Verizon awards grant to Worcester providing internet hotspots to students
WORCESTER School officials Thursday night announced the district had received a new grant from Verizon to provide internet hotspots to students at 11 secondary schools for up to four years.
According to the School Department, the telecommunications company, which Worcester contracted with prior to this school year to provide hotspots to thousands of homes, will provide hotspots to any student without reliable internet service at those schools.
There was not a monetary amount for the grant available as of Thursday night, however.
Access to internet has become one of the major issues facing the district this year as it continues to instruct students remotely at their homes during the pandemic.
Worcester schools distributing science kits to homebound students
WORCESTER – The district this week will begin distributing thousands of science kits to elementary schools across the city, as part of a new drive to enable students to do more hands-on, experiment-based work.
In all, the School Department expects to give out 11,675 kits to students in prekindergarten through sixth grade over the next two weeks, which school staff assembled with about $70,000 in Title IV federal funding received by the district.
The initiative is the largest-scale effort to get actual school materials into the hands of kids since the district distributed work packets to students shortly after closing schools at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic last March.
School Committee OK s emergency admissions policy for Worcester Tech high school
WORCESTER – The School Committee this week approved new emergency admissions guidelines for Worcester Technical High School to account for the effects of COVID-19 this school year, with a more long-term update to admissions standards coming down the line.
Worcester Tech, the district’s popular vocational school, typically has a waitlist of several hundred students each year. But even though state records showed the school enrolled 1,481 students this past fall, a new high, Principal Siobhan Petrella told the committee this the district’s decision to have all schools do remote learning to start the school year reduced the allure to some families.
Worcester Public Schools teachers with COVID health concerns seeking accommodations ahead of hybrid learning, discrimination complaint filed
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Dennis Staples, who teaches automotive technology at Worcester Technical High School, has been watching coronavirus case counts remain high in Massachusetts this winter.
Staples is among educators in Worcester who are looking for accommodations as the start date for hybrid learning approaches this month. Because of a breathing disorder, Staples said he’s worried about contracting the virus in the classroom, where students and teachers historically work closely together.
“It is physically impossible to social distance in a shop setting because of the tools, the equipment,” Staples said. “We work basically hand-to-hand with the students, so the 6-feet thing is not going to work.”