Our heart goes out to the family, students and colleagues of Dez-Ann Romain, the principal of the Brooklyn Democracy Academy. We will not comment on this particular tragedy at this time.

However, in the week leading up to system-wide school closure, we had been given information that led us to believe that the New York City Department of Health was not following the school closing protocol issued by the state for COVID-19. We had been informed that all final decisions for individual school closings — along with medical investigations and notification of impacted members of the school community — rested with the New York City Department of Health.

For these reasons, the UFT was prepared to got to court to shut the schools, but stopped when city officials finally listened to reason and ordered the schools closed.