Students will not return to their classrooms this school year.
Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday announced his daily news conference on state responses to the coronavirus epidemic. Urgent care programs for children will remain closed until June 29. Residential special education schools are exempt.
At this point, there are no authoritative guidelines or tips on how to work safely with schools and how to get children to and from schools safely, Baker said, announcing the closure extension.
With Tuesdays order, Baker followed the lead of 34 other states, including Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire, according to tally by Education Week.
This is an unprecedented interruption for a whole generation of students, said State Education Commissioner Jeff Riley. We want to minimize the loss of learning.
Many parents and teachers have been quietly accepting for weeks that such a measure is inevitable, given its widespread adoption elsewhere and the fact that, on a per capita basis, Massachusetts has experienced the fifth highest death toll in the country by some experiences. virus as of Tuesday morning.
This week, state education officials plan to give more guidance on distance learning.
We have a long way to go to make distance learning work seamlessly for our students and we are committed to doing it, Riley said.
Riley said the state will work with parents, teachers, school leaders and health professionals to determine how schools can eventually reopen. He said it was too early to decide on a summer school.
[What] we saw from other countries that started the opening process are things: like checking the temperature of students, holding desks six feet apart, some people have schedules, Riley said. There are many options.
In early March, when the virus became more common in Massachusetts, district officials complained that a slow response from government officials forced them to close their school buildings unilaterally and with little guidance or planning.
Summoned by the mayors and the states largest teacher union, Baker finally announced a three-week closure on March 15. Ten days later he extended this end to May 4 but not until the end of the year.
At that time, Baker was defending his standby approach.
There are many children for whom the school will be the place where they have the biggest and best and most meaningful opportunity to get the kind of education they need, the manager said earlier. I dont want to start with the assumption that were just going to blow that up for the rest of the year.
On Tuesday, Baker paid special attention to seniors in high school who will personally miss their graduation and graduation ceremonies.
Its a huge loss if youre a kid in high school, he said, noting that he and his wife enjoy watching children gather in front of Swampskot City Hall to celebrate the ball every year. The rituals we lost will come back. In many cases, they will return differently than they used to, but they will return.
With additional reporting by Steve Brown and Kathleen McNerny of WBUR.
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