Six young students in the Uniondale school district tested positive for COVID-19, and were sent home along with classmates who came in close contact in four school buildings, a district spokesman said Monday.
The spokesman added that students’ families were notified by phone of infections on Friday and over the weekend, and that remote instruction would be provided for all those affected.
Cases reported include three students at Turtle Hook Middle School, and one student each at Grand Avenue Elementary School, Walnut Street Elementary School and Lawrence Road Middle School.
Quarantines of students and school staffers potentially affected by the virus are for at least 10 days, the spokesman said.
The six cases reported in Uniondale are the first that have become public for the 2021-22 school year, since districts began reopening on Aug 26. The 6,800-student Uniondale district, like many others, opened Sept. 1 with all students assigned to in-school instruction five days a week.
In New York City, a sampling of unvaccinated public school students will be tested every week — instead of twice a month — starting next week under new coronavirus-pandemic protocols announced Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Also Monday, de Blasio announced another shift in quarantine protocol: unvaccinated students will no longer need to stay out of school following an infection in their classroom so long as they had been masked and at least three feet apart. This is in line with a recommendation from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said.
“We’ve decided to make both of these changes simultaneously, and they do complement each other,” de Blasio said at his daily news conference, announcing they’ll take effect Sept. 27 — the effective date of the city Department of Education’s vaccine mandate for all school personnel.
On Sunday, the biggest labor union representing school employees, the United Federation of Teachers, publicized a letter sent to the mayor that requested a return to the weekly testing policy that was in effect for the last school year.
Schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter, also at de Blasio’s news conference, said the protocols being announced “add an additional layer of security and surveillance to our testing policy” and the looser quarantine rules “will help keep students safely in their classrooms.”
The protocols cover elementary, middle and high schools, she said.
New York City’s first day of school was Sept. 13.
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