COVID IN THE CLASSROOM
150 schools have staff cases
The number of New York City schools where staffers have tested positive for COVID-19 ballooned to 150, including 108 where infected staffers came into contact with colleagues.
City Department of Education officials again refused to disclose the total number of teachers and administrators who have been quarantined for 14 days since reporting to buildings on Sept. 8
At IS 51 Edwin Markham on Staten Island, about 70 staffers — more than the 50 previously admitted — now must isolate until Oct. 1., teachers told The Post.
“It was a s--t show,” said a source familiar with the coronavirus catastrophe, in which about half of the faculty and all administrators have been exiled. “No one is running the school.”
After word leaked about the mass quarantine, the DOE blamed IS 51 staff, saying they had “disregarded social-distancing protocol.”
But Principal Nicholas Mele snapped back in a statement on Friday calling the accusation “completely untrue.”
“We followed all appropriate social distancing and meeting guidelines,” Mele wrote.
Two sources familiar with the mess said a teacher who tested positive last weekend had worked in the building the previous week before starting to feel ill and being sent home.
The city’s COVID-19 contact tracers then learned the infected teacher had joined a group of 43 staffers who met in the cafeteria, as well as smaller meetings in classrooms.
“It wasn’t until I spoke with the DOE and the contact tracers . . . did I learn that any meeting lasting more than 30 minutes would require everyone in the room with the identified person with a positive test to quarantine even if all safety protocols were followed, which they were,” Mele wrote.
In response to Mele’s denial, the DOE stuck to its assertion that safety protocols were violated.
“Based on the answers we received, it was determined social distancing was not reliably followed at all times,” said department spokesman Nathaniel Styer. He did not elaborate. Some quarantined teachers are now worried about getting sick or infecting their family.
Of the 150 schools with COVID-19 cases, the DOE’s latest report on Friday night listed 12 school buildings where a person tested positive on Thursday. They included seven where the infected person came into contact with co-workers.
Seward Park Educational Campus on the Lower East Side was closed on Friday for 24 hours after two staffers tested positive.
DOE child-care programs have also been affected. The Nuestros Niños Day Care Center in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was closed Wednesday for 24 hours after two positive cases were reported there within seven days, the DOE said.
Officials said some children have tested positive, but they would not give a number.
About eight administrators, teachers and other staff at IS 131 in Soundview, The Bronx were quarantined for two weeks after two staffers tested positive.
At least 14 teachers and administrators at the Queens HS for Information, Research and Technology in Far Rockaway were quarantined after a supervisor in charge of safety and security tested positive, staffers said.
The teachers at the Queens school were upset because they spent two days working in the building before they got notice of the infection.