Already, amid mounting demands that the city close schools to stem the spread of infection, a growing number of teachers are staying away.
On average, as least 3,100 teachers a day, or 3.9 percent of the system’s 79,000 teachers, shunned school last week, the city Department of Education said Friday.
A DOE spokeswomen could not give the teacher absenteeism rate for Friday — when student attendance plummeted to 68%, down from 89% on Monday.
However, the number is likely to skyrocket because teachers can enter absences into the attendance system days after they are out.
On Saturday, Mayor de Blasio stuck to his guns about keeping schools open.
Closure would cause “a cascading effect,” negatively impacting the subways and hospitals because transit and health-care workers would stay home with their kids, de Blasio said.
He also noted that hundreds of thousands of teenagers would be left unsupervised, and could be unsafe or get in trouble on the street.
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