Firefighters responded to an early morning basement fire Monday at Westbury...

Firefighters responded to an early morning basement fire Monday at Westbury Middle School in Westbury. Credit: Paul Mazza

Westbury Middle School will continue remote learning Monday following a week of distance instruction due to a fire last Monday that left smoke and water damage in the school basement and the stench of smoke throughout the building, Superintendent Tahira DuPree Chase said Saturday.

The district closed the school, which has about 1,000 students and 100 teachers, on March 13 after a 2:50 a.m. fire in a basement storage room of the Rockland Street building, said DuPree Chase.

The district also will continue to deliver meals to students, DuPree Chase said. Meals will consist of breakfast and lunch lasting five days, which will come with instructions for refrigeration and reheating.

All students have laptops with Wi-Fi capability, she said, adding that if devices need replacement, there is a pickup location at district administration office at 2 Hitchcock Lane in Old Westbury.

The district will continue with middle school sports, the superintendent added. 

The fire was extinguished in about an hour and was largely contained to the area where it started, but the odor of smoke spread throughout the building, said Westbury Fire public information officer Kenneth Gass. Nassau police said there was no structural damage.

Westbury school district officials had distributed Google Chromebooks with portable Wi-Fi cards for remote learning through Google classroom.

The district provided breakfast and hot lunch to all middle school students all week using school buses to deliver the meals. Food also was available at elementary schools.

It was unclear what material had burned in the storage room, and the Nassau County Fire Marshal’s office is investigating the cause of the fire, Gass said.

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