4 Upper East Side Schools Close Classrooms For COVID Cases

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A week after the city relaxed the rules requiring quarantines after positive COVID-19 tests, nearly a dozen Upper East Side schools remain swept up in virus protocols, according to the Department of Education.

As of Monday, 11 public schools on the Upper East Side had either closed a classroom or imposed a partial quarantine due to a coronavirus exposure, according to the interactive map from the Department of Education.

Several of those closures began this week, even after the city revised its COVID-19 protocols last week to allow unvaccinated children to remain in school even after they come in contact with a positive student. That change coincided with the vaccine mandate for teachers, which took effect Monday, and followed guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Still, a total of 32 classrooms across the city were closed as of Sunday evening, with another 39 under partial quarantines. Since the school year began last month, only one school — P.S. 79 in East Harlem — has had to go temporarily remote due to a virus outbreak.

Here's the rundown of Upper East Side closures:

Classrooms closed

The following schools have one or more classrooms closed due to a positive case in a student, teacher or staff member:

• East Side Elementary/P.S. 267: the East 63rd Street elementary school closed one classroom for five days starting on Monday.
• P.S. 290/Manhattan New School: one classroom was closed for about a week starting last Tuesday.
• Yorkville Community School: the East 88th Street building closed two classrooms for a week starting Monday, and also began a partial classroom quarantine last Thursday.
• District 2 Pre-K Center: this Third Avenue pre-K closed one classroom for a week starting last Tuesday.

Partial quarantines

These schools were under partial classroom quarantines, in which vaccinated children can stay in school despite being exposed, as long as they do not feel sick:

• P.S. 183 Robert L. Stevenson
• Talent Unlimited High School
• J.H.S. 167 Robert F. Wagner (3 classrooms)
• P.S. 158 Bayard Taylor
• P.S. 6 Lillie D. Blake
• The High School for Climate Justice
• P.S. 198 Isador E. Ida Straus

Have an Upper East Side news tip? Email reporter Nick Garber at nick.garber@patch.com.

Altogether, 1,210 classrooms have been closed due to COVID exposures since the start of school on Sept. 13. That's less than two 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.)

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.