Hybrid classrooms on tap if virus stats allow it
By JOSH RESNEK
Monday night, for twenty minutes, during an Everett Public Schools on-line informational, Superintendent Priya Tahiliani said that the EPS are scheduled to go hybrid with a reopening of classroom instruction on November 16.
Tahiliani cautioned that the metrics must be weighed and measured against required state standards and that the hybrid reopening could be dashed by a drastic change in statistics regarding the effects and extent of the COVID-19 spread in the city.
“In the meantime,” she said, “we’ve developed a comfortable rhythm” despite all the obstacles placed upon the public schools by the exigencies of the virus.
During a 20-minute Superintendent’s Report that was produced by her office, she made the point that “despite all odds” and with “everyone’s working together” that education was advancing in Everett despite the virus.
The EPS is monitoring daily and weekly figures to know what might be possible when November 16 rolls around. With three weeks left to go, it is anyone’s bet what might occur when the 16th arrives.
“If numbers are trending upward, this could change everything,” she said.
Everett is a “red” community right now, one of about 60 where the spread of the virus is greater than everywhere else.
In fact, Everett and its neighbors Chelsea and Revere have been labeled “red” communities where the spread of the virus is far greater than many other communities by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
“We are now in careful deliberation about what is to follow if we can keep to the November 16 date,” Tahiliani said.
The superintendent reported on, and with the aid of relevant video, revealed to viewers teaching modalities for special needs students, detailed a successful scholastic book fundraiser, a generous Exelon gift card grant to students for supplies, and K-8 testing for math and reading which 82% of the students have already taken.