De Blasio CAN'T close New York City's schools! Cuomo shoots down mayor's decision to shut the Big Apple's schools for the rest of year and says only the governor has the 'authority' to do so

Bill de Blasio and Go. Andrew Cuomo clashed on Saturday after the New York City Mayor announced he was closing schools for the rest of the academic year- only for the governor to contradict him hours later. 

Public schools in New York City, the U.S. epicenter of the virus outbreak, have been closed since March 16. 

In a Saturday press conference, de Blasio announced that New York City's 1.1 million-pupil public school system will be closed for the rest of the school year as the city struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak. They are expected to open again in September, he added. 

However, just over an hour later,  Cuomo countered the mayor's announcement saying only he had the legal authority to decide on school closure extensions. 

Outside of the five boroughs of New York City, Cuomo has only closed schools across the state until the end of April.

Cuomo said any school closing schedule would be coordinated with Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties along with the neighboring states of New Jersey and Connecticut as well.  

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Bill de Blasio and Go. Andrew Cuomo clashed on Saturday after the New York City Mayor announced he was closing schools for the rest of the academic year- only for the governor to contradict him hours later 

'It is my legal authority in this situation,' the governor said in response to a reporter's question about whether closing schools in New York City fell under his authority over the city's mayor.

'It makes no sense for one locality to take an action that's not coordinated with the others,' he said. 

The contrasting messages sowed confusion among some educators.

'So what´s going on? NYC educators like myself were already notified by @UFT that school is closed for the remainder of the year,' one teacher wrote in a Twitter post, referring to the United Federation of Teachers. 'This back and forth is infuriating.'

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams took to Twitter to criticize what he called 'petty back-and-forths.'

'Who has legal authority to close down @NYCSchools? That's a conversation for people with time for largely academic conversations,' Adams said. 'I don´t have the time. I don´t have patience for petty back-and-forths in the middle of a deadly pandemic.'

Cuomo and de Blasio have been annoying and infuriating each other for years now but many had hoped the pair would put their feud on hold for the duration of the pandemic.

Last month, the pair engaged in some passive-aggressive competition with their rivalry was on display once again as de Blasio told New Yorkers to prepare for a shelter-in-place order. 

The following day, Governor Cuomo then dismissed 'rumors' that 'New York City is going to quarantine itself.'

'It cannot happen legally. No city in the state can quarantine itself without state approval and I have no interest whatsoever and no plan whatsoever to quarantine any city,' Cuomo insisted.

When asked about the governor's remarks, de Blasio said there was a difference between a quarantine and a shelter-in-place policy.

But then while the mayor was speaking Cuomo's secretary Melissa DeRosa released a statement saying there was no difference saying de Blasio didn't have the power to act alone.

'If New York City says, 'Well you can't come out of your house, all that will do is cause you to stay with your cousin in Westchester,' Cuomo said.

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School buses are seen  parked in a yard in Brooklyn after New York City closed down the public school system to stop the spread of the coronavirus

The death toll in the city reached 5,065 on Friday, with the most confirmed cases and deaths concentrated in Brooklyn and Queens. There are more than 170,512 confirmed cases in New York state and at least 7,844 people have died.

De Blasio resisted closing schools even as the city recorded its first deaths from the coronavirus, saying he feared that health care workers would have to stay home to care for children and that hundreds of thousands of poor students would go hungry without their free school meals.

'There's nothing easy about this decision,' the mayor said during a press briefing. 

He said on Saturday that closing schools for the rest of the year is 'painful' but 'the right thing to do.' 

The decision to close NYC schools for the remainder of the year as the coronavirus spreads confirms that 1.1 million students will go without routine schooling for more than three months 

'It clearly will help us save lives because it will help us guarantee that the strategies that have been working, the shelter-in-place, the social distancing, all the focused strategies that are finally beginning to bear fruit, they need the time to continue to be effective,' de Blasio said on Saturday.  

About 1,800 schools in the city's five boroughs initially shut down and shifted to remote education on March 16, creating a massive challenge for teachers, parents and students.  

de Blasio faced pressure from parents and teachers to close the schools as the virus began spreading through New York City in March. 

Many students do not have internet access or laptops at home, and the city rushed to lend thousands of devices to children who needed them. After initially resisting, the mayor ultimately shut the system and said, 'This is not something in a million years I could have imagined having to do.' 

A massive effort to move instruction online has met with mixed success in the city, where many low-income students lack Wi-Fi and devices for connecting to their virtual classrooms.

The city is trying to get devices to students who still don't have them by the end of the month. 

Three-quarters of the city's public school children are from low-income households allowing them to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

It saw the city leaving some school buildings open for families to pick up meals in the morning and for struggling New Yorkers to get food in the afternoon.  

'The worst mistake we could make is to take our foot off the gas and end up in a situation where this disease had a resurgence and threatened us even more,' de Blasio said.

'We're not gonna allow the coronavirus to start to attack us even more and to make sure it doesn't, we have to be cautious,' he added.

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A sophomore at Brooklyn Friends School checks into her classes remotely from home 

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A teacher from Yung Wing School P.S. 124 who wished not be identified remote teaches on her laptop from her roof on March 24, 2020 in New York City. Due to the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19), all New York City public schools have launched remote learning programs

De Blasio said the Department of Education will be working closely with the 75,000 seniors who expect to graduate this year.

'We do not want to see these seniors robbed of their future,' the mayor said, acknowledging the chance of graduation ceremonies this year are slim. 

Authorities in some other locales, including the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania, have previously announced that schools will be shuttered for the rest of the year.

In recent days, the governors of California, Pennsylvania and Washington announced schools in their states would be closed for the rest of the academic year. 

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A classroom is empty on what would otherwise be a regular school day as teachers and faculty members learn remote teaching and methods for students in New York