April 16, 2021 Updates

 Dear parents, guardians, and families,

I’m writing today with a few important updates and reminders.

Safety Precautions

In recent weeks I've continued to communicate about the positive cases in our schools. We have not seen any increases or changes in transmission due to having more students in school at a distance of three feet, which is great news. However, there are still many positive cases identified and it's so important, as more adults become vaccinated and the state moves into Phase IV, that we continue to follow all safety precautions for our children including mask wearing, social distancing, and hand washing. This continues to be integral to our mission to remain in person in our schools. Please continue to complete our Daily Health Screener in order to provide additional information to our school nurses about COVID-related concerns.

FAQs about Travel 

On March 22, 2021 the Massachusetts Travel Order was updated to a Travel Advisory. However, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has confirmed that schools can continue to follow and enforce the advisory in order to maintain the safest possible environment for learning. Many parents have expressed their concerns about students and staff who travel, especially during the April vacation week.

Until further notice the North Reading Public Schools will continue to follow the same process we have been adhering to all year and continue asking students who travel to produce a negative PCR test before returning to school.

A notable difference is that this does not apply to anyone returning after being out of state for fewer than 24 hours.

We understand that this is an additional request of many travelling families but we believe that this allows more students to safely remain in person at school and this is our main objective.

Students travelling out of state for more than 24 hours over April vacation must have a PCR test prior to returning to school. If students are unable to receive those results prior to their return then they should take a test when they return to Massachusetts and remain home in quarantine until they have the results.

Since this would be a COVID-related quarantine, students in this situation would be able to remotely access the classroom via livestream in the same way as other students who are unable to attend school for COVID-realted reasons (isolation, quarantine, etc.). 

Parents and guardians of students travelling over the vacation week should alert the school nurse or building administrator in order to inform them of the potential need for students to access school remotely for up to two days following the vacation while awaiting test results. (If there are extenuating circumstances requiring additional days to await test results those should be discussed with the building administrator at that time.)

The remote experience for students will be a livestream access to class and may be slightly different than the hybrid experience but will provide all students the access they need to continue learning while in quarantine for travel or other COVID-related reasons.

Pooled Testing

Through the support of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the outstanding efforts of our school nurses, the pooled testing program will continue through the remainder of the 2020-21 school year.

This program has been very successful in the weeks since it has been introduced and all students and staff who are participating have been doing a wonderful job. We strongly encourage anyone who would like to participate who is not yet enrolled, especially those who are student athletes or participating in other programs or activities, to enroll by following the instructions in these directions.

2021-22 School Start Times

Last evening the North Reading School Committee approved the proposed changes to the school start times for next year. In order to make these changes we have added additional buses to the runs which allow us to have the middle and high school start times aligned and all anticipated students who typically request busing continue to receive bus transportation. Our recommendation incorporated the feedback received from parents, guardians, students, and staff from the surveys and forums that we've held on this topic. The approved times for the 2021-22 School Year are:

Elementary School 8:00 a.m. - 2:15 p.m.

Middle and High School 8:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

We will continue to review bus routes, schedules, drop off and pick up, and many more aspects of the logistical considerations to make these changes move forward as smoothly as possible. Our Start Times Committee will continue as a group to collect data, make recommendations for improvements, and continue to offer opportunties to educate our community about the benefits of the later start times for middle and high school students.

This group, made up of representatives of parents from all grade spans, a North Reading School Committee member, administrators, and a teacher representative have spent many hours since 2018 discussing schedules, impacts to afterschool programs, considerations for childcare etc. and will address many of these concerns at the forum. The group has a website that also contains helpful information as well as the history of our exploration of this concept for our schools.

As always, thank you for your continued support. The transition to full in-person learning at all levels K-12 has been smooth and we are excited to bring all of our students back excited for learning following a much needed break next week.  

Be well,

Dr. Daly