Six Uniondale students test positive for COVID-19, district representative says

Six young students from the Uniondale School District, plus an employee, tested positive for COVID-19 and were sent home with classmates who came into close contact in five school buildings, a representative from the school said on Monday. district.

The families of the students were informed on Friday and over the weekend by phone, and distance education will be provided to all concerned, the representative said.

Meanwhile, Levittown informed parents and staff on Friday that a total of 32 cases had been reported at eight local schools over five days, while New York City said on Monday it would administer tests more often in its schools.

In Uniondale, Monique Akil, the superintendent of schools, said through the district public relations agency that a staff member at Uniondale High School had tested positive, as had students from the Walnut Street Elementary School, Grand Avenue Elementary School, Turtle Hook Middle School and Lawrence Road. Middle school.

“The students and staff in question, as well as anyone identified as close contact, will be quarantined for ten days,” Akil said in a statement provided by public relations agency Zimmerman-Edelson. “We have organized a deep clean-up of the affected areas. In accordance with our plan to reopen, we have been in contact with the Nassau County Department of Health.”

The reported cases included three students at Turtle Hook School and one student each at Grand Avenue, Walnut Street and Lawrence Road, the representative said.

Uniondale is one of the first districts on Long Island to publicly report pandemic cases for the 2021-22 school year, since schools began reopening on August 26. The Uniondale system of 6,800 students, like many others, began classes on September 1 with all students. assigned to teaching at school five days a week.

Some other districts have provided parents with periodic updates on COVID cases in their own areas.

The 32 Levittown cases at eight local schools described in the notice to parents sent out Friday included: East Broadway Elementary with two cases and Gardiners Avenue Elementary with five cases. It also included Northside Elementary, with a case; Summit Lane Elementary, bringing in one; Salk Middle School, reporting 10; Wisdom Lane Middle, with six; Division Avenue High School, with two and MacArthur High School, with five.

Another 32 New Yorkers died from COVID-19 on Sunday – including four in Suffolk but none in Nassau, according to a press release sent by Governor Kathy Hochul’s office.

The death toll is down considerably from the worst of last year’s pandemic, when hundreds of deaths per day, including double-digit figures on the island. According to a tally the state reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 56,309 New Yorkers are believed to have died from the virus, the Hochul office said.

The number of New Yorkers who tested positive for COVID-19 on Long Island on Sunday was 476 – 223 in Nassau and 253 in Suffolk. That’s a significant drop from some days over the past few weeks, when some 1,200 cases were diagnosed daily.

In New York, a sample of unvaccinated public school students will be tested weekly – instead of twice a month – starting next week under new coronavirus pandemic protocols announced Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Also on Monday, de Blasio announced another change in the quarantine protocol: unvaccinated students will no longer need to stay out of school following an infection in their classroom, as long as they have been masked and at least one meter apart. This is in line with a recommendation from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said.

“We decided to make these two changes simultaneously, and they complement each other,” de Blasio said at his daily press conference, announcing that they would take effect next Monday – the date the vaccine mandate takes effect. of the city’s education ministry. for all school staff.

On Sunday, the largest union representing school workers, the United Teachers’ Federation, issued a letter to the mayor calling for a return to the weekly testing policy in place for the last school year.

Chancellor of Schools Meisha Ross Porter, also at de Blasio’s press conference, said the announced protocols “add an extra layer of security and surveillance to our testing policy” and that the more flexible quarantine rules ” will help keep students safe in their classrooms ”.

The protocols cover elementary, middle and secondary schools, she said.

The first day of school in New York was September 13.

Syntax, the public relations agency representing the Suffolk and Nassau Superintendent Associations, did not respond to a message regarding testing protocols at Long Island schools.

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John Hildebrand is Newsday’s senior educational writer and has covered school news and political issues affecting Long Island for over 40 years.