Good Afternoon, Reading Public School Families,

We hope that you are safe and healthy during this difficult time.  We wanted to provide you with some updates regarding remote learning and future plans.  As we have throughout this pandemic and school closure, we will follow the guidance that will be set forth by Governor Baker and Commissioner of Education Riley in our decision making process.

• Videoconferencing Tool-We have two updates regarding videoconferencing tools from remote learning.  First, you may have noticed on Friday that Microsoft Teams updated the number of panels that can be seen at one time from 4 to 9.  This will allow teachers the ability to see up to 9 students at a time on the screen, with the rest of the class in panels at the bottom of the screen.  A raise hand feature has also been added to the update.  In addition, we are in the final stages of executing an agreement for an educational license with Zoom.  Our rationale behind going with Zoom is the changes that they have made from a data privacy perspective combined with a custom student data privacy agreement that we will execute with them will allow us to move forward with this tool in a safer manner.  In addition, Zoom does give teacher and students the ability to see up to 25 students on a screen at one time.  Once the agreement is executed, we will be developing accounts for all teachers to use.  With this additional tool, teachers will now have two videoconferencing tools (Zoom and Teams) and two learning platforms (Google Classroom and Teams) that they will be able to use with students.

• Giving Students An Opportunity to Pick up and Drop Off Materials-At the end of the month, students at each level will have the opportunity to pick up anything that they may have left in school on March 13^th and drop off any non-technology school property (i.e. library books, textbooks, etc.).  A plan has been developed, which is contingent upon Governor Baker’s orders, which will allow Secondary Students and RISE at RMHS to come to their schools during the week of June 1^st and Elementary Students and RISE at Wood End to come to their schools during the week of June 8^th.  Students who were loaned a laptop will return their device during the week of June 22^nd.  Building Principals and the RISE Preschool Director will communicate further information once we get closer to the dates.

• Extended School Year and Fall-One of the biggest questions that we are all asking is what will Extended School Year Services look like for students with disabilities and what will the opening of school next fall look like for all students?  Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of answers at this time because we are awaiting guidance from the Commissioner of Education on these two areas and what we will be allowed to do and not do.  As I mentioned in an email to families a few weeks ago, we are currently developing different models and options for both.  We are in the process of convening a working group that will review essentially three different options:  a complete return to school for all students, a hybrid model of students being in school part of the time and learning virtually part of the time, and a model where students are learning in a completely virtual model.  We are looking at these options for students from a variety of perspectives including, but not limited to cleaning and disinfecting, transportation, food service, technology, health services, athletics, extra-curricular activities and remote learning.  Once we have more information, we will share it with the community.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s building principal or myself.

Thank you and be safe.