Hell's Kitchen School Goes Remote Amid COVID Outbreak: DOE

HELL'S KITCHEN, NY — A Hell's Kitchen public school has closed down its building and begun remote classes due to an outbreak of COVID-19, according to the Department of Education.

City Knoll Middle School, on West 53rd Street between Ninth and 10th avenues, began its 10-day closure on Saturday. It is set to last through next Monday — one of just four school buildings across the city that were shut down as of Sunday evening, according to the DOE's map of active cases.

The city's first intervention at City Knoll happened on Wednesday, when a partial classroom quarantine was imposed — indicating that a student, teacher or another classroom-based staffer had tested positive.

In the ensuing days, another 12 partial quarantines were put in place, along with a non-classroom quarantine for a non-classroom-based educator, according to the DOE.

The building closure does not affect P.S. 111 Adolph S. Ochs or the City Charter School of the Arts, which both share a building with City Knoll, according to a DOE spokesperson.

Other Hell's Kitchen schools are grappling with how to handle the citywide surge in cases coinciding with the rise of the omicron variant.

A few blocks south, the principal of Beacon High School wrote in a community email that "many parents" have already decided to pull their students out due to safety concerns, saying evidence "suggests that school may be a source of spread," according to reporter Susan Edelman.

Besides the full closure at City Knoll, seven other Hell's Kitchen schools had partial classroom quarantines in place as of Sunday — in which only a subset of students in a room are required to stay home. They were:

• Success Academy Charter School - Hudson Yards on West 41st St Street
• Beacon High School on West 44th Street (three classrooms)
• Professional Performing Arts High School on West 48th Street (three classrooms)
• Success Academy Charter School - Hell's Kitchen on West 49th Street (two classrooms)
• Food and Finance High School/Facing History School/High School of Hospitality Management on West 50th Street (four classrooms)
• P.S. 35 on West 52nd Street (two classrooms)
• High School for Environmental Studies on West 56th Street (four classrooms)