Students, Staff Return To Massapequa Schools For New Year

MASSAPEQUA, NY — For the first time since March, schools in Massapequa were bustling with students, but Sept. 8 marked a first day like none before. There were the usual staples of a new school year – new backpacks, clothes and sneakers, bags and boxes full of school supplies and a heightened level of energy and enthusiasm. There were also masks, desk barriers and teachers with bottles of hand sanitizer at their classroom doors, all signs of life in the coronavirus pandemic.

At the elementary schools, students in grades 1 through 5 were back in their buildings, with kindergarten to follow a day later. Classrooms had freshly decorated bulletin boards along with plenty of signs reminding students to practice good hygiene habits.

Each staff member at Birch Lane Elementary School was wearing a button with their picture to help remind students who was behind the mask. Fifth grader Christian Bekiers didn’t mind coming back to school with all the extra precautions in place because he prefers in-person learning and being with his classmates.

“I wanted to see my friends again and I wanted to see who my teacher was,” he said, adding that in a year with a lot of changes, it’s important for fifth graders, as the oldest students in the school, to be good role models.

The secondary schools opened with a hybrid instruction model. Sixth graders at Berner Middle School will have in-person classes every day, with seventh and eighth graders splitting time between school and remote home instruction to reduce density in the building. Massapequa High School’s 10th through 12th graders will rotate on a four-day cycle with two days in school and two days remote, cutting the capacity in half.

The Ames Campus, with approximately 500 ninth graders, will have full in-person instruction five days per week. Teachers are also live streaming their lesson for students who have chosen full-time distance learning.

“Finally, we are able to say, ‘Welcome back!’” Superintendent Lucille Iconis said. “Although school looks different this year, our teachers, staff and students arrived on the first day with the same enthusiasm that we see every year. Undoubtedly, this will be a unique school year and we all need to work together to make it a success!”