Middle schools to restart in-person Feb. 25

City middle schools will restart in-person classes Feb. 25 after more than three months of remote-only learning, officials announced Monday.

The public junior highs have been closed for in-person instruction since the middle of November, when the entire school system was briefly shuttered because of rising COVID-19 rates.

“Nothing can replace in-person learning and the support that our students receive in person,” city Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said Monday. “We’re so thrilled to be able to provide that.”

At the beginning of December, officials reopened, with increased testing, preschools, elementary schools and District 75 programs for students with complex disabilities, but said they needed more time to plan the logistics of middle and high school reopening.

Schools with in-person classes are required to test 20% of students and staff onsite each week. Officials say they now have the testing capacity to extend that regimen to middle schools.

Officials said they’ll also add staff to the “situation room” — a clearinghouse for recording schoolbased COVID-19 cases and relaying information to contact tracers.

Temporary school closures triggered by multiple COVID-19 cases in the same school building have become commonplace since the partial reopening in early December.

Roughly 62,000 students in grades 6 to 8 had signed up for in-person classes before the school system shuttered in November, and are expected to return to the 471 middle schools opening their doors this month.

About half of those schools will be able to offer five days a week of in-person instruction to some of their students, Carranza said.

Middle school staff will report back to their buildings Feb. 24, the day before students return — and will be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccines at city-run vaccination sites during the Education Department’s midwinter break from Feb. 15-19, officials said.

Officials have not yet announced a time line for reopening high schools.