#Teachers union chief threatens legal action if de Blasio shuts schools

The head of the city teacher’s union threatened legal action Thursday if Mayor Bill de Blasio shuts down Big Apple schools because of the increasing coronavirus infection rate.

The warning from Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, came on the same day middle and high school students returned to classrooms across the five boroughs for in-person learning.

“The mayor is continuing to say … it would be the entire city — all or none,” Mulgrew said at University Neighborhood High School in the Lower East Side Thursday morning. “That doesn’t work for us. And if that means we have to go to court or do something else, we will.”

The city has been grappling with a fresh spike in COVID-19 cases, mostly in Queens and Brooklyn, that’s sent the citywide infection rate past 3 percent for the first time since June.

On Tuesday, de Blasio warned that schools would shutter if the rolling seven-day average hit 3 percent.

“If those numbers don’t come down, this is where it’s going to land up in a bit of a fight,” Mulgrew said.

The union boss suggested closing schools down in zip codes with high rates of infection, as opposed to a citywide shutdown.

Mulgrew lodged similar threats of legal action this summer as the city weighed reopening schools amid the pandemic.

Thursday marked the third phase of the district’s staggered reopening of schools.

Forty-eight percent of students have opted for remote-only learning, including 60 percent of high schoolers, while 40 percent are learning under a blended model of in-person and remote instruction, Mulgrew said.