NEW YORK – New York City middle schools will restart in-person classes Feb. 25 after more than three months of remote-only school, officials announced Monday.
The public junior highs have been closed for in-person instruction since the middle of November, when the entire school system was briefly shuttered because of rising COVID-19 rates.
Officials reopened preschools, elementary schools, and District 75 programs for students with complex disabilities at the beginning of December with increased testing, but said they needed more time to plan the logistics of middle and high school reopening.
Schools with in-person classes are required to test 20% of students and staff on-site each week. Officials say they now have the testing capacity to extend that regimen to middle schools.
Officials said they’ll also add staff to the “situation room” — a clearinghouse for recording school-based COVID-19 cases and relaying information to contact tracers.
Temporary school closures triggered by multiple COVID-19 cases in the same school building have become commonplace since the partial reopening in early December.
Roughly 62,000 students in grades six to eight had signed up for in-person classes before the school system shuttered in November.
Middle school staff will report back to their buildings Feb. 24, the day before students return — and will be prioritized for COVID-19 vaccines at city-run vaccination sites during the Department of Education’s mid-winter break from Feb. 15-19, officials said.
Officials have not yet announced a timeline for reopening high schools, though Mayor de Blasio said he expects it to happen this school year.
