Nassau Middle School To Close After Staffer Tests Positive

SYOSSET, NY — A Syosset middle school will be closed Monday after the district said a staff member tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. In a letter to parents Sunday, the Syosset Central School District said it learned late Sunday afternoon that a member of South Woods Middle School's instructional staff tested positive for the disease.

"We have immediately initiated our building sanitizing and deep cleaning protocols," the district said in the letter.

The South Woods school building will be closed Monday to allow Nassau County Department of Health teams enough time to perform contact tracing.

South Woods will hold a full virtual day of instruction, the district said. Students will follow their schedule and should check Google Classroom for instructions from teachers.

All South Woods students should be considered under "'precautionary quarantine'" until the health department finishes its investigation.

"This means that these students should refrain from leaving their homes and having contacts outside their immediate family until the NCDOH completes its investigation," the district said.

People deemed to be in close contact with the staffer will be notified directly by either the health department or the school district and will have to begin a mandatory, two-week quarantine. Anyone not contacted can assume their child was not determined to be in close contact with the staffer, meaning they weren't within 6 feet of the person for at least 15 minutes starting from two days before the onset of the illness (or, for asymptomatic patients, two days prior to positive specimen collection) until the time the patient was isolated.

Under state health guidelines, a contact of a contact, such as a sibling of a South Woods student, is not required to quarantine unless the South Woods student begins to show symptoms.