Bayside School Faces Second COVID Investigation Amid Case Uptick

BAYSIDE, QUEENS — Students will continue to learn in-person at a Bayside school which was under investigation for the second time this month amid an uptick in COVID cases.

At least five people at P.S. 169, an elementary school located at 18-25 212th Street in Bay Terrace, have tested positive for the coronavirus since Nov. 11th, including two students and one teacher in the last seven days, data shows.

This uptick, which brought the Bay Terrace school's total case count for this school year to 26, prompted an investigation on Monday by the Department of Education and Department of Health — the second of such this month, following an investigation twelve days ago when cases tripled at the school during the span of one week.

The investigation did not find proof of "widespread in-school transmission" — the city's litmus test for closing a school — since it was determined that the school should remain open, according to the DOE's Daily COVID Case Map.

Last week a DOE spokesperson told Patch that the agency "investigates every [COVID] case in our schools" and that school investigations are a "regular process" that the agency conducts.

According to the agency's Daily COVID case map, however, there have only been 23 such investigations at the DOE's 1,800-plus schools this academic year, compared to hundreds of classroom closures — another kind of COVID-related intervention.

As of Monday, four investigations are currently in effect, three of which are at schools in Queens.

At the time of the Bay Terrace investigation one classroom at the elementary school is totally closed, and four others are partially closed due to COVID-related exposures, data shows, meaning that some COVID-positive people weren't in class, but vaccinated children who were exposed to the virus were still learning in-person.

Most of these classrooms are slated to fully reopen this week, and the rest will return to in-person classes as usual next week.

The investigation at P.S. 169 comes during a month when two public schools were forced to temporarily close amid COVID-19 outbreaks, bringing the total number of COVID-related school closures in NYC to three this academic year.

Another private school in Astoria closed last week, too, as a "precautionary" measure amid an uptick in cases, Patch reported.

Despite this spike, the demand for vaccination at NYC public schools has exceeded expectations, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, with the city vaccinating 82,000 5- to 11-year-olds in two weeks.

Now, 12 percent of eligible New Yorkers ages 11 and under are vaccinated, which exceeds the national average of 10 percent among that group, de Blasio announced.

The city will continue to expand its school vaccination program given the higher-than-expected demand for the shots at public schools; the expansion will include charter schools and a second round of vaccination at public schools starting Nov. 30, even though city officials originally planned to only have first doses available at the school sites.

Related Articles: Bayside School Where COVID Cases Nearly Tripled To Stay Open: DOE