NORTH ADAMS â North Adams Public Schools will change its process for switching between hybrid and remote learning, after positivity rate calculations kept students remote for an extra week â even as regional virus levels were falling.
The previous agreement between the district and the North Adams Teachers Association had set a threshold of 3 percent for regional positivity rates, above which schools were required to operate remotely.
When it calculated that metric, the district weighed higher positivity rates in small towns the same as lower positivity rates in much larger municipalities.
That means the districtâs metric remained above the threshold in early February, keeping students remote at a time when the regionâs average positivity rate â if weighted to account for the total number of tests in each community â was actually below the 3-percent mark.
Wicked Local
FRANKLIN When school officials took up the question more than a year ago about whether the time has come to retire the Davis Thayer School, they knew they were taking on a question charged with emotion.
In the end, they could not ignore the writing on the chalk board when faced with the facts: Shrinking enrollment, stretched budgets, and the challenges of meeting modern educational standards in an aging, expensive-to-maintain building that in just three years will turn 100.
With a modicum of discussion, and an air of resignation, the School Committee on Tuesday voted 5-2 to shutter the town s oldest school building after this school year and re-assign its students to the Helen Keller Elementary School two miles away on Lincoln Street. The one hang-up for the two members who voted against the decision was the timing of the closing.
Mount Greylock Regional Superintendent Jason McCandless told the School Committee on Thursday that the district had concluded its investigation into a January Zoom bombing incident and promised that the district will.
NEWPORT A large Black Lives Matter logo on the floor of the gymnasium at Rogers High School is causing some discussion in the community, according to School Committee members.
The logo is just the words “Black Lives Matter” and the letters are made of vinyl that can be removed from the floor.
Development and planning of the logo was an initiative of three students on the girls basketball team Miyah Brooks, Maeve Crowley and Ellie Margolis all of whom addressed the School Committee on Tuesday night.
“I think the main purpose of this is to start conversations, for people to be able to ask questions about it, and for people like me to explain why Black Lives Matter and how we are being suppressed,” Brooks, who is black, told the School Committee.
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Interim Superintendent of Schools Joseph Curtis delivered hope in his weekly update to Pittsfield Public School students, staff, and family on Friday of plans to return.