
'We're staying open': Adams bucks teacher's union request days into new administration
CNN
Eric Adams has started his tenure as New York City mayor by rejecting a request from the city's largest teachers' union to temporarily move public schools to remote learning, capping off a frenetic first 72 hours of his administration.
Adams' focus on keeping children in-person for school -- even in the face of opposition from the teachers' union -- is one of the clearest examples of how the former Brooklyn Borough president will offer the nation's largest city a different brand of leadership for the next four years.
The request from the United Federation of Teachers came as coronavirus cases across the country -- including in New York City -- have spiked dramatically with the spread of the Omicron variant in recent weeks. In a statement to his members on Sunday, President Michael Mulgrew said the union asked Adams to temporarily move to remote learning to mitigate staffing challenges caused by positive Covid-19 cases but that the mayor felt "strongly" that schools needed to remain open despite the surge.