As the Massachusetts Education Commissioner pushes to get elementary students back into classrooms, state leaders are keeping an eye on what other states are doing.
Commissioner Jeff Riley said other New England states are doing a better job of in-person learning than the Bay State has.
In Mass. only 5 percent of school districts are full in-person, 75 percent are hybrid and 20 percent fully remote. Compared to Rhode Island, where 43 percent of schools are in-person, 20 percent are hybrid and 37 percent are remote.
In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu said nearly 40 percent of the state’s schools are already operating fully in-person with only a few schools fully remote.
He recently signed an executive order requiring all K-12 schools to provide in-person learning for at least two days a week starting March 8.
“It isn’t just so that kids come back and have a more fuller and robust learning model, it really is for the behavioral and mental health and isolation issues,” Sununu said.
New Hampshire Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut said, “New Hampshire has been on the forefront of COVID-19… From day one we have followed the science and have been successful in re-implementing in-person instruction for students and teachers alike.”
“There’s no doubt that allowing these kids, everyone, everyone across the state to be in an in-person model is going to have beneficial effects for these children,” said Sununu.
Massachusetts officials said more than 400,000 students are fully remote — just under half the total number of public school children in the state.
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