Massachusetts threatens audit of school districts that vote prematurely to suspend in-person learning under coronavirus

The state has fired a shot across the bow of Massachusetts school committees, threatening an audit of any district that votes early to move to all-remote learning after Thanksgiving amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are hearing that some school committees are considering taking votes to close their schools after the Thanksgiving break, contrary to DESE guidance that districts make closure decisions based on the Department of Public Health (DPH) color-coded metrics and/or other local health and safety factors,” the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education — the DESE — said in the Wednesday email to districts.

“Per DESE guidance, districts and schools are expected to use the most recent three DPH weekly color-coded reports (four weeks of data), to make any decisions about shifting to a remote learning model,” the email said.

Then DESE added its warning: “Please expect that if school committees decide prospectively to shift to remote learning after Thanksgiving (i.e. voting now, before the relevant data is available), this will likely trigger an audit from DESE.”

The email, sent on behalf of education Commissioner Jeff Riley, also said, “We continue to see little to no evidence of COVID-19 transmission in school settings.” The state announced Thursday that 202 teachers and staff tested positive for the highly contagious virus in the previous week, though it doesn’t mean they contracted the virus while in school.

The DESE provided the email upon request, but then didn’t respond to further questions.

The state is seeing rising case levels, closing in on 1,000 cases a day by the end of the week and hitting levels not seen since the spring peak. Boston on Wednesday made national headlines when it pulled the plug on in-person learning, citing the city’s rising positive test rate.

Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, said he hasn’t heard of any district that’s taken steps to shut down after Thanksgiving yet. Koocher hand-waved DESE’s threats away as posturing, saying the state is simply “pounding the table” to assert its authority.

“I respect their position, but I am not the least bit intimidated by threats of sanction around local districts making decisions that are clearly in the best interest of their students,” Koocher said. “The districts can make a call based on public health data.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/31BPuFW