Posts tagged "rumor mill"
rumor mill
November 17, 2011
As protests rage, city assures schools that the day must go on
An ad for today's Occupy movement protests
The city stepped in this afternoon to stop Occupy Wall Street protests from derailing the school day.
Fueled by a message posted on the protest movement’s website, rumors spread earlier today that the schools would be dismissing students early. “National Day of Action” protests in Lower Manhattan, which have grown increasingly tense over the course of the day are timed to the movement’s two-month anniversary and come soon after a city crackdown. The protests are set to spread to subway stations across the city at 3 p.m. and to the steps of the Department of Education’s headquarters at 4:30 p.m.
City officials quickly acted to quash the early-dismissal rumors. On Twitter, Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson and the DOE’s official account both sent messages assuring followers that the school day would proceed as planned. Wolfson said early dismissal was “never discussed.” And Chancellor Dennis Walcott emailed principals to tell them not to dismiss students early “as a result of any protests.”
“Rumors indicating that school will be closed early are false,” Walcott wrote in an email with the subject line “Today is a full school day.”
Middle schools, which have long been scheduled to dismiss students early because of parent-teacher conferences, did end classes early as planned.
Later this afternoon, two Occupy-affiliated protests are scheduled to converge at the DOE’s Tweed Headquarters, where a protest 10 days ago attracted a large crowd. (more…)
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