Results tagged “schoolclosings”

Parents have been clamoring for their children's respective schools to close due to swine flu fears for the past few weeks. Today, parents at P.S. 209 in the Bronx feel that their kids' school was finally closed. NY1 reports that "209 out of 241 students were absent on Friday and 116 were absent yesterday." Though there are no confirmed cases of swine flu at the schools, parents explained, "This is basically what we wanted all along, just to make sure that all the services and everything were clean because they had so many kids out with flu-like symptoms," and "These are our children and they are precious and we want the same rights that they have to close the schools down and wash them down in Queens." P.S. 209 will reopen on June 8; here's more on school attendance rates.

The city is closing six additional schools after a numerous cases of "influenza-like illness" among students. Four of the schools (in a total of two buildings) are in East Harlem while two schools (in one building) are in Brooklyn's Sunset Park neighborhood. In the meantime, parents at schools which have yet to close are anxious. At PS 96 in Queens and at PS 180 in Brooklyn, parents protested. A PS 96 mom told the Daily News, "These are 4- and 5-year-olds coming down with 102-degree fevers and infecting their siblings. There is no logical explanation why our school is not closed." And PS 180 is in the same building as a school that did close. However, in spite of the absentee rates, the Health Department says, "High absenteeism by itself is not a reason for closing schools," noting no students at PS 96 and PS 180 went to the nurse with symptoms or had flu-like symptoms. (What is they were already at home!?) The city is now reporting 388 swine flu cases.

With the city's announcement yesterday that two more people died from swine flu, New Yorkers are still, naturally, worried about the swine flu. The NY Times visited Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where "The hospital created a flu clinic in an area that usually accommodates patients who have been admitted and are waiting for a bed. It was filled on Tuesday with people in masks being evaluated for flu." An average May 2008 day in the Maimonides ER would have about 263 patients—on Monday, there was 480. The hospital's ER chairman said, "The consensus among these physicians is that the influenza is mild but the patients are unusually scared."

There have been two more confirmed deaths from swine flu in New York City, health commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden confirmed during a press conference today. A 41-year-old Queens woman and a 34-year-old Brooklyn man have died since Friday; both had underlying medical conditions. The fatalities bring the NYC death toll to four; earlier this month Mitchell Wiener, an 55-year-old assistant principal at a Queens middle school, and a Queens woman in her 50s both died from swine flu. (The two recent victims are notably younger than the others.) During the press conference, Frieden also announced the closure of another school in Queens, a 42-student special-education program where children have flu-like symptoms. Frieden, who is President Obama's choice to lead the C.D.C., said that city emergency rooms are getting more than 2,000 visitors per day—the typical number of visits is usually under two hundred a day per E.R. But he also stressed that although swine flu is more contagious than seasonal flu, it is not more deadly (so far). According to City Room, roughly 1,000 city residents die each year die from complications of seasonal flu. Mayor Bloomberg even says swine flu victims should consider themselves lucky.

Today, 20 public schools that had been closed after many students were absent (due to flu-like symptoms) are reopening, but 17 schools/programs are closed or are closing. IS 238 is among the reopened schools; the school's assistant principal Mitch Wiener was the city's first fatal swine flu victim. His widow spoke out, puzzled that Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday, "In some senses, if you have H1N1 [virus], you should consider yourself lucky because it so far seems to be a milder flu than the garden variety." Bonnie Wiener, still reeling from her husband's death, said, "I'm not feeling very lucky. I'm sorry I can't agree with that. My children are not feeling very lucky either." Bloomberg had been trying to reassure New Yorkers after the second swine flu death—a woman in her 50s with an apparent underlying health condition—and the Daily News notes he backtracked, "It's very sad that those that we've lost are gone, but the good news is that so far it does seem to be a relatively mild flu."

NYC schools are feeling fortunate to have a holiday weekend as the swine flu virus has left the school system with a juggling act of deciding which schools to close while struggling to make things work at others ravaged by the virus but trying their best to keep classes going during the home stretch of the school year. The city closed four more schools yesterday—in Maspeth, Borough Park, Bushwick and East Harlem. Meanwhile in Woodside, 50 parents and teachers picketed outside PS 12 demanding it be closed after 400 students called out sick this week. One sick teacher told the Times, “Every day you wonder how many kids are coming into class and how many are going to be there at the end of the day. I know I wouldn’t be sick if they would have just closed down.” Criticism over schools staying open continues with limited subs and schools taking measures such as rewarding students who show up with no homework days. Principals are also crossing their fingers that legislation passes next week to grant a swine flu exception for schools not getting in their required 180 days in session—without it, closed schools could lose funding for next year.

