The juggling act will continue for at least a few more weeks for families in the Fayetteville-Manlius School District.
Last week, the district announced that Fayetteville Elementary School, which shut down last Friday when two teachers tested positive for COVID-19, will be closed for in-person learning until at least Oct. 5. Five additional staff members have tested positive for the virus since the school closed last week, and six additional staff members and four students have been placed in quarantine.
After shutting down last Friday due to a positive test, Wellwood Middle School is slated to reopen on schedule on Tuesday, Sept. 28, although two more teachers and 14 students have been placed in quarantine following the Onondaga County Health Department’s contact tracing. Eleven of the 14 students may have been exposed to the virus in the school and the other three are believed to have been exposed at a non-school affiliated event off campus.
If all goes well this week, in-person teaching at Wellwood will be short-lived.
Last Friday, the district announced that Wellwood will be shutting down for in-person learning from Oct. 5 until Oct. 14 so that electrical work can be performed in the school. Remote teaching will continue through that period.
The electrical work is part of the $45.2 million facilities project that when complete will have fixed aging infrastructure, added instructional space, enhanced security, improved accessibility for people with disabilities and created energy efficiencies across the district.
“We know the timing of this is not ideal and is going to be an inconvenience for some families,” said Superintendent Dr. Craig Tice in a message to F-M families. “We were hoping that this could have been done when students were not in the building, but unfortunately, that is not the case as this portion of the project has to be done before the onset of winter weather.”
