NYC school bus service will be ready to go for in-person classes
NEW YORK - New York City's public school buses will be ready on the first day of school for students who will need them: 100,000 bus seats will be available when in-class instruction resumes on Sept. 21.
More than 5,000 special education bus routes and nearly 3,000 general education routes have been finalized, according to the Department of Education. Parents should start being notified this week.
Five dozen bus companies will be taking students to school. Each company must comply with strict safety requirements.
"That means social distancing, that means there'll be windows open and nightly cleaning. Every bus company will be provided with the PPE that they need," Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a briefing on Wednesday. "We're starting with a supply of 300,000 masks, 10,000 face shields, 30,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, and electrostatic sprayers for every bus garage."
Also, four of 10 school buildings that failed ventilation inspections have undergone repairs and are safe for students and school staff when in-person instruction begins, officials said.
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The DOE announced earlier this summer that each school would have a 30-day supply of PPE on hand when they reopen. But some school principals have said they haven't received their stock.
"Some of our facilities are leased facilities so when PPE was going to be delivered in some cases the landlords did not accept those deliveries," Chancellor Richard Carranza said at the briefing. "But this is why we have more time and we've been spending all day yesterday addressing any issues where there wasn't PPE."
Carranza said the department hopes to resolve that supply issue with those schools by next week.