Good Morning, Reading Public School Community,

I hope you are doing well and enjoying this weekend.  Happy Easter to those families that celebrate Easter.

Here is our Spring In Person Update #4.

• We are getting there…Please be patient and continue to remain vigilant–We are all sensing it, we are getting closer to normalcy, but we are all experiencing pandemic fatigue.  Please continue to remain vigilant in all of mitigation steps.  If you are fully vaccinated, you must continue to wear a mask in the Reading Public Schools.  Thank you in advance for your support.

• Information from our nurses– We are looking forward to having more students back in the building this month. We ask your continued support in keeping all of our students and staff healthy and safe while at school. There has recently been an uptick in cases in Reading and in Massachusetts, and we know that COVID variants have been found locally. Please remember to review the health screening and screen your children for any symptoms before coming to school. 

Remind your children to wear masks properly and supply them with extra masks if needed. 

Finally, as April vacation approaches, we ask you to follow the MA travel advisory.

• Elementary Students return full in person on Monday–Our elementary students will be returning full in person for the first time since March 13, 2020.  A special thanks goes out to our teachers, staff, Principals, Directors, and Central Office Staff for their amazing work in preparing for Monday.  Some normalcy is starting to return to our lives!

• Middle and High School Students return full in person on April 26^th–We are busily preparing for our middle and high school students to return full in person on April 26^th.  Your building principals will be sending out further reopening information as we get closer to the day.

• Cafeteria and Snack Health and Safety Guidelines–Please impress upon children the following health and safety measures in the cafeteria for lunch and the classroom room for snack:

• If at all possible, please keep students in their same classroom cohorts for lunch. 
• Even though we have plexiglass shields in the cafeteria, we need to keep students as socially distant apart as possible. 
• When students are not eating, they need to have their masks on.
• Snacks should be eaten outdoors as much as possible.  Students need to stay 6 feet apart if they are having snack indoors.  Masks should be on when they are not eating snack.

•   Positive Cases for This Week–Below are the positive cases from this past week.

• 1 Parker student who was remote, no close contacts.
• 2 RMHS students who were remote, no close contacts.
• 1 District staff member who was in person, there were no close contacts.  The positive case was detected during pooled testing.
• 2 Wood End students who were in person.  As a result, 36 students and 8 staff have been quarantined.  These cases were detected during pooled testing.

• Pooled Testing–We are pleased to announce that DESE has agreed to fund the pooled testing for the remainder of the school year through a federal grant program.  Below are the latest updates

• Total pooled tests this week: 155, 2 pools were positive, and 1 was inconclusive which resulted in a positive on a PCR retest. 
• Total pooled tests since February 22^nd: 798 pools tested 10 positive, 2 inconclusive.

As we transition to full in person learning, we are asking all staff and students to participate in the pool testing program.  This is an additional mitigation step that is critical to maintain a safe and healthy classroom environment.  Here is the link to give consent  https://bit.ly/3oXiiSa.  If families who are currently in pool testing want to remove their consent, please contact Julian Carr at Julian.Carr@reading.k12.ma.us.  Please note that any changes in consent made over the weekend may not be able to be addressed until the following week.

• Allergy Symptoms versus COVID Symptoms–As we enter allergy season, we wanted to inform parents and staff of the differences between allergy symptoms and COVID symptoms.  Below is a diagram from CDC which shows the similarities and differences.

• Updates on Travel and COVID–There have been some changes in the CDC and Commonwealth of Massachusetts COVID recommendations.  Below are two links that help you with this information.  The first link is an FAQ that was developed by our school nurses for staff and families.  The second link is travel information from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.  Please note that remote learning via livestreaming may not available for those students who are quarantining due to travel. 

FAQs for Reading Staff and Families

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Travel Information