1 Week In, 11 Harlem Schools Close Classrooms For COVID Cases

HARLEM, NY — As the first week of fully in-person learning since the pandemic comes to a close for New York City's public schools, 126 of the 65,000 classrooms across the city were either fully or partially closed due to coronavirus cases detected in the building.

That number includes well over a dozen classrooms in at least 11 Harlem schools, according to the Department of Education's map.

That map, however, is likely incomplete. At an East Harlem school, at least 14 classrooms were closed as of Wednesday when 16 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed there, according to Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer.

The city's map, however, only shows six active closures at the school, which a source confirmed was P.S. 79.

16 cases of COVID have been identified at a school in East Harlem. The school is now under 24-hour investigation for possible closure. As of last night 14 classes were closed, only 33 classes in total. If the number gets any higher, the school would be short staffed.
— Gale A. Brewer (@galeabrewer) September 16, 2021

Here's the breakdown of classroom closures across Harlem:

West/Central Harlem:

LSSMNY: Early Life Children's Center 14 (510-516 West 145th St.):

• One classroom in this early education center was closed for about one week starting last Friday, Sept. 10.

Success Academy Charter School - Harlem 5 (301 West 140th St.)

• One classroom in this Harlem school building, also known as P.S. 123, was closed for five days starting Wednesday.

Success Academy Charter School - Harlem 5 (175 West 134th St.)

• A classroom was closed for five days starting on Tuesday in this school building, also known as P.S. 175.

Have a Harlem news tip? Contact reporter Nick Garber at [email protected].

P.S. 76 A. Philip Randolph (220 West 121st St.):

• A classroom in this school building was closed for one week starting on Wednesday.

P.S. 149 Sojourner Truth/Success Academy Charter School - Harlem 1 (34 West 118th St.)

• At least two classrooms have been closed in this shared Central Harlem school building — both for about one week, starting on Friday.

East Harlem:

P.S. 79 (55 East 120th St.):

• The city's map shows at least six classrooms were closed in this East Harlem school building starting on Thursday, though Brewer said the number was 14.

Harlem Village Academy East Charter School/I.S. 45 (2351 First Ave.)

• One classroom in this East Harlem school building was closed for three days starting on Friday

East Harlem Bilingual Head Start (440 East 116th St.):

• One classroom was closed for four days starting on Thursday.

East Harlem Scholars Academy Charter School II (1573 Madison Ave.):

• At least two classrooms in this school were closed for a week starting Monday.

Success Academy Charter School - Harlem 3/I.S. 9 (400 East 100th St.):

• One classroom was closed for a week starting Friday at this East Harlem school.

In total, 421 classrooms across the five boroughs have been closed down since the first day of school on Monday as the DOE tracked 560 coronavirus cases among students and staff, according to the map.

That number is less than 1 percent of the 65,000 spaces the city is using as classrooms this year. The city typically has around 48,000 classrooms, but added other spaces to help with social distancing, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio.

On Friday, 80 of the classrooms were still closed and 46 were under partial closure, the map shows.

No schools have had to be fully closed down since the start of the school year. Under new policies, entire schools will only be closed this year when there is evidence of "widespread transmission," as determined by the Health Department and Department of Education.

The first week of data comes as New York City welcomed back all 1 million of its public school students to the classroom for the first time since the pandemic struck, bringing all eyes to the ability of the city to deliver on its promise for the "gold standard" of health and safety in the 2021-22 school year.

On Friday, the mayor called the data a "strong start" to the school year.

"This is, thank God, relatively few against the comparison of 65,000 classrooms," the mayor said Friday. "We're seeing low positivity in the testing we're doing so far. It's a strong start."

On top of an intricate plan of vaccine mandates, social distancing and extensive cleaning policies, the city is trying out a new way to address coronavirus cases in schools given vaccine rates among older students.

Students who are vaccinated will be able to stay in their classroom even if a coronavirus case is detected as long as they are asymptomatic, leading to the partial closure of classrooms at the middle and high school level. Unvaccinated students will quarantine at home and can "test back in" to class with a negative test after the seventh day.

In elementary schools, where children are not old enough to get the shot, the entire classroom will quarantine should a positive case be detected.

The mayor has called those rules a conservative approach to stopping the spread of the virus and noted it could change as the school year progresses.

"The standard we're holding right now is conservative," the mayor said Tuesday. "It's something that we have said explicitly we would reconsider depending on how things go over the first few weeks."

Patch reporter Anna Quinn contributed.