Mayor Quashes 'Social Media Rumor' That Schools Will Shut Down

NEW HAVEN, CT — During an end-of-year police news briefing, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker began his remarks by addressing a "rumor" that the city's schools won't open Monday.

"It's not true," Elicker said. "We have every intention to open up schools next Monday." But conceded that with COVID-19 cases "skyrocketing,"the school district and city "fully anticipate there will be challenges."

Elicker said that the schools' approach will be to address coronavirus "case by case, class by class."

He advised families to be "prepared that their student may have to go remote."

Elicker said that, for example, if there are "enough" students, or educators, are out due to COVID-19 in a class, it would likely move to remote learning.

But, he insisted that New Haven schools are "not anticipating a system-wide shut-down."

"There's a lot of talk about it on social media, but it’s just not true."