Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on November 1, 2020

Chris McKenna,Jon Campbell|Times Herald-Record

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced modified rules for coronavirus hot spots on Friday that will allow schools serving nearly 15,000 children in the Kiryas Joel area to reopen after all students and staff members have been tested for the virus.

The new rules applied to schools in areas designated as either red or orange zones because of spikes in COVID-19 cases. Kiryas Joel, identified as a red zone on Oct. 6, was downgraded to an orange zone this week after COVID-19 cases subsided, which increased the number of people allowed insidesynagogues but still required that schools be closed.

Most children in the Hasidic community attend religious schools, some of which defied state and county orders to close or declared themselves day care centers in order to stay open. But the orders did force Kiryas Joel's only public school to shut for three weeks, cutting off in-person classes and therapy for its special-needs students, some with severe disabilities.

Isaac Weinberger, whose 10-year-old son has Down Syndrome and attends Kiryas Joel's public school, said Friday that his son has been regressing without the seven hours of daily instruction and therapy that are helping him speak, grasp utensils and do a host of other tasks that don't come easily to him.

The school's staff has managed to provide remote instruction for some students during the closure, but Naftuli needs in-person therapy and has had no schooling at all for three weeks. His father argued the state should adjust its restrictions to accommodate special education or require frequent virus testing if that would enable Naftuli's school to reopen.

"All of us would be happy to get tested every day," Weinberger said.

Cuomo announced that very policy move to reporters an hour later in a conference call.

He said that after discussions with school officials in red and orange zones, his administration is allowing school to reopen but will require every student and employee to test negative for COVID-19 before they return. Once schools reopen, they must test 25 percent of their students and staff each week to monitor for new infections.

"We've been working with them to find ways to keep people safe but allow children to go to school," Cuomo said. "We have an agreement with them on a protocol that I think keeps people safe and allows children to be educated."

As of Friday, the state had carved out red or orange zones in parts of Orange, Rockland, Steuben and Chemung counties and Brooklyn. It also had designated yellow zones with lighter restrictions in those counties too, plus Broome and Steuben counties and Queens.

The yellow zone drawn around Kiryas Joel has led theMonroe-Woodbury School District to close its North Main Elementary School, which would otherwise have had to test 20 percent of its students and staff every week.

Cuomo said he believes the new testing plan in red and orange zones strikes the right balance between safety and ensuring children can attend school, which has major child-care implications.

The added benefit is getting a greater sense of COVID-19's spread through a community by being able to track cases back to a particular student's household and who they had contact with.

"It will also give us an idea about homes and households in that area," Cuomo said."If a child tests positive, then we can contact trace back to the family."

Continue reading here:

State will let Kiryas Joel schools reopen if all students and staff are tested for virus - Times Herald-Record

Category: Hasidic
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