BOSTON (WHDH) - School districts across Massachusetts are continuing to contemplate how to safely educate students amid the COVID-19 pandemic as the school year fast approaches.
The Boston City Council on Education is holding a meeting Wednesday evening on preparing and planning around the coronavirus.
The district, which has opted for a hybrid learning model, wants to be ready for extended school closures and to have new social distancing protocols in place in case it’s needed through 2022.
In Brockton, the state’s fourth-largest school district, the school committee voted Tuesday for a fully remote start to the school year since the city’s current positive test rate is above 5 percent.
In a statement, Brockton Mayor Robert F. Sullivan said in part, “I recognize the importance of in-person learning but our COVID numbers just aren’t cooperating.”
The city will review the current case numbers every two weeks and will provide laptops to every student for the start of the school year.
The state unveiled a new tool Tuesday that shows which of the 351 Massachusetts cities and towns have the highest coronavirus risk.
The color-coded map revealed that Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, and Revere have the highest risk with more than 8 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks. There are 29 other communities in the moderate risk zone, with four to eight cases per 100,000 people.
Gov. Charlie Baker is urging school officials to continue checking up on this data and to get kids back in class, in-person, if it is safe to do so.
“We would certainly hope that based on this data, if you are in a green or a white (low-risk) community, I can’t imagine a reason not to go back, whether it’s full-time or some sort of a hybrid,” he said during a press conference Tuesday.
School districts have until Friday to submit their final reopening plans to the state.
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