{"id":143939,"date":"2026-02-24T17:42:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/143939\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T17:42:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:42:38","slug":"students-brave-snowy-streets-heading-back-to-school-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/143939\/","title":{"rendered":"Students brave snowy streets heading back to school"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a winter storm heaped snow on the five boroughs<\/a>, some New Yorkers heading back to school Tuesday morning had a decision to make: opt to navigate the sidewalks, or walk in the street instead?<\/p>\n

Many Staten Island families chose the second option during drop-off at P.S. 21 in Elm Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What You Need To Know<\/p>\n

A powerful winter storm dumped nearly two feet of snow on parts of the five boroughs overnight Sunday into Monday, marking the most the city has seen since 2016
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Staten Island neighborhoods were among some of the hardest hit areas in the city. Residents reported unofficial snow totals as high as 27 inches, with snow drifts in some areas even higher
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Similar situations in other communities across the five boroughs fueled some criticism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s decision to reopen schools less than 24 hours after snow stopped falling<\/p>\n

Parents say the school\u2019s custodial staff did a good job clearing access to the building, but its surroundings were challenging to navigate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s rough, because a lot of people didn\u2019t shovel their snow. But, you know, it is what it is,\u201d parent Tennyson Hutchinson told NY1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a bunch of snow on the sidewalk, and it was hard to get to school,\u201d student Matthew Hutchinson added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Staten Island neighborhoods were among some of the hardest hit areas in the city<\/a>. Residents reported unofficial snow totals as high as 27 inches, with snow drifts in some areas even higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similar situations in other communities across the five boroughs fueled some criticism of Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s decision to reopen schools<\/a> less than 24 hours after snow stopped falling.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they should have been closed,\u201d parent Desiree Rescigno said. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the streets are not even plowed yet,\u201d Rescigno added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the mayor announced schools would be open Tuesday, a petition was started online calling on the city to change course and make Tuesday a remote instructional day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The petition, which received nearly 170,000 signatures, cited concerns about safety getting to and from buildings and potentially treacherous travel for teachers and families returning to the city following winter break.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some Staten Island elected officials supported the petition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion that they should open public schools tomorrow \u2014 I think is really irresponsible,\u201d Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella said Monday. \u201cYou’ve seen some of these streets in Staten Island \u2014 some, you can’t even drive down the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n

By New York state law, city schools need to have 180 days of instructional learning. The state did issue an exemption to the city to allow for Monday\u2019s closure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NY1 is still waiting on Tuesday\u2019s attendance numbers from the city Department of Education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a winter storm heaped snow on the five boroughs, some New Yorkers heading back to school Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[14333,203,25,1434,67,9,24,12,63,134,136,135,27,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-143939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-alyssa-paolicelli","9":"tag-app-education","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-app-weather","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-staten-island","18":"tag-staten-island-headlines","19":"tag-staten-island-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}