Chicopee City Hall auditorium restored, open for public meetings for the first time since 2003
Updated Mar 10, 2021;
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CHICOPEE – For the first time in many years the City Hall’s auditorium was open for business after a renovation corrected structural problems and allowed it to be turned into a meeting space complete with high-tech audio and video equipment.
The newly-renovated auditorium was first seen last week when the City Council held its regularly-scheduled meeting in the room on Tuesday. The School Committee followed on Wednesday and the equipment will allow all boards and commissions to broadcast their meetings with just the flick of a switch.
After almost a year of remote learning, some Chicopee students start in-person classes Monday
Updated Feb 20, 2021;
CHICOPEE City students, many of whom have not been in a school in nearly a year, will return to some in-person learning Monday under a system that will mix classes at schools with remote lessons.
The School Committee voted last week to change to a hybrid model after the idea was recommended by a task force of educators, parents and students and then sent to a separate implementation committee of administrators, School Committee members and the executive committee of the Chicopee Education Association.
Although some educators aired concerns about returning to the classroom before vaccines are widely available, this week the members of the Chicopee Education Association approved the change with 79% who cast ballots voting in favor. The decision allows the change to take place at the start of the second half of the school year, Superintendent Lynn A. Clark said.
Technical high schools adapt to COVID’s immense challenge
Updated Feb 16, 2021;
Posted Feb 16, 2021
1/21/2921 -Westfield- Students at work in Westfield Technical Academy s auto repair shop. (Don Treeger / The Republican)
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The vocational director at Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy says the last 11 months have been difficult, but could have been worse.
“Some districts were caught (unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic). They planned for hybrid last summer and then had to go back to full remote,” said Joao Alves, who supervises the training of 1,300 vocational students in Springfield.
Those students have been learning remotely since September, and having their education delivered much differently than they’d anticipated.
Jeanette DeForge: Chicopee Council considers moving meetings due to frustrating technology problems [The Republican, Springfield, Mass.]
Jan. 19 CHICOPEE Continual problems with the broadcasting of the City Council meetings have grown so bad that council president Shane D. Brooks sometimes relies on texts from his mother to known when the audio shuts off to the viewing public.
Then in the last meeting which drew a lot of attention and a protest over a councilor’s Facebook comments a glitch in the Zoom function on the meeting disconnected half the councilors who were attending the meeting remotely four times during the 40-minute meeting. While those councilors could still hear what was happening, several times it shut down the councilors mid-sentence.