How Freeport schools are facing Omicron

We’re vigilant and we are happy and fortunate that we have very few cases”

Freeport School Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham

In other districts

Uniondale High School went remote last Friday. Uniondale Schools Superintendent Dr. Monique Darrisaw-Akil posted a letter to the district website in English and Spanish that read, in part:

‘As you are all aware, there has been a dramatic increase in Covid infections across Long Island. In our district, this increase has impacted our staffing, and we are experiencing a far greater than normal shortage of teachers and support personnel at our high school. After careful consideration and in consultation with our medical professionals and the Nassau County Department of Health, we have decided to transition our high school students and staff to remote instruction beginning Friday, Dec. 17 until Thursday, Dec. 23, and return in-person after the holiday recess on Monday, Jan. 3.”

The Uniondale letter also said that the district hoped to minimize the spread of Covid-19 infections so that families’ travel and holiday plans would not be disrupted. Regular high school lunch monitors were sent to the other schools as needed. High school support staff and administrative personnel returned to work as usual.

A few miles south of Uniondale, East Rockaway Superintendent Lisa Ruiz put her district’s junior-senior high school on a remote basis from Dec. 15 through Dec. 22, after 20 students and three staff members tested positive, forcing 100 students into quarantine. East Rockaway’s break starts on Dec. 23. Its elementary schools were not affected.

Ruiz wrote in her letter, “This decision was made as it will be impossible to properly educate all students who are required to quarantine, as we simply do not have the staff to accommodate their learning needs. … This action will allow for a continuity of instruction.”

Several area schools abruptly switched to remote learning in the last week before the winter break in response to the rise of positive Covid-19 cases on Long Island since Thanksgiving.

In Freeport, Woodward Children’s Center and De La Salle School both chose remote learning as of Monday. Freeport Public Schools have remained open, but students throughout the district readied their Chromebooks and Google Classroom protocols just in case.

According to a Dec. 21 News 12 report, the rapid transmissibility of the Omicron variant may be the main cause of the spike in Nassau County’s positive Covid tests to 10.32%. Suffolk County’s positivity rate has soared to 13.7% — numbers not seen since spring 2020, the early days of the pandemic in the New York metropolitan area.

In Freeport, the case count at Woodward Children’s Center included two students and a staff member — but, according to Director Greg Ingino, the school had been Covid-free from reopening until last Friday, so the appearance of any positive cases at all triggered the precautionary measure of putting its 80 students on a remote basis starting Monday.

At De La Salle School on Pine Street, Principal School Jeanmarie Becker said that only one student had tested positive last week.

“We haven’t had it spread to any other student,” Becker said, “but out of abundance of caution for the rest of this week, we opted to go remote as of” Dec. 20.

Becker said that De La Salle had seen no Covid-19 cases within the school during the past year and a half, so the appearance of even one case was a red flag.

“I do feel that it’s spreading really quickly,” Becker said, “and I don’t want a whole family to be infected and sick, so best to be proactive rather than reactive.”

Both schools said they expected a return to in-person classes on Jan. 3.

In the Freeport Public Schools, Superintendent Dr. Kishore Kuncham said that the few positive Covid-19 cases among its 6,900 students did not merit closure before starting the winter break Dec. 24.

“We’ve been monitoring what’s going on in our region and also what’s going on in our schools,” Kuncham said, “and fortunately, the positivity rate in our schools, whether it’s students or staff, has been low — not even 1 percent … but we will continue to review how this is going to shape in the next several days, during the break and after the break.”

Kuncham said that the district has maintained strict protocols for cleaning the schools. It has continued social-distancing and mask-wearing. In partnership with Northwell Health and Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital, mobile clinics and vans have repeatedly visited Freeport High School to provide vaccinations for students from age 5, their families and district staff.

On Tuesday afternoon from 3 to 6 p.m. at the high school, a vaccination clinic was held to supply booster shots as well as first- or second-dose vaccinations.

“Over 87 percent of our staff are fully vaccinated,” Kuncham said, “and every week the rest of the staff are going through the weekly testing, so that’s a huge blessing.”

Kuncham and the district staff, however, are not complacent about the future of the coronavirus, especially in view of the rapidity with which the Omicron variant — known to epidemiologists as B.1.1.539 — has spread worldwide, including on Long Island.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of Covid infections attributable to Omicron jumped from about 2 percent on Dec. 4 to 73.2 percent by Dec. 18. The Delta variant (B.1.617.2) accounted for 26.2 percent on Dec. 18; it had stood at nearly 98 percent on Dec. 4.

Kuncham said Freeport district staff have continually checked to make sure all of the students had Chromebooks and internet access.

“The district is prepared to go remote on any given day on short notice,’ Kuncham said. “We have done this before, and this entire week, the last few days before the holiday, we are doing a bit of a dry run with the Chromebooks in the classrooms in case we go remote. … We’re vigilant, and we are happy and fortunate that we have very few cases.”