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<\/a><\/p>\n“The plow was coming up and kind of slid over. So, no matter what they were doing, they couldn’t move it backwards or forward,” said West Brighton resident, Rob Mitchell.<\/p>\n
The tow truck sent by the city got stuck. A second tow truck got stuck too.<\/p>\n
“The initial driver got relieved by someone, who then got relieved by another man,” said West Brighton resident Claire Mitchell.<\/p>\n
After 17 hours of sanding and shoveling, the street was finally cleared around 1 p.m.<\/p>\n
The aftermath of the blizzard also had an impact on the attendance rate at New York City Public Schools, including on Staten Island.<\/p>\n
CeFaan Kim is outside Tottenville High School where students told Eyewitness News it wasn’t a very productive day.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, there was like no point honestly,” said one student. “We just come in, sit there, do some homework and just walk out.”<\/p>\n
“All we did was just sit around. They let us on our phones because they didn’t really care because no one was there,” said another student.<\/p>\n
There wasn’t exactly a stampede out the gate during dismissal at Tottenville High School.<\/p>\n
Elected officials on Staten Island say only about 16% of students made it to class.<\/p>\n
The city on Tuesday admitted that sanitation crews faced challenges on narrow streets in the borough, so extra personnel and equipment and private contractors were moved to Staten Island Monday night.<\/p>\n
Elected officials say on top of the absent students, 180 faculty members here also could not make it in.<\/p>\n
Still, some parents say the city was simply not prepared.<\/p>\n
“It’s not safe though, a lot of streets in Staten Island aren’t plowed,” said one parent. “Side streets, especially like this, don’t look safe right now. Looks like there’s downed trees, branches.”<\/p>\n
The borough president agreed with parents.<\/p>\n
“Was just very, very unsafe, but unwise or ill advised and it’s showing the parents of Staten Island exercise very good judgment in my opinion,” said Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella.<\/p>\n
Mayor Zohran Mamdani tried to justify the reasoning behind moving back to in-person learning on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“First, New York City public schools were not in a position to facilitate remote structure with students coming back from mid-winter break, it was not possible to ensure that enough students had the devices they needed to effectively participate in remote leaning,” Mayor Mamdani said. “Second, our public schools go beyond providing a designated place for kids to learn. They are critical to the health and wellness of nearly 900,000 children across our city. Whether it’s a warm meal, essential mental health support, or a source of child care for working parents.”<\/p>\n
“This was not a decision we agreed with, but we understood, I understood their point of view,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “You know there are a lot of families. This is their only access to daycare for childcare, but teachers get upset when they hear these things cause we’re not a babysitting service. We’re an educational institution.”<\/p>\n
According to the Department of Education, 12,000 of the 78,000 teachers called out sick on Tuesday, with DOE only able to slot 5,000 substitute teachers to replace them.<\/p>\n
The teachers’ union points out that many teachers do not live in the district they work in. So many of them are parents too, with kids in closed school districts, forcing them to stay home with the same childcare needs.<\/p>\n
To close or not to close city schools has always been a “lose lose” situation for mayors.<\/p>\n
For many families with two working parents, skipping two days in a row of work is not easy or even possible.<\/p>\n
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