School district employees called back to work in Plainview-Old Bethpage
John F. Kennedy High School is part of the Plainview-Old Bethapage school district. A representative of a statewide school administrators group told the district's officials they would be violating the governor's shutdown order if they called staff back to school buildings. Credit: Barry Sloan
The Plainview-Old Bethpage school district — one of the first school systems on Long Island to close after a staffer tested positive with the coronavirus in early March — will start calling in some employees Monday on a revised schedule to close out the school year and prepare for the fall opening, school officials said.
Superintendent Lorna Lewis said she has asked some clerical staff and administrators, who have been working remotely since early March, to return to the school buildings two days a week.
But later Friday, Arthur Scheuermann, general counsel for the School Administrators Association of New York State, which represents more than 7,500 school administrators and supervisors in New York, reached out to the district to say that officials there would be violating Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's order if they called staff back in Monday.
“We represent a lot of administrators on Long Island, and none of them are working from school — they are working from home in compliance with the governor’s order,” Scheuermann said.
Lewis said one clerical worker and one administrator will be in each of the seven school buildings, along with custodians. This does not impact the entire clerical staff, she said, but about 50%.
“We have simply not gotten the work of the district completed, and it is impossible to do everything online,” Lewis said Friday.
Scheuermann noted the governor's order permits staff in school under three conditions: assisting in online instruction, food distribution and child care for essential workers.
He said district officials told him they still plan to call staff in on Monday.
“What function do they have to do in the building that they couldn’t do remotely right now?” he said. “A lot of their job is supervision of faculty and students, and they are not there. A lot of the paperwork could easily be done at home.”
He said that some staff are concerned about going back because they have health conditions or are taking care of elderly parents or children. In an email to the district, he said that the directive to return "recklessly may cause a significant reoccurrence of COVID-19 within."
Lorna Lewis, Plainview-Old Bethpage schools superintendent, said staffers who have been called back will maintain social distancing as they work to close out the year to prepare for a potential reopening. Credit: Newsday / Alejandra Villa
Lewis said staffers will maintain social distancing and that the district has spent more than $25,000 on supplies such as gloves and masks for workers and more than $300,000 on cleaning. Lewis said she and other top administrative staff have been reporting to the central administration offices.
“You have to remember that on March 10 our children and staff left all the buildings,” she said. “All of their materials are still in the classrooms … and we need to close the buildings.”
She said that textbooks need to be returned and inventoried, as well as uniforms, musical instruments and other student essentials. Staffers need to retrieve mail and prepare transcripts, she said.
“There is a natural rhythm to schools, and that rhythm has been broken by COVID, but we have got to get back to get prepared for the re-entry of children in the fall," she said, "and we are doing so in the most mindful way that we can.”
Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.
