State mandate puts Grafton Middle School students back in classrooms April 28
Just hours before the School Committee was ready to hear Superintendent of Schools Jay Cummings plan to return elementary school students to the classroom, the state introduced a new wrinkle: middle school students must also be back at school by the end of April.
And these mandates carry teeth. For every day a district delays a return to school past the deadline, their Chapter 70 money will be docked a percentage.
“We’re doing an awful lot in a short amount of time,” Cummings said.
Last week, Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley surprised school officials across the state when he declared that elementary students should return to in-person learning by April 5. Tuesday’s announcement — which also came without notice — puts middle school students back at their desks by April 28.
No date has been announced for high school students but Cummings expects that announcement to come in April.
In Grafton, kindergarteners and first graders returned full-time to North and South Grafton elementary schools last month for the first time since COVID-19 shut down schools a year ago. Cummings plans to have second and third graders back at North Street and Millbury Street elementary schools on March 29, with grades 4, 5, and 6 following on April 5.
The return of the elementary school students brings a few changes. Three feet distancing will now be allowed in classrooms, but lunch time will still require six. School buses will also return to two students per seat, but masks and open windows will be required.
“This is a bigger scale with a much shorter timeline” than the K-1 return, Cummings said.
Cummings stressed that students enrolled in the Remote Learning Academy will be allowed to continue until the end of the school year without penalty. While the state has said remote learning would not count toward education hours, Cummings said that applies only to school systems that had planned for all students to stay remote.
A survey will be sent to parents asking if they would prefer their child to be in RLA through the end of the year.
Cummings said the most complicated transition will be at the high school level, where students have individual schedules.
