Students back to schools closed by flu

NEW YORK (AP) - A Queens school once again bustled with activity Tuesday, about a week after its assistant principal became the city's first death linked to swine flu.

The Susan B. Anthony Intermediate School in Queens — I.S. 238 — was among 20 schools or programs that reopened after being shuttered as a precaution amid the city's 330 confirmed cases of the H1N1 virus.

Two New Yorkers have died of swine-flu-related causes since the outbreak began more than a month ago, when hundreds of students at St. Francis Preparatory School in the Fresh Meadows section of Queens became sick.

"We just want to keep things moving," said Joseph Gates, principal of I.S. 238, as he helped load two buses of students headed for a school trip to Washington, D.C.

Hundreds of others filed into the schoolhouse, with teachers asking reporters not to interview them.

At Public School 19 in Queens' Corona neighborhood, schools Chancellor Joel Klein welcomed the children.

Third-grader Eric Sobarzo was dropped off by his big brother, Peter DeCaprio, who said he was confident that "whatever the problem was here, they must have fixed it."

Of the 20 schools or school programs that were to reopen Tuesday, 16 are in Queens, two in the Bronx and one each in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Five others closed in early May had already reopened. Another 17 New York schools, where students fell ill more recently, remain closed.

But this week's reopenings signal that things may be returning to normal. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had said Monday that closing yet more schools would not stop the spread of the virus.

City officials said last week that the reason for the closings was mainly to protect the most vulnerable — young children, the elderly, pregnant women and anyone with a chronic medical condition like asthma or diabetes.

The mayor said it was up to parents citywide whether to send their children to school. Some schools reported last week that as many as two-thirds of their students were absent.

Mitchell Wiener, the assistant principal of I.S. 238, who died May 17, was the city's first swine flu fatality. Over the weekend, a woman in her 50s died, becoming the city's second victim and the nation's 11th.

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Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela contributed to this report.