An 8-3 vote by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on Friday afternoon cleared the way for the stateâs education commissioner to eventually take remote and hybrid learning models off the table for local school districts.
The board approved emergency regulations giving Commissioner Jeff Riley the authority to decide when full and partial remote schooling will no longer count toward student learning time requirements, taking a step towards the next phase of pandemic-era schooling in Massachusetts.
âWe are at an interesting time. We have seen our numbers go way down,â Riley said. âWeâve seen the vaccines and the promise of the vaccines go way up, and we think now is the time to begin to move our children back to school more robustly. The medical community believes that, and I think now is the time to make that call.â
A continuing challenge to make the most of Madison Park
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Massachusetts education board gives Commissioner Jeffrey Riley authority to determine when hybrid, remote learning will no longer count
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Katie Lannan/State House News Service
Wellesley Townsman
The state s education commissioner wants elementary school students back in the classroom full-time in April, part of a plan to phase out remote learning that officials announced Tuesday as Massachusetts approaches the one-year anniversary of the initial March 2020 school closures intended to mitigate spread of COVID-19.
To that, Wellesley s superintendent has a yes, but. response.
The announcements met pushback from the state s largest teachers union, which has been calling for earlier vaccine access for educators, and from school committees, which said decisions involved in reopenings are best handled locally.
We wish the governor s announcement had been coupled with a definitive timeline for educator vaccinations, which we sincerely hope will begin in the month of March. Many states are ahead of Massachusetts in this regard. Superintendent David Lussier