As a bomb cyclone continued to wallop New York City with up to 2 feet of snow, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced public schools will reopen for in-person classes Tuesday, sparking criticism he is being overly optimistic about conditions on the ground.

“I hope our students enjoy their snow day today and stay warm and safe throughout, but I do have some tough news to share: School will be in-person tomorrow,” Mamdani said at a Monday afternoon weather briefing in downtown Brooklyn.

“You can still pelt me with snowballs when you see me,” he told students who may disagree with his decision, which was first reported ahead of the news conference by the Daily News.

His schools chancellor, Kamar Samuels, said school facilities and custodial staff have been “working around the clock” to remove snow and ice, clear paths, and prepare classrooms for students to return.

The city’s school operations center, which has been open with employees reporting in-person since Sunday, has deployed 8,000 workers on the Education Department payroll to 1,400 properties, on top of citywide efforts to clear the snow, officials said.

“The team efforts have been nothing short of extraordinary,” Samuels said.

The reopening will extend to all education programming and extracurricular activities, according to the chancellor.

Mamdani made the call as the heavy snow started to slow down and New Yorkers were just beginning to dig their way out of the blizzard. Whether or not the streets and sidewalks would be cleared in time remained an open question in some of the hardest-hit corners of the city.

“Staten Island is completely inundated,” said Vito Fossella, the borough president of Staten Island, which saw some of the most snow across the five boroughs. “Numerous roads are impassable, and people have to walk in the middle of the street because the sidewalks are completely blocked by at least 2 feet of snow.”

“How could the city, on one hand, urge people to stay indoors, and on the other, expect families to get their kids to school in these unsafe conditions? In what world does that make sense?”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards echoed the sentiment on social media. “Please cancel school tomorrow as well. I can’t deal with y’all acting crazy!” he wrote on X.

The United Federation of Teachers told union members that while school will be in-person Tuesday, no teacher should put themselves at risk physically.

“We know tomorrow’s commute may pose a real challenge for some of our members. No one should jeopardize their safety trying to report to work,” the UFT wrote on X.

The return to school buildings comes after city schoolkids Monday had their first traditional snow day since 2019 and the advent of remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mamdani said he made the call to fully cancel classes in response to a unique set of circumstances Monday — the first day of school after last week’s previously scheduled midwinter recess.

“We believe that there were extenuating circumstances, both with the city’s first blizzard in 10 years, combined with the fact that students and teachers were coming back from a week of being off,” Mamdani said on 1010 WINS. “That meant that they didn’t all have the technology in advance of what would’ve otherwise been a remote learning day.”

“We didn’t believe it would actually be productive or conducive or something that would be helpful for our students. So we applied for a waiver from the state. We were told that we would receive it.”

The city has been reluctant to cancel classes during snowstorms because of a state law requiring 180 days of school. With the addition of new holidays, public schools have less flexibility in the academic calendar to close school on days that count toward the required total.

The state’s waiver means students won’t have to make up the day of school later this year.

The Education Department first told principals to prepare for the possibility of a remote snow day Friday night, when people were still out of town during the midwinter break. Administrators were offered overtime pay to report to school buildings and make arrangements ahead of the storm. The city ultimately scrapped a pivot to online classes when plans proved untenable.

This far into the academic year, some education insiders said, connecting students with devices shouldn’t have come down to the wire, when schools were already on recess.

“All this investment, all this technology — where are they? And why aren’t they in the hands of students?” an insider said.

“That means they were not ready. It’s not fair to put it squarely on the current administration, but it just means DOE is not ready yet to shift to remote seamlessly, which they said they were.”

In a Sunday email to members, the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators, the union representing principals, said administrators were asked on short notice “during vacation, the weekend, and religious observance” to distribute devices and support families.

“CSA understands how difficult it was to mobilize on personal time only to have plans change,” read the missive. “We appreciate how quickly members stepped up for students and families.”

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