases on a seven-day average, threshold 550 cases. Today's report, 1,636 cases. And number three, percent of people testing positive citywide for COVID-19, threshold five percent. Today's report, the daily is not yet ready because we've had an aberrantly low number of tests come in. Obviously, it's a holiday, so we don't feel we have an accurate measure. We'll put that up as soon as we have something accurate, we do have a clear picture on a seven-day rolling average. That is 3.9 percent.
Okay, everyone. Look, I'll finish with this point. It all comes down to you in the end. This is what we've learned over and over from the coronavirus, is that government has such an important role to play setting the standards and giving people constant updates and guidance and leaning on the data and the science constantly, but nothing works without the people. So, we need you to make this new approach work. This is the approach could take us all the way through to when we have the vaccine widely distributed, it's still possible to bring back our schools for a huge number of kids five days a week in the spring, if all goes well with the vaccine. But to get to that point, we had to keep people safe in the meantime. So, we need everyone – please focus on the social distancing and the mass gathering – mask wearing, excuse me – limit gatherings, do all those things. But also, parents, if you're in that group of parents that is signed up for in-person learning, we need you fill out that test consent form. If you have any questions or concerns, our school team and our Health + Hospitals team will always be available to talk to you in multiple languages. But we need parental involvement to make this work, to bring back the schools, starting on Monday, December 7th, and then keep them open for the duration as part of bringing this whole city back and serving our parents and families. Thank you, everyone.
