NYC school safety agent tested positive for COVID-19 after being at work
New York City NY March 22 2020 A school safety agent at Woodside elementary school P.S. 306 New York City Academy for Discovery tested positive for COVID-19 after being at work and interacting with students, staff and families.
“The school is being cleaned right now and we will hopefully have it up and running tomorrow,” Freddi Goldstein, a spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio, said.
The agent had apparently been visibly sick the week of March 2 but still came into work until March 6, when she began to stay home.
In fact, March 5 had been parent-teacher conference night, when many people who do not usually enter the building, such as parents and older siblings, come in, and the agent was present during this.
It wasn’t until Sunday, March 8 that the parents found out via the school’s messaging app that the security guard’s test result came back positive. The school still opened the next day for classes.
P.S. 306 Parent’s Association co-President and mother of a second grader at the school Maribell Perez-McDaniel was very vocal about her thoughts on the situation and schools being kept open.
“She came into contact with many, many people during that week. If you clean the school and bring sick people back into the school who may not know it yet, you’re contaminating more people and more people and more people,” she said. “I don’t understand how they’re planning to open the school again. If this is happening in my little school in Woodhaven, how many schools is this happening in across the city? I think it’s time to close the schools.”
