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FALL RIVER Five Fall River area school districts say they’re not interested, at least for the time being, in a new state pooled testing program that will bundle, or pool, weekly nose swabs of students and teachers being tested for COVID-19.
The voluntary program will provide weekly batch testing to groups of asymptomatic students and teachers as a means of encouraging more parents and guardians to send their kids back to the schoolhouse as opposed to remote learning.
Students who have been learning exclusively from home on a remote basis are also eligible to participate.
Gov. Charlie Baker announced the pooled testing strategy on Jan. 8. He described it as a collaborative effort between the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Department of Public Health.
FALL RIVER A majority of Fall River and Somerset students won’t be heading back into their classrooms after the holiday school break.
While those two school districts have decided to stay remote, the Westport School Committee recently nixed a proposal to do the same. Swansea Superintendent of Schools John Robidoux said Swansea students will remain in hybrid mode following the winter break.
“I do not feel that going fully remote pre-emptively makes sense at this juncture. I remain committed to ensuring that we have as many students as possible partaking in in-person learning, as long as we can continue to adhere to the health and safety guidelines that we have in place,” said Robidoux, adding he s hopeful that parents, students and staff will remain vigilant during the break to ward off a further spike in cases.