Bronx school allegedly told faculty to hide coronavirus case from students after teacher tested positive
A school in The Bronx has been in news for telling its faculty members that they can be fired if they ask students 'not to come to school', after one of the faculty members was tested positive for coronavirus, reports reveal.
As per a report from a March 15 teleconference with concerned teachers at the Grace Dodge campus in Crotona, a supervisor said, "Staff can get fired for telling kids not to come to school," the Post shared. The campus houses three schools. "Very few students will be in tomorrow. It’s not worth risking your job to lower the number," the supervisor had revealed. Later on that same day, Mayor Bill de Blasio had announced that the city would be shutting all schools but needs all teachers to attend three days of training on remote instruction.
The report raises concerns over whether the City Hall and the Department of Education failed to fully safeguard staff as well as students amid the coronavirus outbreak. They were also accused of limiting information released to the public.
A spokeswoman for the city’s Special Commissioner of Investigation for city schools confirmed on Friday, March 27, that there is an "open investigation" of the DOE's response to coronavirus.
The SCI had received a letter from Queens Councilman Robert Holden that called for a probe into a Brooklyn principal Dezann Romain, 36, who died from complications as a result of the virus.
Holden also cited a report that the DOE had kept the Brooklyn Technical HS open for 350 staffers even though five teachers tested positive for the virus. "I believe this conduct by the Chancellor to be extremely negligent and irresponsible," Holden shared.
The report also reveals that the DOE had delayed closing schools when the teachers had shared their positive coronavirus test results, saying they had to wait until the Health Department had ordered it. "The policy is, if there is no case on DOH record, then it doesn’t exist. If there’s no record, then it is Business as Usual. Therefore, we are open tomorrow," the report read.
This resulted in three schools located on Crotona Avenue opening their doors for teachers and students between March 17 and 19 to pick up laptops. During the March 15 teleconference, teachers realized how the "city has gotten increasingly tight" on informing school communities about the pandemic that has gripped the world.
"We are not allowed to communicate with students and families unless they are vetted by [superintendent’s] office," the report continued. The Crotona International HS teacher who had tested positive around March 12 had notified his principal immediately and also sent her his lab results.
He had also tried to warn several of his colleagues. "It’s been 16 days, and no one from the DOH has contacted me. I’m not saying Mr Carranza has to call me directly, but no one from the DOE had the decency to ask ‘How is this guy doing?'" he said. As the virus spread, Chancellor Richard Carranza sent out an email saying that subordinates should not alert health officials about the virus spreading. "At the moment, there is no reason for any school to call [the Health Department] to report potential or confirmed cases," the email read.
A few days later, Carranza sent letters to staff saying that there had been one confirmed case in the Crotona building and so the building was disinfected. In the letters, the angry teachers were told that they still needed to show up that week while a dozen had letters from doctors advised and urging a 14-day quarantine.
DOE spokeswoman Danielle Filson said, "We immediately looked into this when it was brought to our attention, and when we received confirmation from the state Health Department, we sent a notification out to the school community. We encouraged schools and staff to share accurate, confirmed information during this crisis."