Patrick C. Daly, Superintendent

Dear North Reading Public Schools Community, Thank you for all of your support to make our hybrid model the best it can possibly be for our students. As we look ahead to the New Year,  please continue to guide our students to make the best choices for New Year’s celebrations with respect to gatherings and events.  Taking a careful approach is our best avenue for continued success and remaining open. COVID-19 Updates Please note that while school is in session we are continuing to share the student and staff positive cases as they are reported. However, as we are closed this week, I will be compiling the figures received over the break and communicate them upon our return. To date there have only been a handful of unrelated cases reported and there has not been a need for contact tracing or additional quarantines since we have not been in school since December 18 th . It is important to note that we are still not seeing concerning evidence of transmission within the schools. Mo...

Dear Parents, Families, and Caregivers, Thank you for all of your support to make our hybrid model the best it can possibly be for our students. I wish you all the Happiest of Holiday Seasons. I hope that you are all able to relax and enjoy the time with your family. I wanted to provide a few updates as we head into the winter break. COVID -19 Updates Please note that we are continuing to share the student and staff positive cases as they are reported. As there is an increase in the number of individuals in North Reading who are testing positive it follows that there is an increase in the number of staff and students who also test positive. It is important to note that we are still not seeing concerning evidence of transmission within the schools. So, for example, when my report indicates that there are four new cases at one school that does not necessarily mean that these students have passed it to one another at school. We are still seeing most transmission occurring at the home or i...

  Dear North Reading Public Schools Community, I'm writing today to provide a few important updates that were discussed at last evening's School Committee meeting related to  COVID -19 communication, testing, the influenza vaccine, and our Performing Arts classes and activities. COVID -19 COMMUNICATION As you are aware the district has been in the practice of sending an email update for any new positive cases for staff or students. As the numbers increase it is important that we continue to communicate this information to you but I am concerned about "fatigue" from receiving so many of these important emails. However, it was decided at the meeting last night that these emails would continue as they ultimately provide everyone in the community the information needed to make decisions for their families. In addition, we have published a dashboard to provide the updated numbers of positive staff and students by school. This information is on the District Website under t...

  Dear staff, parents, families, and caregivers, Thank you to those who were able to join our information session last evening. If you have not had a chance to do so, there is a YouTube link below for the presentation. There is also a link to a survey that will be used to learn more about your interest in having the schools pursue this opportunity. Please view/review this information session prior to completing this survey. All information shared via this survey will assist us in making an informed decision about our participation in the BinaxNOW Clinical Study.  If you could please view the presentation and complete the survey  by Thursday evening at 5pm  that will allow this information to be shared at our School Committee meeting that evening. Presentation link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKbL9Ei6Ai0  (approx. 30 mins) Survey Link:  https://forms.gle/LBFACcppC7cgwWWi8 Thank you, Dr. Daly

  Around the Schoolyard COVID-19 Testing  Patrick C. Daly, Ed.D.  Superintendent of Schools,  North Reading Public Schools This week I will be sharing information with the North Reading Public Schools Community about an opportunity to explore COVID-19 testing for symptomatic staff and students in our schools. This initiative is a part of a larger initiative from The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) who recently announced “an initiative to deliver 150 million Abbott BinaxNOW COVID-19 Ag Card Point of Care (POC) SARS-CoV-2 rapid diagnostic tests to schools and other strategic environments.” The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) has informed districts of the opportunity to participate in Phase I of this trial as Massachusetts “will obtain approximately 2 million tests for use in priority settings including but not limited to public districts, charter schools, educational collaborat...

COVID-19 BinaxNOW testing opportunity The North Reading Public Schools are in the initial stages of exploring an opportunity to have COVID-19 testing available for symptomatic students and staff . The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and The Department of Public Health have collaborated on this opportunity that is currently being explored by approximately 160 Massachusetts school districts. To be clear, no decisions have yet been made about this opportunity. We believe that we need to do our due diligence and explore this opportunity and we wish to solicit input and feedback from all stakeholders to inform our decisions. This antigen test would be used only for symptomatic students and staff to help determine more rapidly whether a person is positive. These results will assist with contact tracing and provide more data to efficiently guide the positive person to isolation and to determine those who need to quarantine as close contacts. There would be opt-out provisions...