NEW YORK — Only 63.3% of students showed up at school Tuesday, as Mayor Mamdani took heat for reopening the schools while New Yorkers were still digging themselves out of a historic blizzard.

That’s down from an average daily attendance rate of 89.8% last school year, according to the mayor’s annual management report.

“I know that there are some who were concerned by the decision to return to in-person learning,” Mamdani said at a weather briefing in Downtown Brooklyn, where his administration shared the preliminary data.

“When conditions are safe, our goal will always be to open our schools.”

Mamdani also said 12,000 teachers called out of work, with the school system only able to find 5,000 substitute teachers to replace them. That’s out of a workforce of nearly 79,000 teachers total, he said.

The low numbers come after elected officials, parents and teachers pushed back on the mayor’s decision to open the schools.

Manhattan mom Rosa Diaz, who sits on the on the Manhattan High Schools Presidents’ Council, said she opted not to send her two kids to school on Tuesday and was disappointed Mamdani didn’t offer remote learning as an option.

“I chose to keep my children home for their safety,” Diaz said. “The streets are slippery, gushy and forcing schools staff to come in person is irresponsible.”

City Councilman Frank Morano, who represents parts of Staten Island — the borough hardest hit by the snow — said the schools situation was a “disaster.”

On Tuesday morning at Tottenville High School, only 614 students were in attendance, out of some 3,700 teenagers enrolled in the school, his office posted on social media. An estimated 180 staff members were absent, with only one safety agent on duty and half of kitchen staff not reporting to work.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said city schools need to do more to be ready to pivot to remote learning on a day like Tuesday.

“The lesson here to be learned is we need to be able to get to remote whenever we need to, because this was not an ideal situation,” Mulgrew said. “Each child is going to have to have their own device. Right now, the current policy for every school in New York City is that it’s up to the school to make sure that they have the devices. That’s absurd.”

He also suggested City Hall consider different snow day policies depending on the situation on the ground.

“The majority of the city is not Manhattan,” the teachers union boss added. “We can just go remote for specific schools or specific areas. We do that — we’ve done it for flooding, we do it for schools that maybe have a fire or the boiler is not working.”

At the weather briefing, Mamdani explained that with students returning from last week’s midwinter break, many didn’t have the school-issued devices they would need for a remote learning day on Tuesday. The school system is bound by state law to provide 180 days of instruction, which has been increasingly difficult to meet with the addition of new school holidays.

To get ready for in-person classes, about 8,000 school staffers worked through the weekend to clear entrances and make the buildings accessible, the mayor said.

“When our schools are open, our kids are learning and growing,” Chancellor Kamar Samuels added at the press briefing. “They’re enjoying nutritious meals. They’re interacting with their peers. Their parents, working New Yorkers, are able to go to their jobs knowing their children are safe and cared for in preparation for today.”

Orris Roper, a junior at Democracy Prep Charter School in Harlem, said that he was “disappointed” his school didn’t give them a second snow day.

“I wanted to stay in bed a little longer,” he said. “… Personally, I feel like, yes, the city should have waited. But we were just on break, so having even more time off might have encouraged people not to do their work or stay knowledgeable.”

Manhattan mom Lupe Hernandez said she signed a petition against reopening schools on Tuesday, but sent her son to his in-person classes anyway when remote learning was not an option.

“He was upset as he was the only student on the bus,” she said. “Everyone else must have stayed home.”

Classes were fully called off on Monday as nearly 20 inches of snow pelted the city — the first school-free snow day since the COVID-19 pandemic. Mamdani said Monday that the “extenuating circumstances” of the blizzard falling on the first day back from a weeklong break prompted the city to apply for a waiver from the state to cancel even remote classes.

“We didn’t believe (remote learning) would actually be productive or conducive or something that would be helpful for our students,” he said Monday.

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