Middle School Goes 100% Remote Until January 4th

December 13, 2020

Dear Rye Middle School Families, Faculty and Staff,

The District was informed last evening that an individual at Rye Middle School has tested positive for COVID-19. The individual is currently in quarantine and was last at the school on Thursday, December 10. Due to federal health privacy laws, additional information about the individual cannot be released.

We are working closely with the Westchester County Department of Health and, as always, the safety of our students and staff is our highest priority. We are currently conducting contact tracing and expect to contact the families of students who we have been told will need to quarantine by this afternoon.  If you do not receive a second email from the District, this means that based on the guidance received from the Department of Health, your student did not meet their criteria for quarantine. We expect that the Department of Health will also be contacting individuals impacted by this case using contact information provided by the District; however, we understand that their call backlog is significant and those calls may not come immediately.

We have been working to try to find enough coverage to keep the school open, however, due to the large number of faculty, staff, and students in quarantine as a result of this case and the case from Friday, December 11, Rye Middle School will be fully remote beginning on Monday, December 14. We anticipate that the school will reopen for in-person instruction on Monday, January 4, following the winter recess. 

For more information about the WCDOH protocols for handling COVID-19 issues, please see their FAQ (HERE) and the NYSDOH guidance for COVID-19 decision-making (COVID-19 Toolkit).

Please be assured that we will continue to do everything in our power to keep the Rye Middle School community safe.

Sincerely,

Eric Byrne, Ed.D.