Staten Island Schools Gutted: 70% Student Absence Exposes Mayor’s Catastrophic Blizzard Blunder
Nearly seven out of every ten Staten Island students stayed home Tuesday following a historic blizzard—a staggering rebuke of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s reckless decision to force schools open rather than embrace remote learning.
The numbers tell a damning story. A jaw-dropping 69.8% of Staten Island public school students were absent Tuesday, according to city Department of Education data—more than double the citywide average of 36.8% and exponentially higher than the typical 11% daily absence rate.
This wasn’t just poor planning. This was governmental malpractice.
The Socialist Mayor’s One-Size-Fits-All Failure
Staten Island bore the brunt of one of the biggest blizzards in New York City history, with some neighborhoods buried under nearly 30 inches of snow. The borough’s single rail line was knocked out of service. Narrow, hilly roads remained treacherous ice rinks. Crosswalks vanished beneath towering snow banks.
Yet Mamdani—ensconced in his Manhattan bubble—arrogantly decreed that schools would reopen across all five boroughs without exception.
The results were predictable and disastrous.
A Day of Educational Chaos
Multiple Staten Island schools reported student absence rates between 80-85%. At the David Marquis School of the Arts in Great Kills, special-needs students in wheelchairs couldn’t safely exit buses because snow hadn’t been cleared from unloading zones.
Students at Myra S Barnes Intermediate School 24 were herded into the cafeteria for two hours when power failed. Snow banks blocked parking areas for school buses throughout the borough.
This is what happens when ivory-tower progressives ignore on-the-ground reality in favor of rigid, centralized control.
“I just don’t understand how the mayor and Chancellor [Kamar Samuelson] didn’t think this wasn’t a perfect day for remote learning—especially in our community, which had it much worse because we’re so car dependent,” Councilman Frank Morano told reporters.
The Forgotten Borough Fights Back
Morano didn’t mince words about the magnitude of Mamdani’s failure.
“This is going to go down, along with new Coke and the decision to put hydrogen in the Hindenburg instead of helium, as one of the worst decisions in history,” the Republican councilman declared.
Now he’s taking action. Morano is drafting legislation to grant boroughs greater autonomy over school operations—ensuring Staten Island never again suffers under Manhattan-centric decision-making that ignores local conditions.
“There’s no reason Staten Island should have to live by the same rules as Manhattan and The Bronx,” Morano said. “If Staten Islanders saw their elected or appointed leaders actually have some control over day-to-day policies, I think there would be fewer people screaming for secession.”
Borough President Vito Fossella echoed these concerns, noting that the “city dropped the ball at the highest levels” by forcing teachers and parents in mass-transit deserts to navigate icy roads when public safety should have been paramount.
“We don’t have the luxury of jumping on the subway,” Fossella pointedly observed.
Numbers Don’t Lie—Leadership Does
The absentee rates across all five boroughs Tuesday reveal the scope of Mamdani’s miscalculation:
- Staten Island: 69.8%
- Bronx: 36.4%
- Brooklyn: 35.1%
- Queens: 34.2%
- Manhattan: 29.8%
Even Manhattan—with its extensive subway network and relatively better-plowed streets—saw absence rates nearly triple the normal level.
Approximately 12,000 of the city’s 78,300 teachers called out, forcing scrambling administrators to recruit 5,000 substitutes.
These aren’t minor inconveniences. These are clear indicators that Mamdani’s decision was divorced from reality.
The Case for Local Control
Both Morano and Fossella are among a growing coalition of Staten Island leaders advocating for the borough’s secession from New York City. Tuesday’s debacle provides fresh ammunition for their argument that centralized, progressive governance fails communities with different needs and infrastructure.
Staten Island’s unique geography—hilly terrain, narrow residential streets, car-dependent transportation, and a single rail line—demands flexibility that one-size-fits-all mandates cannot provide.
Morano plans to present his autonomy legislation to a City Charter Revision Commission later this year. The proposal would empower borough leaders to make localized decisions on matters like school closures during emergencies.
This isn’t radical. It’s common sense.
The DOE’s Telling Silence
The Department of Education declined to provide Tuesday’s teacher attendance figures or district-by-district student breakdowns—a convenient opacity that suggests the numbers are even worse than what’s been publicly disclosed.
This lack of transparency is typical of progressive administrations that prefer obfuscation over accountability.
A Wake-Up Call for New York
Tuesday’s fiasco should serve as a wake-up call. When nearly 70% of students in an entire borough stay home, that’s not a weather event—it’s a vote of no confidence in leadership.
Parents made the right call keeping their children safe at home. Teachers who couldn’t navigate impassable roads made the responsible choice.
The mayor made the wrong call—and now he owns the consequences.
Staten Island deserves better than to be an afterthought in City Hall’s calculations. Its students deserve leaders who understand that effective governance requires acknowledging regional differences, not steamrolling them with ideological rigidity.
The data is clear. The failures are documented. The question now is whether progressive leadership will learn from this disaster—or whether Staten Island will be forced to chart its own course entirely.
Based on Tuesday’s performance, the answer seems increasingly obvious.
