COVID-19

Curley School Reopens After COVID Outbreak

The Curley School in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood reopens Monday after dozens of COVID-19 cases among students and staff members

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The Curley School in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood reopened Monday after a coronavirus outbreak that impacted around 50 students and staff members.

The school closed for 10 days against the Massachusetts education commissioner's wishes, with students learning remotely as administrators worked to contain the outbreak.

But it's back to in-person learning Monday morning, with extra-curricular activities and after school programs also starting up again.

The school said it was unable to find a vendor to accommodate daily testing for its nearly 1,000 students and more than 100 employees, making it difficult to opt for the state's "Test and Stay," program.

The program allows students who have had close contact with COVID patients to continue taking in-person classes as long as they submit to daily testing.

Instead, the K-8 school announced a plan to switch to remote learning for 10 days to curb the outbreak, which recently sickened around 50 students and employees.

A school in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood will remain closed, with students learning remotely, after dozens of students and staff members tested positive for COVID-19, a move that has drawn opposition from state officials.

The state education commissioner, Jeffrey Riley, quickly criticized that decision, requesting that students return no later than Nov. 17. He also recommended that the school set up testing by Nov. 14.

Riley also refused to grant the school's request that seven of the 10 remote days be counted toward the required 180-day school year.

He waived only four of the remote days.

Parents are certainly hoping that an outbreak doesn’t happen again and want this to be an example to other districts.

“I think that as a city, contact tracing, that we don’t have to go through this again and that this is an example for other schools in the system," father Marc Germain said.

"If you have a pending test, don’t bring your child to school. If they have a fever, don’t bring your child to school. If they have the sniffles, don’t bring your child to school," mother Keeana Saxon said. "So if we can all keep with that, I think we’ll be just fine."

The Boston Public Health Commission is slated to hold a vaccine clinic after school Monday between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.

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