Gotham Avenue School to remain closed for Covid

The Gotham Avenue School in Elmont will remain closed until Nov. 16, Superintendent Kenneth Rosner announced in a letter to parents on Monday, when district officials were informed that a parent and two of his or her children have tested positive for Covid-19.

A “large number of staff members” were considered to be close contacts with these infected individuals under Nassau County Department of Health guidelines, Rosner wrote, and as a result, the school will remain closed for the duration of the 14-day quarantine period, while students learn remotely.

The building would be open for in-person voting on Nov. 3, however. It has been cleaned and disinfected in accordance with Centers for Disease Control and New York State Department of Health regulations, Rosner said, “and we can assure the public that there is no danger of a person contacting the virus from surface contact in the school.”

It, along with all of the other Elmont Union Free School District buildings that serve as polling places, would be cleaned and sanitized within hours after polls close, he said, and while Gotham Avenue will remain closed, the other schools would be able to open safely on Nov. 4 “with no possibility of transmission of the virus from any surface.”

The new cases, meanwhile, brought the school district up to five positive cases since the beginning of the school year, according to data from the New York State Department of Health.

District officials had previously announced that an individual who provides daycare to a student at the Covert Avenue School, a parent of students at the Clara H. Carlson School and a parent of a student at the Dutch Broadway School had tested positive for the virus at the end of October.

No student or staff member had tested positive for the virus in any of the cases, Rosner said, but the students who were in contact with these individuals, and their classes, were told to quarantine and learn remotely. The buildings, and especially the rooms these students used, he noted, have been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.