Thursday evening
NEW YORK, NY February 25, 2010 —Because of the snowstorm, the city has decided to postpone parent teacher conferences for junior high and intermediate schools, but Mayor Bloomberg says otherwise, it’s business as usual in the classroom.
“Our main objective is to keep our kids in school,” Bloomberg says. “That’s why we have an education system. And right now we expect that snowfall tomorrow will be manageable enough that we can keep all schools open.”
The mayor says the city will let parents know if they decide to close schools as soon as possible, but no decision has been made.
The mayor says the sanitation department also has 365 salt spreaders that can disperse 170,000 tons of salt and 1,600 snow plows can begin clearing city streets once 2 inches of snow accumulate on the ground.
But, because temperatures are in the mid-30s, the mayor says much of the snow that has fallen is melting on city streets.
Friday Morning
NEW YORK (AP) – Mayor Michael Bloomberg says safety was the reason for the rare decision to close New York City’s public schools.
In Albany, the sun was shining Friday and schools were open. But hundreds of schools – from Rochester to the lower Hudson Valley and Long Island – were closed. It was the week’s second snow day for many upstate districts.
New York City officials originally had hoped that the snowfall would be manageable. But Bloomberg says his top advisers spoke on Thursday night and decided keeping schools open “may not be safe.”
There are 1.1 million pupils in the nation’s largest school system. During a Feb. 10 storm, they enjoyed their third snow day in only six years.
Said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein: “Everybody better do their homework this weekend.”
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