As four schools are reopening today after large numbers of students (and teacher) have come down with swine flu-like symptoms, six more schools—four in Queens, two in Brooklyn—are closing. The Department of Education has finally put a list of closed schools as well as open schools with their attendance rates online— the third letter in the code represents the borough (M for Manhattan, X for the Bronx, K for Brooklyn, Q for Queens and R for Staten Island). For instance, Louis Brandeis High School in Manhattan has an attendance rate of 64% and Richmond Hill High School in Queens has one of 65%.

Mayor Bloomberg sought to calm worried parental units at a City Hall press conference yesterday, telling the press that most of the people going to the hospital with swine flu symptoms aren't sick, just scared: "While there are an abnormal number of people going to the hospital who are worried, virtually none, a very tiny percentage of them, have any symptoms whatsoever." But the mayor's downplaying of the outbreak comes as the city closes an additional three schools (bringing the current total to 25), and mourners bid farewell to Queens assistant principal Mitchell Wiener, swine flu's first city victim.

This morning, parents, worried about the swine flu and their children's health, held a rally demanding that their Queens public schools be shut down. Currently, there are 21 public schools and five private schools closed due to swine flu concerns. The city maintains that they are monitoring schools, but one parent told NY1 that illness could have been avoid, "My daughter came to school on Monday, she came to school very healthy and when she went home, she was crying for her throat and her head. And then an hour later, she had a high fever."

Last night, a 16-month-old boy with flu-like symptoms died at Elmhurst Hospital Center. According to the Daily News, the hospital said 200 people were also there with flu-like symptoms. The Centers for Disease Control will investigate whether swine flu was the culprit.

With the swine flu outbreak closing down a handful of schools and claiming its first local victim, Mayor Bloomberg wasted no time in naming Dr. Thomas Farley as the new commissioner of the health department. Farley will begin on June 8th once Thomas Frieden takes over his new post heading up the CDC. Farley was a safe and expected choice as an epidemics expert who has advised Frieden and may have also won over the mayor's (low in cholesterol) heart with his aggressive stance against obesity. The Daily News says Farley recently ran into some controversy with "a memo to Frieden noting an increase in syphilis and HIV infection among gay men and suggesting the city 'reevaluate' its policies on gay bathhouses and other venues where men have sex with men." As for the swine flu situation, a twelfth school has shut its doors because so many students were sick. However, Upper East Side St. David's, a Catholic school for boys, closed voluntarily with the mayor saying, "They chose to close, we did not recommend they close."

Yesterday, I.S. 238 assistant principal Mitch Wiener passed away, becoming the first NYC fatality of the swine flu. Wiener's illness was disclosed last week, when his school in Queens closed along with others. Mayor Bloomberg said, "His death is a loss for our schools and our city," and called him a "well-liked and devoted educator."

Last week, six schools were closed last week due to high numbers of students having swine flu-like symptoms. Now, teachers union the United Federation of Teachers says 18 other schools have had high numbers of absent students—and that the Health Department should monitor them for possible closure.

After closing three schools on Thursday due to swine flu symptoms in many students, the city closed three more—JHS 74 in Bayside, Queens and P.S. 107 in Flushing, Queens and I.S. 318 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Students at those three schools also exhibited "unusually high levels of influenza-like illnesses." Health Department Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden said, "Despite the significant disruption this causes, the Health Department has recommended closing these schools to reduce the spread of influenza. We are continuing to carefully monitor H1N1 virus throughout the City, and are taking action again today because there are unusually high and increasing levels of flu-like illnesses at these three public schools."

Swine flu ain't gone yet. An assistant principal has been hospitalized in critical condition with the H1N1 virus and the city is closing down three public schools in Queens after hundreds of students have come down with flu symptoms. The assistant principal works at Intermediate School 238 in Hollis and may have had a previous condition that made him vulnerable to the virus. At one of the closed schools, Intermediate School 5 in Elmhurst, 241 students were absent from classes today. The third school is PS 16 in Corona where 29 students reported flu-like symptoms to the nurse's office today. All three schools are expected to be shut down for tomorrow and all of next week. Mayor Bloomberg said, "While the symptoms of H1N1 flu seem to resemble those of seasonal flu, the H1N1 virus seems to spread rapidly, so we’re closing these schools in order to slow transmission.” Just earlier today the Health Department had reemphasized that there have been no deaths related to swine flu in the city and that all who have been affected have recovered or are recovering. The mayor is expected to have another press conference this evening.