HOW NYC SCHOOLS OFFICIALS PLAYED DOWN THE COVID-19 THREAT

After Mayor Bill de Blasio shut down the city’s public schools in mid-March, teachers were ordered to report to classrooms to receive in-person training on the “distance learning” they’d be practicing with their students.

At P.S. 139 in Brooklyn, teachers dutifully showed up on Tuesday, March 17. Late that night, however, they got an emergency email from the principal informing them the next day’s session had been cancelled.

“I will be in touch tomorrow with more information,” the Ditmas Park school’s principal promised, according to an email obtained by THE CITY.

The next day, the staff stayed home, but no further explanation emerged. When teachers showed up at school that Thursday, they learned what had happened: A colleague, with whom they had been working the previous week in the Rugby Road building had tested positive for COVID-19.

“They waited for us to come in for training to tell us,” said one teacher, adding the staff was furious about what appeared to be a deliberate lack of transparency to make sure they came into work.

“I was surprised and worried, and when I asked if there was any way to know if we had been around the person who had tested positive, [the principal] said we had to all assume that everyone has been exposed to it across the whole city by this point,” the teacher recalled...

https://thecity.nyc/2020/05/how-nyc-schools-officials-played-down-the-covid-19-threat.html