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Date: 7/25/2023
LUDLOW — The School Committee endorsed the Thrive Act and amended its school mask policy at its meeting on July 18.
Shannon Anderson and Michelle D’Amore from the Ludlow Education Association appeared before the School Committee at its June 13 meeting to discuss the Thrive Act, which proposes the replacement of the MCAS graduation requirement with one that allows students’ districts to certify that they have satisfactorily completed coursework showing mastery skills, competencies and knowledge required by the state standards.
The LEA is an affiliate of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and has already chosen to endorse the Thrive Act.
Anderson and D’Amore added that their goal was also to get the School Committee to endorse the Thrive Act at that meeting, but the committee wanted more time to think about it before discussing.
School Committee member Ron Saloio said he was against MCAS and wanted to make sure endorsing the Thrive Act was the right decision.
Anderson added, “One of the great things about this Thrive Act is that it would put a large amount of control back in the School Committee’s hands as a local municipality in determining what the graduation requirement are for students. As long as you are meeting state standards, then the graduation of a student from Ludlow Public Schools or anywhere else in Massachusetts would be determined mostly on a local level.”
School Committee member Joao Dias asked if the Thrive Act would help prevent receivership.
Anderson said there is language in the Thrive Act that addresses receivership and removes it as punitive part of failing MCAS several times.
Anderson added, “That is one of the things people have been highly critical of. Receiverships don’t seem to do anything effective or help those communities that are in need. While we know MCAS points out that there are certain communities that are struggling, we can acknowledge that MCAS helps to point that out, it certainly is not through receivership helping to resolve any of those issues in those communities.”
Massachusetts law allows the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to assume control of underperforming districts and appoint a “receiver” or an individual, group or organization who will oversee a turnaround plan.
The Thrive Act says that if a community fails to see growth or has issues with its students, there are opportunities for local municipalities to put together groups to look at ways to address the issues.
Even though the School Committee endorsed the Thrive Act, it still must be approved at the state level.
The School Committee also approved revising its current Ludlow Public Schools mask policy based on new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
The CDC recently said that healthcare workers are no longer required to wear masks while working and to use a risk-based assessment, stakeholder input and local metrics to determine how and when to require universal masking to prevent COVID-19 transmission.
The current policy states that any individual who wishes to wear a mask is still allowed to but there are two circumstances where an individual must wear a mask.
The two circumstances are in school health offices, which was a state requirement, and upon return to school after a five-day isolation period after testing positive for COVID-19 with the mask being required for five days except when drinking, eating or being outdoors.
The School Committee voted to remove the part about having to wear a mask in a school health office.
School Committee Chair Jeffrey Laing said, “Any individual who wishes to wear a mask may do so and will be supported in that choice.”