About

Health & Safety

Bank Street lobby tree Come learn with us, safely.

Bank Street has developed strong health and safety policies that are aligned with guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the local Department of Health and informed by feedback from a range of experts, including doctors, architects, and engineers. Our policies are also in compliance with New York’s HERO Act standards to protect against airborne infectious diseases.

By implementing multiple layers of protection for children and staff, our plans allow our educators to continue to foster meaningful learning experiences and help us preserve the health and safety of our community. These robust health and safety measures build on those from the last two years, which have enabled us to become a leader among New York City schools in how to operate safely.

Below you can find an overview of our health and safety plans. You can also read our full plan.

Health & Safety Plan (English pdf) Health & Safety Plan (Spanish pdf)

Air Cleaning & Purification

We have made significant infrastructure investments to the HVAC system, including additional HVAC improvements such as installing MERV-13 filters. We also added a UV air purification system and added HEPA filters to all of our classrooms, enabling us to reach at least six exchanges per hour in all educational spaces.

Classroom windows are also kept open as much as possible to ensure ongoing fresh air in each room.

Cleaning & Hygiene

Teachers help students develop healthy habits by creating routines around frequent handwashing throughout the day, including upon arrival at school, before eating food, after using the bathroom, and after re-entering the building, as well as before and after each activity.

We have installed additional hand sanitizer dispensers in each classroom and throughout our hallways as well as touch-free hand soap dispensers and faucets where needed.

Vaccination Policy

We require all staff, students, and visitors across our programs to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, including having the COVID Bivalent Booster if eligible, or have an approved exemption in place. For more information, view our student vaccination policy.

Attendance Policies

Our attendance and sick policies include protocols in cases where a child or family member may have symptoms of or may have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus. In these cases, we use antigen testing to identify potential cases of COVID-19 as quickly as possible.

Positive Case Response and Testing

If a case arises in our building, that person is isolated as quickly as possible. We also require antigen testing requirements in place to protect others who may have been exposed to the virus while keeping students in school as much as possible.