Hello North Reading Public Schools Community!

Thank you, everyone, for all of your great work and dedication to our students as we’ve transitioned to remote learning. I continued to be so impressed with our school community and how they have all stepped up to do what is best for our students. I hope that you had a wonderful first day!

In this update I hope to provide more information on some important topics: Assistant Superintendent Search, April Vacation, Good Friday, and Chromebook Devices.

Chromebook Devices: We hope to distribute devices to those in need by Wednesday of this week. As a last call to those in need please complete this form no later than 12pm tomorrow, April 7, 2020. 

Assistant Superintendent Search:  Tomorrow we will be conducting interviews with our three impressive internal candidates (Dr. Downs, Dr. O'Connell, and Mr. Killeen). Thank you to our search committee for their time with these virtual interviews. We hope to continue our search process timeline and make my recommendation to the School Committee on Monday, April 13, 2020.

April Vacation: Last Friday we received the following message from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education:

We have received questions about whether school districts should keep their planned April school vacation week this year (the week of Patriots’ Day, April 20) or use that week to continue the remote learning plan they have put in place. This is a local decision. Each school committee or public school board of trustees establishes the school year schedule for its  schools, consistent with state standards outlined in the Student Learning Time regulations. Within those standards, the school committee or board may adjust the school calendar to meet the needs of its community, subject to collective bargaining as applicable.

In North Reading, following discussions with our unions and school committee, will be making a decision on April 13, 2020 school committee meeting. We recognize the need for a break but also that we have just started our remote learning plan this week.

At this time, for your planning purposes, it will be good to plan that Monday, April 20^th is a holiday. We should also plan, at this time, that the remainder of that week could be a regular school week as we are just beginning our remote learning plan.

I will be communicating on Tuesday, April 14^th with updates on additional vacation days during that week as determined by the school committee. My recommendation will be a plan that provides a break to our students and staff but to also reserves some of those vacation days for the future in case we need additional breaks this spring.

Good Friday:  Friday, April 10, 2020, will be a remote learning day. We fully understand that our 2019-20 school calendar listed this day as a ½ day but we believe that given the current circumstances it is best to provide structure for students on that day while also respecting the reasons why this is a half day in our calendar. There is a great amount of flexibility in our remote learning plan to allow for the flexibility for religious observance for the second half of the day. Anyone with a religious obligation (students or staff) is able to observe the day as needed and we offer that flexibility (our schedule is flexible for any number of reasons every day!) 

I also have requested that no live or synchronous activities be scheduled in the latter part of that day to respect the intentions of our previously scheduled half-day.

Programs that would not have met or been held on a half-day WILL have remote learning opportunities on April 10^th as described above. This is the main reason we are clarifying that this is not a typical 1/2 day.

Thank you all for your continued support of our students.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Daly