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UES school holds full-time in-person classes
While NYC public schools are still working out staffing and health protocols, an independent Montessori-inspired school on the UES has found a way to successfully conduct in-person classes.
NEW YORK - At the Caedmon School, an independent Montessori School on the Upper East Side, the playground was sprayed down with sanitizer Friday afternoon for the 7th time. Meanwhile, parents and nannies picked up their masked children, as close to normal as it has been since last winter.
Head of School Matthew Stuart says 75 percent of students from early learning through 5th grade have been in class at the school full time since last week.
“Every morning, a family gets a message to fill out, does your child have a fever, does your child have the sniffles, COVID,” said Stuart.
The plan is to bring in more students over the course of the next two weeks.
While it is unfair to compare a charter school to the largest public school district in the U.S., but Stuart says this alternative safely provides kids with a social environment they so desperately need. And parents say it's been a welcome relief.
"I haven't felt uneasy at all so far, I think it's because the numbers in New York City are low, the school is very spacious, all the kids are wearing masks, I feel like they've taken every precaution they can," said one parent.
Nevertheless, Stuart says the school is taking things day-by-day, and that some students haven't been allowed in simply because they had the sniffles.